Round Robin

Hiya all.
In the dim and distant past, we used to run a story generator by way of Round Robin. I'm wondering if anyone wants to have a go at a new one!

The rules are simple. Each person on a list writes a chapter continuing the story. They move their name to the bottom of the list as they publish the chapter and the top name takes over for the next one. If you want to join the list of names, you email the person two names down and ask to have your name added to the bottom of the list when it is their go. Someone usually gathers all the bits together and puts it into the library at some point when the story resolves sufficiently to call an ending. The end cannot happen until everyone on the list has had at least one go. If it should happen by accident that someone didn't get a turn, then that person /people can write an epilogue.

I will make a start, but I need to get a writer list together if there's enough interest, so email or PM me and I'll arrange the first three names before handing over.

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Skyfall - Prologue.

36,000...
37,000...
38,000...

The altimeter clicked over impossibly slowly. The daredevil was so pumped full of adrenaline that every second that passed felt like an hour. He tried to control his breathing, conscious of the dwindling oxygen reserve. He'd soon have to disconnect the umbilical to the supply in his capsule, slide the round door open and step into infinity and the record books.

38,500...
This was it. He slid the panel open as the capsule swung away from the sun so he wouldn't be blinded. A moment's wait for the crescent of light to arc across the capsule interior again as the distant sun's unrelenting burn came into view. It was important to get the angle of the lighting right so the camera could pick him up clearly as he exited the pod - there was no going back for a re-take. He slid forward to sit on the lip of the door, make a final check and survey the delicate blue, white, grey, brown and green planet beneath him. The visor heater had failed at 24,000 metres. They'd known it was a weak point in the record attempt, but had gone ahead anyway. Damn. A couple of the exterior cameras had just failed too. He looked up at them, sitting out on their boom extensions. Out of reach.

As his eyes traced the camera cable back towards the capsule, across the inky blackness of space, he saw a sudden flash of light. A passing satellite? "Yes. That must be it", he thought, "the solar panels catching the rays of the sun."

He risked lifting his gold tinted visor whilst he was looking away from that glare. There it was again. Bigger this time, closer. He felt a vibration thrumming through his suit; a rising, falling sensation, almost audible, but in this rarified atmosphere there was no possibility of it being sound. "Odd how that the mind plays tricks, here, out on the very edge of space", he thought. He'd heard shuttle astronauts tell him about the oddities of life in the vacuum; weird lights in the sky, strange noise-like vibrations when that would be impossible, seeing large explosions which they blamed on cosmic rays hitting the retina, sudden camera failures, unexplained memory loss when they returned to Earth.

Lowering his sun filter again, he turned to focus on the matter at hand. Bracing his gloved palms against the capsule door, he pushed off rolled forwards and fell like a stone, plummeting earthwards, beyond any human help, consigning his fate to the hands of God.

As his speed increased, and the building air pressure rippled along his body, he became aware of a movement at the very corner of his vision. He turned his head slightly and a flash of silver and green raced across the sky in front of him, so vlose he could almost touch it. Panicking at the near collision, he began to spin and tumble, falling out of control, the ground racing closer and closer.

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