[ WP ] Incidents of paranormal activity are inversely proportional to the amount of people on any given celestial body . You are the lone survivor of the first manned mission to Mars ...

**Day 3** 
 
 Still no contact, not on my side or theirs. All the hatches are still functional and I think it's possible to salvage the power system, but all communications are down after the crash. 
 
 Been wandering around the base, trying to figure out a plan, but my head's just spinning. There were supposed to be six of us, coming to replace the first crew. `` First shift,'' NASA called it -- they'd gotten men on Mars, now they wanted to see if they could return them safely home and bring in a new batch to continue the research. 
 
 Former went fine. Latter did not. 
 
 I miss them. We went through selection together, training together, the voyage together, and then the impact -- it does n't make sense that I should be alone, does n't make sense at all. 
 
 I'll go out again at some point, root around the crash site, try to find anything useful. But for right now I ca n't bring myself to see their bodies. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 6** 
 
 Enough food to last six people for two years; six beds; six shining new suits; me, and five corpses. 
 
 Was working on getting the transmitters back up, both out of necessity and the lack of anything better to do. It got cold all of a sudden ( A/C malfunctioning? ) and I heard Burke's voice. I turned around -- I'm not sure why, I know he's dead, I've accepted that -- but of course there was no one and nothing. 
 
 I wonder if vivid auditory hallucinations are a symptom of grief, or loneliness. Or maybe it just means I'm going insane much earlier than expected. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 10** 
 
 The clocks keep switching times. I'll look up and it'll say 6:27, and then I'll look up again and it'll be 6:23. Wonder what that's all about. No reason for them to all be malfunctioning, and yet they all are. It happens at my computer terminal too. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 17** 
 
 Making no progress at all. The fact of the matter is that I do n't understand why communications are down: the computer reports that all transmitters and receivers are functional and ready. 
 
 The ship sent out a distress signal before it crashed -- surely home would've received it almost immediately and tried to send a message to the base? It was SOP, to send out messages to every device capable of receiving them in case of survivors. But there's nothing. Not only am I not receiving; I ca n't transmit either. Screen goes blank every time I try, sometimes even shuts the whole computer off. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 28** 
 
 Feel like I'm actually going crazy: I keep losing time. 
 
 The clocks are off, that much I know, but sometimes I'll be standing in the lavatory, and I'll blink and I'll be in the control room, with no idea how I got there. 
 
 I'm freaking out but I'm trying not to. NASA vetted all of us thoroughly, they know we're mentally stable. 
 
 What the fuck?? 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 44** 
 
 Have n't logged into the journal in a while -- nothing much has changed, I have no plans or protocol other than to sit here and wait for NASA to contact me. Which I've been doing for 44 days now. 
 
 I keep having the hallucinations; sometimes auditory, sometimes visual. Usually they're of the other five who did n't make it out of the crash. Sometimes they're of my dad -- he died when I was 19. They worry me because they feel so real, these people are just looking at me and smiling and talking and fuck if it does n't feel like they're actually there. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 49** 
 
 Weird shit happening. If I look at a bunch of objects ( food, tablets, pencils, whatever ) and then look away and look back, they'll sometimes be in different places and positions. I've been losing time constantly. Starting to feel really sick. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 53** 
 
 Could n't get out of bed for a long time. This is the best day I've had in a while and I still feel awful. Do n't know why. How can I be sick? No germs up here, the first crew sanitised it all when they left. 
 
 Vivid dreams. Hard to tell sometimes what's a dream and what's a hallucination. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 165** 
 
 I've been here 165 days??? 
 
 That ca n't be right. I just went to bed last night, and it was day 51. Is this journal malfunctioning too? 
 
 I just read the entry from Day 53. Do n't remember writing it at all. But it had to have been me. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 72** 
 
 Still no luck on communications. Clocks are still off; still losing time; everything seems wrong. 
 
 It's like I'm skipping whole hours, whole days, whole weeks, then going back, back and forth. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 85** 
 
 Dreamt I was with Sheng last night, and when I woke up he was sitting at the foot of my bed. I reached out to touch his hand 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 64** 
 
 and he just shook his head and stood up and was gone. It was like seeing a fucking ghost. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 271** 
 
 Is there more than one time? 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 19** 
 
 Have n't dreamt about Sheng again since waking up to the hallucination of him. No dreams of anyone else, either, and all the clocks have stopped. 
 
 Tried to contact NASA again, no luck. 
 
 Pretty sure I'll die up here, even though it's only been 3 months. 
 
 *** 
 
 **Day 82** 
 
 Does n't make sense 
 
 *** 
 
 `` Tell me again what happened.'' 
 
 `` I- I- we got a video message from Mike Horowitz.'' 
 
 `` Horowitz? From the First Shift mission?'' 
 
 `` Yes, sir. Time-stamped yesterday. I could n't believe it, so I verified the code, the sender, the time-stamp, it's all real. I don't- it doesn't-'' 
 
 `` No, it does n't make sense. You're sure it's legit?'' 
 
 `` Positive. I checked all night, every data point that I could. It came from the base.'' 
 
 `` Is n't it possible that the Mission Five astronauts up there now sent it by accident? They reactivated an old video log?'' 
 
 `` No, it's not possible. He did n't even make it into the base, remember? And it was n't an old log- it was a live stream. He was spouting total gibberish, and it was less than thirty seconds long, but it was him, and he contacted us.'' 
 
 `` That is n't possible.'' 
 
 `` I know it is n't, sir. I ca n't believe it. Horowitz was one of the six. Mission Three brought him back almost two decades ago.'' 
 
 `` I know. I know, I went to the funeral, I saw the bodies... And god damn it, he was as dead as the rest of them.'' 
 
 *** 
 
 Thanks for reading my story! Feel free to visit r/sushideception to check out more of my work.
