With no idea as to where to start, but needing to start anyway, he took to his station and decided to see what would come up with any random string of commands.

Hours upon hours passed and always the result was ‘null’. This was not desired as it meant more time would be sunk into trying to get the correct set of commands and time was limited. Sure, hours had passed, but that was hours less to complete what needed to be completed and thus it was more pressure to get to the end state, the end goal.

This was not necessarily out of the ordinary, but it certainly did not mean it was any more desired.

And so the pressure was mounting to find the right set of commands in order to get to the next part of this most crucial mission, for if it was not completed, there were threats to safety that would be carried out. It was still uncertain as to how “en masse” they would be, but it was known that they would be grave, regardless of what scale on which they would fall.

The only thing resting between him and the next move was a sequence of a particular order that needed to be completed in order to go forward. The sequence was totally unknown and there was no hint, so the only way forward was through guessing and making sure one’s attempts were not repeated.

And so more hours fed themselves into more hours as looping and cross-referencing and typing away whilst trying to resist the sweet allure of pressure continued on in the feeble hope that there would be a solution eventually reached. So many ways to organise so few an amount of commands and as it continued on, the hopelessness seemed even more apparent. However, of course, despite the numerous ways to rearrange the order, there was only a finite amount of orders and as such, each failure reduced the chances of getting another failure… or, at least, that is what he was telling himself so as to be better able to handle the high chance of not being able to succeed and thus being pulled backward rather than forward, or at least just having to stop there and stop.

Soon there was less than an hour to go. He was sweating; not profusely, but steadily enough to feel it on his skin. Mistakes were slipping in, but focus remained as sharp as before. Not too many combination remained, or at least that his how he felt. There soon would be some sort of success. It could be felt.

And then the time was up. There was no success to be had. There was no more chances after this. It was over, and the correct series of commands was yet to be discovered. There was nothing left to do. This is where it unfortunately had to wrap up.

There soon would be people arriving. The least he could do was wait.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:27:05

Not sure as to why this came out so seriously.

I think I was trying to interject a sense of tension.

At the end I think I was trying to create a sense of “clear ambiguity” for lack of a better phrase.

Written at home.