500 Words a Day - Launching

This one went a little dark, I'm afraid, but I guess that's where we are right now. Stay safe!

I wake up at 06:00 like I do every day, even without any sunlight. The stars beyond the porthole look just the same, always the same. Just the cycle of the light-strips in the ceiling tell me that ‘dawn’ is on its way. Still, I can’t complain. Life on the ship is alright, you know?

I wake up the same, stretch the same and get out of bed. I put on my slippers, my bath-robe, and switch on the coffee machine. While the machine begins its morning hum, I turn on my tablet and scan through my messages. Six notifications, but most of them are from the rest of the crew. One catches my eye - it’s a video message from back home.
This one should be savoured.
I wait for the coffee to brew, add the creamer, and take a seat on my sofa. I start feeling a buzz of excitement - videos from back home were a rare treat, as normally we couldn’t spare the bandwidth. There was a strict rationing of one message a week, and only a few GB at a time. We’d been out of port for six months and I was beginning to feel it - a kind of weight pulling down at me, a black hole beginning to grow.
I took a sip, and pressed play.