A quick taster of The Convergent Space series - a short excerpt from the first book...
When
he woke again three more days had passed.
He
lay on the tiny bunk for a few minutes, coming to, collecting his thoughts. He
performed the slow ritual of separating fantasy from reality, something that
was becoming harder as his dreams increasingly became preferable to the real
world. His dreams were varied: sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes
frightening; while reality was always the same haunting repetitive nightmare.
It took him some time to persuade himself what was real and what wasn’t. Then
before the panic took hold he took a small dose of sedative to dampen his
emotions and help close off those parts of his mind threatening to go haywire
and drive him back over the edge.
Once
his thoughts were under control he rolled off the bunk onto his feet and
crouched down to peer out of the tiny window that had become his entire world.
Even before he looked out he knew exactly what he was going to see: the filing
cabinet on the left, obscuring part of his view, the digital clock on the wall,
the half open door, the workbench a few metres away and Sessi lying dead on the
floor.
Everything
was just as he knew it would be, as it had been every time he had woken and all
the other times he had looked out of the window. Only this time what he saw
didn’t quite gel in his mind, it wouldn’t come together and settle down. It was
as if he was seeing everything from a moving vehicle or was looking at a
reconstruction of the room rather than the room itself. Everything was in the
right place but at the same time everything was wrong. It was different in some
way, like he was looking into a different room, somewhere exactly like the room
he had been staring at for weeks but not actually the same. As one side of his
mind ticked off the checklist of what he expected to see and told him
everything was where it should be, the other side of his mind was screaming
that something was wrong, something was different. Had the bench moved, or the
filing cabinet? The open door to the corridor - had it always been at nearly 45
degrees? Hadn’t it been nearer 30?
He
peered out through his tiny window, trying to work out what had changed. He
considered the possible explanations and began to panic. Heat pricked at his
forehead like someone was holding a flame near his face. It could only be a
rescue party. A rescue party had been and gone while he had slept. They must
have been combing the buildings looking for survivors. He had slept right
through his one chance to escape.
He
couldn’t bear to handle the notion so he lay back down on the tiny bunk and put
himself out again.
If
you enjoyed this excerpt, read the entire 3-book series on Amazon - ConvergentSpace series
