Lethe'sPersonal Diaries

“I am an adult human mind trapped in a Djall biology, and that biology is already betraying me.”

Rain on a Sydney window, an iPad face-down on the nightstand — and then an orange sky, hands that aren't mine, and a head crowded with everyone else's thoughts.

75 min read

“I reach for the memory of my old handwriting, expecting to find the image there.”

Rhodes Island hands me a name, a diagnosis and a routine. The hollow where a life used to be doesn't file away so neatly.

73 min read

“It is just the Oripathy acting up, stringing together nonsense.”

A birthday in a high-security ward, lunch trays, and a body still learning to keep its balance with a tail. Small days, counted in small victories.

30 min read

“My brain, having no actual memories to rely on, simply hallucinated a defense mechanism.”

Half a year on Terra. Under laboratory light the numbers stop being abstract — and my own brain admits it has been inventing a past for me.

20 min read

“But today, for the first time since I woke up, Rhodes Island isn't moving.”

For the first time since I woke, the landship stops. The garden fills with people waiting on news that doesn't come.

47 min read

“Until the routine shatters. The 12th of September.”

Routine is a kind of shelter. It holds until the twelfth, and then it doesn't.

12 min read

“My body absorbs her fragile, feather-light weight.”

Cool rooms, closed doors, and a weight I carry down the corridor that was never mine to begin with.

19 min read

“I remember Ace reaching down, gently ruffling my hair and telling me to eat more so I could keep up.”

The first year ends in weather, silence and an empty seat at the table — and in remembering people I am supposed to be finished grieving.

58 min read

“There is an entire world outside the landship that doesn't just taste of ash, cold copper, and fear.”

A new year turns over on a cafeteria clock with no celebration under it. A vigil ends, farewells are said, and a request made behind my back changes everything.

98 min read

“I look out from the ramp, and my breath completely stalls.”

The ramps lower onto white stone and the landship spills into Trimounts: two days of shore leave, new clothes, and food I'm not allowed to eat.

47 min read

“I remember my promise to Miss Adele; that I wouldn't just hide from the world, but actively step into it to understand it.”

Shore leave is over and the corridors are quiet again. What's left is training, paperwork, and the slow business of becoming useful.

65 min read

“It is incredibly fragile, but it is undeniably, beautifully alive.”

Siesta: sand in every seam, and a family holiday that keeps circling back to insurance premiums and infected law.

42 min read

“The reinforced bulkheads of the landship have sealed the ocean breeze away.”

The beaches already feel like a fever dream. Back aboard, the archives go quiet, the console lights up, and the drones come out.

25 min read

“It is terrifying when you can feel everything they are hiding, Lethe.”

Amiya's lesson about carrying other people's fear stops being theory the night someone needs me to hold theirs.

40 min read

“We sit there for a long time, the silence of the landship's night cycle broken only by her jagged, wet hiccups.”

A ward, a monitor, and a month that fits into the space between two beeps.

13 min read

“I may eventually forget why I chose to love them so fiercely.”

Cold in the outer corridors, borrowed spring in the Convalescent Garden. The second year closes warmer than the first — and heavier.

72 min read

“But we can absolutely refuse to let them bleed to death in the dark.”

Two years on Terra, and I'm supposed to be fourteen. A quiet lounge, an encrypted log of the people I refuse to forget, and a birthday counted against what the Oripathy keeps taking.

127 min read

“Her strides are perfectly even and strong, completely devoid of the heavy, dragging limp.”

A shark plushie, an unwinnable puzzle game, and a mother whose limp is finally gone. The longest month I've written, and the gentlest — right up until it isn't.

190 min read

“I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately trying to trace the fractured, dizzying edges of my recent memory.”

A new Arts Unit, a goodbye at the cafeteria door — and then a freight run that mistakes me for cargo and carries me into Siracusa.

62 min read

“For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Rhodes Island is actually at peace.”

Peace, for once: plushies standing honour guard, quiet shifts in the Convalescent Garden, and lessons with Miss Adele while the landship sails light.

73 min read

“We do not leave people to bleed out in the dark, no matter who they are or what they've done.”

First real deployment. Maps, requisition forms, and then open plains — Lisa, Podenco, Mint and Miss Susie under a sky that doesn't belong to the landship.

143 min read

“Bloodshed isn't the only answer in this world. And I am going to keep proving it.”

Dawn over the camp, a watch rotation that finally lets me sleep, and a job that has to be finished without anyone bleeding for it.

43 min read

“I open my eyes, looking desperately at my friends to ground myself.”

The bay doors seal, the engines hum underfoot, and two familiar silhouettes are waiting at the gate. Then the dark takes me.

78 min read

“The dates stop dead at September. The current month.”

A ruined lobby, a broken piano, a calendar that stops dead at this month — and soldiers standing at attention for someone wearing my face.

156 min read

“Okay. Together.”

White ceilings and life-support monitors. Lisa comes in smelling of crystallised sugar, and the slow work of coming back begins.

46 min read

“But Lethe… Lethe is the girl who found a home in the Convalescent Garden.”

Legs dangling off a ward bed on the second of December, an Arts Unit humming on the tray, and Dr. Warfarin with news I'm not ready for.

72 min read