Super Short Story #1 Experiments in Exceeding Light Speed

 Welcome to the first of what I hope will be several super short stories. I write these sometimes between clients while I'm working online or sometimes when I'm just relaxing. I know reading short stories isn't everyone's cup of tea (I'm looking at you, Carrie) so I figured I'd include the disclaimer that this IS a short story.

  On the bright side it's just about a page long. It's Science Fiction, for those of you who need a warning. And it's the first decent thing I think I've written in two years. This is first draft + 1 read through/revision of the horrible mistakes.

 

Quantum Experiments in Exceeding Light Speed

The stars are long gone but we still see their glow. A dull and empty shroud at night. Not much at all next to the brightness of our sun. Those of us who flew away - I guess that's all of us now - when we did the stars left, leaving only a hazy handful of light. I remember thinking it was like a cataract over the eye of an old dog.

   This not-quite mist is all we could see, but still, we flew. And flew. And flew. It was an unprecedented success. The instruments all said so.

Were those the last few times I remember being happy?

That is...

One of us noticed odd readings as if the ground never got farther away.

No matter how hard we pushed the readings never changed; we couldn't escape it.

The instrument needed to be fixed, I know that. That was my job. Before. When things meant other things. When symbols had meaning.

So we landed. And we landed in the hazy light, not able to find anything that we'd left it. No building occupied. No noise in the woods. Trees breathe but you can only know it when they stop. The trees stood. Not moving. Not breathing. Perfect full leaves in bloom. But you couldn't touch them. They were shades of trees, frightening somehow. And the shadows that seemed to dart...

That was just a thing your mind does, showing false images. I used to know the word.

Dammit.

We walked together at first. Touching, realizing nothing moved, nothing changed. The sun burned bright, tapered away into the haze again. There was no color in the sun rise, no color in the sun set.

And we soon realized those sun sets and sun rises are all exactly the same.

For however long we've been here.

We don't die. We can't even starve. 

At first miraculous. Certain this would give us time to find a way out. A way away. A way home. A way anywhere.

And finally we hoped for a way to die. For how long?

I stopped keeping count of how long it had been (x increases without bound seems as accurate as anything) when the last of us went from two to one.

That was....

The last pair of anything, I guess.

I wish I could remember her name.

I wish I could remember mine.

I still don't know what happened to the stars.