It's Remembrance Day today, so I should probably write something about that, but it's just not going to happen. Yesterday was just one of those soul sucking days where you lose the will to exist on the cellular level. Or is that just me? Anyway, last night I just gave up and watched TV instead of trying to write anything. And now it's today and I still don't have anything to write and I have to leave the house soon. So on that note, I'm going to do some NaBloHo cheating and post a story I wrote last year. Well, more like an outline of a story since it's very short. It's sci-fi, so if you don't like that kind of thing, or don't feel like reading a story, on your way. My brain has promised to come back for a visit tomorrow. We'll make a date.
I don't have a title either.
Sarah had been finishing her morning coffee when it happened. She'd been gazing out the view port at Earth, bored of her own notes on the days work when her husband's voice came over the loudspeakers. It was just a routine systems check, but as usual, she looked up at the speaker and smiled. It probably saved her from blindness.
Afterwards, she would only remember the the light. The brightest light she'd ever known suddenly filling her quarters, then the darkness. When she came to the room was completely dark. And silent. Which probably scared her more than anything. Aboard the Orbital Ring it was always noisy. Machinery, gravity sims and the air circulation and oxygen scrubbers were constants. You didn't notice them after awhile, unless, like now, they were gone.
She was still fairly groggy from losing consciousness, but she new something terribly terribly wrong had happened. She was only a botanist, but even she could tell that the vibrations she could feel through the floor were from explosions. Her head and back hurt. She didn't need to touch her forehead to figure out she was bleeding. The pain in her back seemed to be from the debris she was lying on.
It was only now that she began to wonder why it was so dark. Had something fallen over the view port? Had something struck the Ring outside her section? "Oh God, am I blind...?" she whimpered, her hands finally touching her face. Then she noticed the stars. "Wha...what the fuck?! Where's the Earth? Where's the Earth?!" The last came out as a scream. Sarah and Mohammed Farad had Inner Ring quarters, their only view was the Earth. The only thing Sarah could see now was stars.
She realized two things as she struggled against her growing terror. One, as she struggled it became apparent that the gravity simulators were off line. Two, the reason she could look out the view port without ever having sat up was because she was lying on the wall. Her back hurt because she was on top of the book shelf.
The emergency life support systems began to struggle back on-line. She felt a cool draft of air begin to push its way into the room and the loud speaker began to hiss. The light's flickered a few times but didn't seem to be coming back. A broken voice faded in and out from the speaker. It was Mohammed. She stifled a sob, trying to hear him. "...eor. I repea... assive me... Ring has... broken...." The Ring was broken? Her mind could barely comprehend this. The static was too bad to make out anything he was saying. "...teor strike." Meteor strike? The Ring was hit by a meteor? How could a meteor not be noticed? There were people whose only jobs were to track asteroids. How was this possible?
Her thoughts faded as she noticed the room was brightening and she could see again. The moon began to float across the view port. "Oh..." her hand went to her mouth as understanding came to her. She was in a broken portion of the Ring. It was floating free and rotating. The room darkened once again as her section continued its roll then brightened back to its usual state as the Earth came into view. Sarah's breath caught in her throat. It was a meteor, but it hadn't hit the Ring.
You made it to the end? Wow. You're a trooper. If you got this far, remember the Friday picture theme is your blogging abode. Send me a picture of your computer space where you work, where ever it is.
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