I‘ve been experimenting with story openings. Not sure if this will turn into a larger story but thought you might enjoy peeking into the “clutter in the attic” of my writer’s mind.

Time Blast – A Story Snippet

Ben awoke to the faint smelled of the cheese snacks he’d had an hour before and the contoured edges of the nav station buttons pressed against his cheeks. He wasn’t wearing his four-point harness and yet was still sitting in his chair. Good. That meant the artificial gravity was still working.

With deliberate care, Ben sat up and rubbed his steady hands over his face. The scratching sound of day-old stubble made him believe he wasn’t dreaming. But beyond that, rubbing his eyes didn’t help. He still couldn’t see.

The aging engineer tried to focus both his eyes and his mind. His last memory had been the blaring of the proximity alarm that made his ears want to bleed. He had yelled to Megan, the young pilot fresh out of the academy, asking if she saw the ship the instruments said was on top of them. Then there had been a blinding flash of light. That was all he remembered before waking up with his upper body draped over the useless console that hadn’t warned them in time.

Faint pinpoints of glowing blue lights from the familiar state-of-the-art board in front of him pierced the darkness of his vision. Ben pushed himself up by the edge of the console, careful to favor his bad knee. Only, his knee didn’t protest. In fact, he found standing up to be easier than it had been in years.

The space veteran leaned forward until he could read how many life signs were onboard the ship. Only two.

He needed to check on his pilot. Ben’s hand smacked the cold metal of the young woman’s chair. She wasn’t in the seat although the safety harness, she habitually wore even on calm treks like this had been, was pulled taut away from the seatback.

He heard a caught breath, a whimper, then the silence was pierced by a primal screech that sent a bolt of adrenaline through his system that the previous events hadn’t.

With his vision returning, Ben saw Megan’s clothes puddled in her chair. What sent terror spiking down his spine was the toddlerwith Megan’s eyes staring back up at him from that clothes pile.

The old man’s gaze was caught by his own hand suspended over the child’s head. He stared in disbelief as he flexed smooth fingers unbent by arthritis.