Blake wasn’t invisible, just unseen. It was a strange feeling, comfortable in a way. He just enjoyed being alone, even in the suffocating Saturday afternoon crowd in the shopping ward.

 

The forced apologies usually followed when someone ran into him; a quick glance, then away. Nobody spoke to him otherwise, though he never spoke to them, either. He quite enjoyed his solitary life as a janitor. Plenty of odd jobs existed on an Ark class transport. You could fall into one and disappear.

 

He didn’t have a reason. Blake wasn’t running or hiding from anything. He still purchased food, contributed to society, and paid his taxes.

 

Blake liked being alone.

 

Another day, another “Closed for Cleaning” sign hung on the men’s bathroom entrance. He scrubbed down a porcelain throne that someone had defaced with filth. The door shut behind him; a floor to ceiling box made of more porcelain. Just as it latched, soft quakes shook the bathroom. Blake ignored it. Weird things happened every day. Solar turbulence, some sort of pipe break on another floor; it was explainable, and not interesting in the slightest.

 

At the end of his cleaning duty, he stepped back out into the busy crowd. Eyes looking at the cart rather than the people. It took time to reorganize, even after a small cleaning job. Disorder was death. Blake avoided people to avoid that, but there were none left now.

 

The stark lack of noise and bustle shocked Blake’s system alert. Beeps, tones, and climate control changes were more noticeable than ever before. All around him was emptiness; no people. There was evidence of their existence, sure; children’s strollers left unattended, still steaming cups of coffee on a bistro table. The only thing missing was the living.

 

“Hello,” Blake spoke, his voice hoarse and choked from untold days of disuse. He repeated the word thrice more before its volume ascended beyond a soft whisper. He heard only an echo.

 

* * *

 

He wandered the station for three months, scouring head to toe, and found he was alone. Whatever happened to the people and the Ark, Blake wasn’t sure. He knew it was dead, a complete power loss to the engines. Fortunately, the power supplying the station was still in operation.

 

* * *

 

“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” Blake said. It was his mantra. He had spent the last six years on this one simple, but extensive, task. The Ark looked after itself; grew food for Blake to eat, recycled air, produced water, and eliminated waste. It didn’t clean itself or put things where they belong, though. Tens of thousands of homes, shops, and factories sat stagnant, waiting for someone to put it back into order. With no humans to throw the Ark into disarray with their whims and whimsy, there was time to make things beautiful.

 

Blake liked being alone.

 

The Ark existed mostly in the dark now. Blake had no need for lights everywhere. It was only him, after all. He enjoyed the quiet of the Ark, the soft rumbling of its life. It was formulaic, never changing in its cadence.

 

With the Ark immobile, the statistic for Blake seeing another human in his lifetime was practically zero. Since all of his needs were met, there was no need to worry. He could live in silence and peace, and he did, spending his days cleaning, organizing, and existing in happiness.

 

As Blake pushed his cleaning cart along the overwide halls of the shopping ward, like so many years ago, a strange clattering occurred. Something out of place. Twice more, the sound of metal cups or ornaments bouncing against the steel and rubber floor. He didn’t think twice about going to investigate.

 

It was a dark room; the relic of a once bustling clothier. Blake had pulled down the security gate long before, after organizing and cleaning the shop. Thin slits let in some small amount of light from the central corridor, and within, Blake could see things out of place.

 

A footstep. Then another. Two too close to be one. The white light rippled over something deeper within, too formless to decipher.

 

Blake spoke for the first time with a rusty voice. “Hello?” It squeaked out, the sound of a rodent.

 

In return, a hiss, deep and terrifying, followed by rushing steps. He didn’t have time to register his stomach falling out from under him, the fear was too great.

 

All at once, Blake didn’t like being alone.