Number one

A man walked slowly down a sodden twisted path, coated in a thick
layer of spring dew. The path wound on into the darkness of the
enveloping trees- dark oaks with wild gnarled branches, casting a
myriad of shadows through the dappled light of the forest floor. He
strode purposefully in a dark green knitted sweatshirt and long black
jeans; into the melancholy of the wooden glade. The trees were spread
more thickly and densely than the fringes along the path but the man
seemed to drift straight through, like fog through a fine silk net. And
there was definitely a stroke at least of darkness about him, that
seemed to hang behind his every step and envelop him shroud like in the
stark morning air. The man stopped. He seemed to fade back into
reality, became more solid somehow. Then with a quick movement he
delved into the back pocket of his jeans and withdrew a small dull,
grey, square of metal and pressed somewhere upon its lifeless surface.
The wood froze suddenly and faded away into nothingness, until only the
man remained standing in a tar black void. Alone.
Commander Jenson glared angrily into his desk computer and banged his
fist on the flimsy aluminium surface. The latest shipments of water
were already late and their emergency reserves had not been given the
chance to refill themselves with the hydro funnel -the great scoop on
the front of the ship that collected hydrogen to power the ships vast
drive sections. Engineers in many of the old deep space mining vessels
were almost all familiar with the method of filtering water from the
random elements in the void around them. Water would just have to be
rationed until they had a chance to re supply, at the moment this
looked about a month away. He brought up the inventory list again, a
barren one at best they were already low in resources. He methodically
tapped their new course into the computer stepped into the darkness and
slept.