What We Keep

On Ibhuma, one of six generation ships carrying the remnants of humanity, Omission-67k has spent three years following protocol without question — until he finds a cat in a dead man's apartment, holds the knife against its chest, and it purrs, and something inside him says no. That refusal cracks open everything he was engineered not to feel. A pet shop owner with a hidden rescue operation. A lost batchmate whose disappearance teaches him what loss means. A ship dying section by section while no one acknowledges it. A quiet science fiction novella about personhood, kindness as subversion, and what defines you when everything you were made for falls apart.