Mattei Light-foot had passed his adulthood rites and been selected for the draft to the Academy at Karis, when he died of a skull fracture in one of the maintenance corridors abutting the ill-fated Dome Seven, only a week before the supply ship arrived.
Ill-luck, all the adults said. Jehen listened, less than elbow-high as she was, as the conversation went on over her head. No, the funeral would take place with all good form, and the festival for the arriving ship likewise.
After all, it wasn’t the first time that point of protocol had been tested.
They had lost one and gained another. A Ship’s Captain was coming home to them, forty-seven years after she left for the Academy in the youth-draft.
Mattei was laid out on the bier, with his festival regalia draped over him.
***
The opening lines of my work-in-progress novel Ship’s Heart, the prequel to Inside the Jump. Jehen, the main character of Inside the Jump, is six years old.
Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from many different writers. For the full selection, see here.
E. P. Beaumont 
You’ve got my attention. In just 8 sentences I get the sense that this child is going to be a major player and that the death is not a tragic accident. I love your smooth, steady writing voice throughout this snippet. Well done!
Beautifully done. You keep writing ’em, I’ll keep coming back for ’em. I love reading your prose.
Wow, great sentences! I was definitely hooked from the beginning. Very smoothly written, and the mood was easy to discern. Good job! 😀
I enjoyed how you offered a sense of wrongness, of confusion over the goings on with the young dead person.
So much plot hinted at in one paragraph. Leaves me very curious how each of the developments might play out…wonderful excerpt as always!