(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)

I thought that spot in the sky was a star.

It didn’t occur to me that stars don’t waver.

We screamed as the bright lights blinded us.

I tried to run with everyone else.

But they had come for me.

The ground beneath me vanished.

No way out now.

Only one way.

Their way.

Up.


This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!

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