Writing Prompt: Starting With Someone Else's Sentence

In my last writing group session, we had an exercise that was simple enough and probably could be done at any time.  However, it does have challenges of its own.  Basically, we flipped one of a few possible different books, picked a random short story or chapter, and read the very first sentence in that section.  Then, using that sentence, we make our own story.  It doesn't have to be the same content as what's in the book; we just needed to use that one sentence as a starting point, and make it our own.

Flipping open one book, I came across a story that started off with this:


Like heat-seeking missiles, they’re always the first to find you, even in the thickest throng of partygoers.

This story went on to describe how a bunch of guys honed in on the narrator to leech off of his screenwriting skills.  I wound up turning it into a story about a bunch of drunk guys honing in on a hacker to make him hook them up to a virtual reality dreamland.  I couldn't finish that story in time, and am still working on it, but I hope to post it here when it's ready.  That's basically all there is to it.

Do be aware that this is meant as an exercise only.  If you do make a full-blown story out of this prompt, using someone else's opening sentence,  you really must change the first sentence so as not to plagiarize or steal that sentence.  Especially if you're considering publishing your finished story commercially.

So, find a book of any kind, open to the start of a story, and use the first sentence as a starting point for your own story.

If you're having trouble finding a good starting point on your own, here are a few openers in my own collection of books that might help you:

• The assassin slung the bag concealing his weapon over his shoulder and walked down the steps to the rickety wooden jetty.
• Being fat had its obvious rewards.
• Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.
• I dressed a bit more speedily than normal on that snowy, windy, bitter night. 
• Everything was the fault of the damned acrobat.
• It was a dark and stormy night.
• It was a hard jolt for me, one of the most bitterest I ever had to face.
• A long time ago, nearly thirty years now, I had a friend who was waiting to be discovered.
• The most important things are the hardest to say.
• The naked man who lay splayed out on his face beside the swimming pool might have been dead.
• There's a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guess.
• The stones moved.
• I wasn't surprised to learn that my father had died.