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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/2863
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm looking for opinions on the effectiveness of this opening scene. It's a vision, not that he knows that at first. He thinks it a dream and won't quite act on it straight away. The vision was given to him by a sentient alien. It's basically the first of a few visions meant to kick start a bit of an adventure sci-fi plot.

> Josh opened his eyes. He saw nothing though he could hear his breathing plainly and the beating of his heart thudded as if he were holding it up to his ear. The air, if there was any, felt as clean as the air in an untouched forest. Slowly, his eyes adapted to the dark and he saw the shapes of jagged spikes of rock in the distance; black and rough yet lit up by a ghostly white light. They were arranged like a passage way, reaching upward until they could no longer be seen.
> 
> He blinked, a subconscious automated blink, yet now stars shone bright in all directions. He felt like he was floating in space; a void of nothingness littered with sparkles further away than he could imagine.
> 
> He had a mind now to seek out the passageway. He tried to walk though he felt weightless in the vastness of this starry void, yet he knew somehow that he was moving forward. Or was it moving to him?
> 
> Strangely, he felt at peace, curious even, and didn’t fear what had become of him. In fact, he wasn’t even aware of what he had previously been doing.
> 
> Everything disappeared.
> 
> Before he knew it, the sound of the garbage truck hit his ears, the sun blinded him and he felt the hard cement underneath his feet. Gravity took hold and he fell to the ground, disoriented. Reality came back to him, reeling his mind in from the far off place. Birds, trees, people passing by, staring at him on the ground.

**Sci-fi setting:** humans in the far future, no aliens as they thought there might be, a little like a Star Wars type setting (no aliens though). I.e. normal life can be gritty, rich people, poor people, themes from modern society etc.

**Story brief:** beacons are found, they signal an onslaught from an alien species that seeks to reclaim "their" galaxy. they left a long time ago to end a war with the species of alien this "vision-giver" is. The beacons were meant to signal the fact that another race had tried to inhabit the galaxy. They don't like this. Greedy aliens in other words.

Original score: 6