Eclipse Part 1: Speck

How long had it been since he had seen another human being?

How long since he had talked to anyone but his own reflection?

How long since he’d seen the speck of reflected light in front of him, directly in front of him, and waved his arm ineffectively against the ether to see the speck blink in and out and realized that because the star was behind him he was casting a shadow on the speck, which was reflecting the star’s light back when he was not interfering by waving his arm.

How big was it?

How far away was it?

Very far and large?

Or very small and near?

Were there people?

He was moving, he estimated, at several thousand miles per hour. A pace that was unimaginable for most of human history, and yet he had achieved that velocity and it was still an infinitesimally slow crawl across the universe while he waited for God.

Maybe the speck was God. Very far away and large, it could be God.

His journey had not begun so unprotected, so alone, so vulnerable. He had not started out shielded from the vast empty universe by only a thin layer of polymers and plastic. He had sat nestled in a seat that cradled him, that increased its softness as he pressed against it, that cupped him like a loving hand while gravity seemed to increase around him as his rocket had taken off, a seat that had arm rests to which his arms had been strapped to avoid them being flung down helplessly at his sides, armrests that were motorized to help him reach the controls that he must operate during the takeoff, must work during the 17 minutes that he would be subjected to five six seven times the usual gravity so that he could leave the atmosphere of the only world he had ever known and sling himself around that world and generate enough speed to zoom across the solar system until he was farther away from that planet than any human being had ever been before, to tilt towards the sun that he had spent his life circling around at a safe distance, this time to lean towards it and use it to pull him faster faster hotter hotter towards it and when he hit the maximum speed and got as close as he dared, he would then peel away and go faster yet, across the solar system and to new planets that humans had never touched before. He would touch them.

Claudius had not started out alone and scared.

But he was ending that way.

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Eclipse also appears on Under The Eyes Of God, the web's best horror site. Also appearing there are "Knock!" -- Mari and her baby have to cope with a door that appears in her bedroom, and something wants to get in -- and "The Window": what made the scream when Jared threw the rock into the abandoned shed, and why is everything going wrong?