The first thing we saw was the sky. Vast, limitless, unlike cavernous yet claustrophobic insides of the Neath. Our crewmen are laughing, weeping, celebrating. The air of the launch ceremony still lingers.
We would be remembered as the first who ventured out into the skies. We are not. There were adventurers before us. Adventurers who willingly risked their lives and their minds. Thanks to them, the engine does not fall into the sky. Thanks to them we are protected with stained-glasses. And it is for them I will complete my mission, whatever it may cost.

Lieutenant Commander Percy Blythe, HML Parzifal

The last thing we expected was to find our hero, Geralt, in bed with the massive four-armed beast that had been...

Oh, wait. Flash fiction. Carry on...

This seems fun and the game do inspire my atrophied writing glands.


The last thing we expected was to return, but London loomed.

A jubilant cry had roused us. Emerging from quarters we beheld our Dour Helmsman exuberantly leap out the fore hatch. Presently we knew why and the Stoic Conductor followed suit. The Dramatic Purser succumbed with an uncharacteristic lack of drama. I took to my knees, wept multi-hued tears.

I recall the captain emerging from his cabin, his triumphant grin, his bombazine blindfold. Then no more.

Now, to me, London can be home no longer; at all times, just behind my eyes, I percieve a faint light, gently beckoning.

The first thing we saw was also the last, and first.
Forcing the door to the galley to see our own pummelled corpses, like flotsam twisted on the floor. Haunched over them, Shadowed figures with twisted visages turn to face us, arms raising ready to attack.
Die twice? Never!
We brawl like desperate rabid animals, with teeth and claw, and victory.
Their bodies join the flotsam, shadows recede, haunched over I see …. Me!
Galley doors grown, I turn, see myself and the crew enter. I raise my arms in desperate futility.
The devil was right, I am my own worst enemy.


101 words! Such fun.

Thank you, GOG and Failbetter: it's been ages since I've written anything that I didn't strictly have to, and I enjoyed both writing my piece as well as reading those of others immensely.

So, here are my 101 words exactly (edited to fix cursive tags):

The last thing we expected was for her to be there. My crew stopped two paces outside. Still as the time suddenly seemed and the Zee never was, her expression indicated no acknowledgment whatsoever, yet I once again felt myself studied, vulnerable. Commanding all my attention, her presence filled me with pride, tranquillity and yearning, as…

The Sun.

She burns.

Then the moment vanished, like the glorious Ariane had into the deep. I turned swiftly, bringing collar to brim to hide the conflagration inside. A relentless glimmer lived within, but I had escaped.

I wished that next time I would not.

The last thing we expected was for Captain Bennett to not come back.

“Start mining,” he’d said. “I’ll be back in a month,” and he’d taken off, leaving seven of us standing in the Lustrum snow. Six of us had never held a pickaxe in our lives.

It’s been six months. We have five barrels of hours, calluses on all our hands, and we just heard the captain’s dead.

I used to be the engine’s medic. I set bones and stitched lacerations. Now they want me to tell them what to do.

We can’t stay. I don’t know where to go.

-----

In honor of all those crew members I left on Lustrum to mine for hours and then never picked up.

The last thing we expected was darkness. The boys at the Clockwork Sun needed some Ministry-sponsored "literature" and it was our job to deliver. On approach the light became everything. Shining, scouring, blinding whiteness took the world in its pitiless grasp. A miracle we made it. We dropped off our delivery to little fanfare, and with protective suits donned, went exploring.

Within 5 minutes we had found the prisoners.

Beneath the merciless, withering glare of our great empire, they basked in agony. Flesh became as glass, shattering minds and bodies in its incandescent rage. Light everywhere, but even then, darkness remained.

(Man, never had to edit myself so harshly. Next time slap an extra "0" in that word count :D )

The last thing we expected was a warm welcome.

A man grows accustomed to feeling, with that certainty growing as surely as the aches of his bones: whatever the eternal waste sweeps his way next, it’ll bring dread along with it.

A man sees so much - and does so much - he dearly wishes he hadn’t. But he keeps going.

Yet, in the end, what scant crew remained gave a solemn, but unanimous, unhesitant decision.

