Over a Long Time Ago
ShortStory 5,486 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"She should go back inside the watchpod. Maree and Blaise didn’t have to be dead. The air hadn’t been gone that long. And even if their current bodies were hopeless, damaged beyond repair, probably the back-up system was uncorrupted. Probably its uploads of those two—as well as the uploads of all the other prisoners—were just fine."
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoresexual-content
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.