I’m moving, so I don’t have time to sit down and beat on my novel like I want to, so instead I decided to pick out a few FastFictions to keep the gears from seizing up.

This one comes from Martin/Mark Dinstuhl.

Title: Too Much Nothing
Word: Willowy

A 200 word future shock:

It wasn’t Karen’s fault, you see.

There are supposed to be systems in place to monitor them through the whole process. To make sure that something like this could never happen.

This was one of those one in a million sort of accidents. Something with Karen, something with the system, something with both of them. Who knows. In the end it doesn’t really matter.

Investigators from the insurance division said her brain activity was just a few points above where it was supposed to be. Still within parameters, but for Karen it was apparently enough to make the difference between deep sleep and a waking nightmare.

In the tube it would’ve been like sitting in a pitch black room, unable to feel the floor. The sheer weight of the nothingness crushing down on her.

After centuries of being trapped in the dark, the brightness of the future must’ve been too much for her mind to take.

When she stood there on the edge of the roof, gazing out over the twisting lights of the city basin, her willowy body barely hidden under a light blue medical gown, something in poor Karen just broke.

And she screamed so long she suffocated.

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