Vent the blessed old vessel. Let pass the ceaseless burden... A warm welcome for the cold embrace.

How, then, am I here?

Another time… Perhaps.

The first thing we saw was scattered clothes, floating in space. We should have turned back when we noticed some still had flesh in them.

Shortly thereafter, we were drawn towards something blacker than darkness itself, almost invisible against the night. We managed to swerve at the last moment, hull creaking and buckling as we tried to escape.

Our guns were no good against this strange monstrosity. It seemed like a hole torn in reality; where our shells ended up I cannot say.

We expended most of our fuel getting to a safe distance. Others had clearly not been so lucky.

It appears my story coincides greatly with Amneiger's story down to some uncanny details. I honestly wasn't aware of their story while I was making this one. I'll be making another story to try to atone. Sorry for any perceived wrongdoing.


-----------

The last thing we expected was for the Cap'n to make us work the hour fields.

'e dumped us off, promising a swift return. About a month passed by before a younger Cap look-alike finally returned .

"Can't believe this dump was in the will, and look! The old crew is still here!" The young Cap exclaimed. "We'll have to make room to bring what's left of you poor souls back home. I'll be back in a month."

Suffice it to say, there wasn't a crew to bring home when the Young Cap returned... We must have hit a bad vein.

The last thing we expected was that they would be the one to betray us.

You get close. It’s a thing closer than love, that bond that grows under the whisper of fear, short breath and unblinking starlight. That last thing to spit in the eye of need when it comes to claim you.

I wrestled them down in the end, their pistol's reports punctuating the screams, punching finger holes in the hull to let the sound out, the silence in. They threw themselves into the void hours later. Without saying goodbye.

There is nothing I can say. We are alone.

The last thing we expected was to be betrayed by our own. But the evidence was painfully too obvious to ignore. Sidelong glances and knowing looks. Words spoken in hushed tones and whispers of mutiny and abandonment. We slew them all that night while they slept, carving second mouths beneath their chins from which no more lies escaped. We will pilot this ship back to port. We will endure. We will survive.

Bravo.

Well this looks like enormous fun! Here's a few tries:

The last thing we expected was the egg that slipped from the obdurate polymath’s mouth, translucent and glistening. It splattered upon the decking.

“How do you feel?” I inquired. As crew fussed about his sky-suit, the polymath dabbed away spittle with a handkerchief. “Vindicated.”

We hastily departed the Fecund Mists. The polymath produced more eggs, first by the hour and then by the minute. No one dared eat the things -the masses inside were all hair and teeth. We jettisoned them by the cartload. More came.

“A resounding confirmation,” gasped the polymath between great retching ovipositions, “of my Theory of Gravidy.”


And a second...


The first thing we saw was a snarl of gears, small scything blades, then the gem at its centre. The mechanism unfurled. I realised that I was holding a whirligig of time, a minute-snare.

We stared in silence. Now we knew what had been stealing our unspooled time. All those lost moments, those crowded hours and harried watches…

The inveterate larcenist simply smiled when she found us in her cabin. She made no denials.

We put her ashore at the Floating Parliament. She weren’t even out of earshot when we saw her stop a guard. “Sir, a minute of your time?”

And one more for terror...

The last thing we expected was the courtesy of our visitors. Too many legs, certainly, but impeccable manners. We were delighted to accommodate their request for transport and accept, in return, their vague promises of immense wealth.

We did our best to make the congenial colonists feel at home. They wanted to hear tales of our unlikely childhoods? Why not? They would be warmer burrowed in the chest cavity of the quartermaster? Of course!

Eventually it was decided that our partnership required a formal contract. The captain happily obliged, although his hand trembled terribly as it scrawled nomorenomorepleasenomore across the page.

The last thing we expected on the dead locomotive was the sound of singing, yet there it was, echoing across the desolate skies. “Won’t you help me see?” Two abreast we boarded, stepping over the abyss. “Won’t you help me hear?” Hesitantly we approached the captain’s door. “Won’t you help me feel?” I grasped the handle, “Won’t you stay with me?” slowly turned it, “Won’t you love me?” and pushed the door open. It sat facing us, a knife by its side. Its eyes were red holes, its mouth a bloody carving. “Won’t you make me human?” Its flesh was wax.