Congratulations on 200 weeks of prompts @flashfictionfridayofficial
Distant Stars
The ship had started flying two generations ago. Earth had become hard to live on, the rich had been the first dead, atleast the ones the public was angry about. Only a few weeks after the first signs of the coming doom were seen, the left over humans started building the ship, taking whatever resources were left in hopes of saving enough humans to keep the race alive. In the end 200 humans of different ethnicities and genders were chosen by chance to be frozen until arrival. Everyone else would be needed for keeping the machines running and waking up the frozen ones.
Slowly while the population of Earth started dwindling down our ancestors got ready to leave. In the end a mere ten thousand could be saved, the rest of ten billion died before the rocket was done. Our grandparents, our parents and now us have been keeping the ship on course and running. It will take a few more generations, but we will reach our goal. We all strongly believe that.
In a few days we will reach the turning point. The place in Space where we have to shut the engine of, turn the ship around until it's pointing into the perfectly opposite direction and turn the engine back on. We are all amazed how far the ship has come already. We are aiming for the distant stars, so far we are on course to them. We are sad. We never got to see a sky. Or land. Or sea. All we ever knew is space and this ship. All we will ever know is space and this ship. But we do not fret, for we are so far, but not yet there. We work so our childrens, children children will know what we never. So they can see a sky, a land, a sea.
Preparations for the turning are complete, I as the current pilot, will have full control. There's only empty space before us, that is good as any specks of dust could seriously harm the ship.
I get ready. Thrusters off, and start spinning the ship. The longest hour of my live. Without thrusters we experience no gravity. Everyone floats. Now I'm stopping the spin and slowly start the thrust up again. Softly so nothing falls and breaks.
All went well. We have passed the turning point and are still on course. We will reach, although we can now see the direction we came from. Some are sure that somewhere out there they could see earth. The tiny blue pearl we came from. Had we just given it better care, maybe we could still live there...
