A Stab at Sci-fi (May 2020)
Trajectory
There is a slash of white against the otherwise unrelenting blackness of the universe. It is incongruous, terrifying, and it is growing.
Zoom in on a speck, which would go unnoticed without my drawing your attention to it, to her rather. She moves steadily towards the anomoly, as planned. Her life spent in a simulation of this environment, maintaining a course as steady as that she is now on, as her rival candidates fell away. Now it is only her, the darkness, and the blinding white.
Despite her preparation she shudders, feeling the vastness overwhelm her. She moves closer, resolute. I'm something of a casual fan of science fiction, and space operas in particular. This is my attempt to distill those usually sweeping and grandiose tropes into 100 words. Turns out that's quite hard. The story above was equally inspired by the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, and Futurama.