LensmanZ313

Got this opening . . . going to use it . . . eventually . . . .


"Die!"

There was a sound of thunder as one of the shadows ahead of me had whirled about, a Desert Eagle .50 Magnum semi-auto pistol in both hands, the helium-neon laser-sight cutting a ruby swath through the darkness. The pistol's muzzle flash lit up the alleyway like a hyperactive strobe-light, the gunfire's roar echoing. The 325-grain jacketed hollowpoint exited the muzzle at a clip of 426.72 meters per second. The slug slammed into me, dumping all of its 1917.384 joules of kinetic energy into my chest, flesh tearing and bones breaking. I could feel the impact--but I didn't feel the pain. The second and third .50 Mag slugs tore into me and I could've sworn my heart was about to explode from the hydrostatic shockwaves and--

I woke up, screaming.

I was in bed, sweating and breathing hard, naked as the day I was born, sheets tangled all about me. Unwrapping myself from the mess, I got up from the bed, bare feet padding across the carpeted floor. I stood at the bathroom sink and looked into the mirror, which was becoming steamed by the hot water. 167.64 centimeters tall. 68.04 kilos. Hair a zinc-gray . . . cut short, nothing too fancy nor in fashion. Icy grayish-blue eyes. Lean. Wiry. Muscular. A White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male no older than twenty or so. You know. One of the god-bleeding-damn oppressed. I was rather nondescript-looking. Rather . . . well, you know--bland.

The nightmare.

I'd been having that damned nightmare for the last few nights. It was always the same, how it started and how it seemed to end abruptly. Blurred shadows swarming all about me. Bullets, spinning and rocketing toward me, disrupting the ambient air molecules . . . .

My head was hurting like hell.

Something else that was recurring a lot, too.

Had to calm down. Relax. Focus.

I did the complete Taoist one-hundred-eight-movement sequence Tai Chi Ch'uan. The exercise helped me to calm myself and clear my thoughts. Think. Focus.

It was zero-nine-fifty-nine hours Pac Standard Time. Thursday. 1 January 2009 CE. As for other chronological eras, it went like this: It was the Islamic year 1430 AH; the year 5770, according to the Jewish calendar; it was the Japanese year 2669; according to the Chinese calendar, it was the lunar year 4707, the Year of the Ox; 7518, according to the Byzantine system; 2758, Babylonian or Nabonassar; 2762, Roman; 1931, the Indian Saka period; 2321, Old Grecian. No matter what, it didn't really matter--it was the beginning of the Third Millennium.

I still had to find out who I was.

K'ung Fu-Tzu, known to us Occidentals as Confucius, once said: "May you live in interesting times."

Wily old K'ung Fu-Tzu had meant it as a curse.

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NightWing

Might just be me, but do you really have to get into such detail? I'm a keen reading of military techno-thrillers but never have I seen that much detail
I take it that the nightmare would be that last residual memory of this characters death? I like the premise, infact I seem to recall reading something similar once. It just needs to be more coherent, I think.

Perhaps; "The hollowpoint round slammed into my chest at over the speed of sound, tearing through my flesh and bones." Its a lot simpler and gets the point across.

When he's at the mirror, I got the feeling that he had an already formed impression of himself, as far as physical appearances go. How long has he been trying to find his identity? His features dont seem to come as a suprise to him, as if he has already accepted them.

Oh and, if he doesnt know who he is, how does he know the Tai Chi stuff? Or who Confuscious was? And how does he know his exact dimesions?

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The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

QuintetBlue

I like this - the excessive detail lends to the voice of the character. Although some things seem a bit strange- why can he quote Chinese philosophers? Of course, this is just an opening, and a very promising one at that, so all the questions are good, as long as you plan on answering them later in the story.

And, as I seem to be doing lately, I spill out a book title. Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett is based around the "May you live in interesting times" curse.

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...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell. -Tom Robbins