Category: Across Lives
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Across Lives Part 15
(Photo by Didarul Islam) The two trackers made camp with practiced speed, unrolling what appeared to sheets of canvas that they tied and staked in place, using tree limbs for the higher anchor points. Neither of them spoke while they worked, clearly having done this enough times that they knew what the other would need…
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Across Lives Part 14
(Photo by Francesco Ungaro) Nis was pretty sure that she was being followed. Of the three days that she’d been hiking across the mountains, twice she’d seen what looked like campfire smoke. It was hard to tell for certain since it was only in the evenings when it was still too light out to see…
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Across Lives Part 13
(Photo by Todd Trapani) There was no sleep for Nis that night. All she could think about was getting as far away from that place as quickly as possible. She’d almost left the baskets and the fish she’d caught but had enough sense not to abandon such valuable things. With the moon fully risen into…
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Across Lives Part 12
(Photo by Sanndy Anghan) It was dusk when Nis finally completed her basket. She’d learned a lot from this first real attempt, having needed to go back and undo sections from time to time as she would recognize mistakes or remember steps she’d missed. Skav, to Nis’ great surprise, never complained about these corrections. He…
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Across Lives Part 11
(Photo by Paul Knut) Each morning was a bit easier than the one before it. As Nis sat on a log and wrote down the previous night’s dream about Mel and Tique she marveled at how they had survived their fall. Nis also wondered how much longer they could have survived with such injuries. Her…
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Across Lives Part 10
(Photo by Alfo Medeiros) The world had gone insane, Mel decided. In the year she had been gone, people had gone from being mostly rational to crazed fanatics. In all her lives she’d never seen anything like this. Sure, there were times when people had gone to war with one another and that was a…
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Across Lives Part 9
(Photo by Nashwan Guherzi) It was pitch black when Nis awoke to the sounds of angry shouting. “KYV!” the man, Skav, all but screamed into the night. “SHEZA!” It seemed that Kyv’s appraisal of Skav’s injuries were incorrect. Heavy, stomping footfalls paced an area just beyond the thorn bushes. From time to time Nis heard…
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Across Lives Part 8
(Photo by Markus Spiske) Building a shelter out of branches and leaves was something Nis had dreamed about doing many times, most often when she dreamed about Mel’s life. Although Nis had the benefit of those memories, she still struggled nonetheless to make such a shelter that provided any real protection from the elements. Her…
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Across Lives Part 7
(Photo by Raphael Brasileiro) Most of the doors in the archives could be locked, though most of those locks were hardly ever used. The exterior doors were locked at night, of course. The trick with those locks, however, was that they were only designed to keep people from entering, not exiting. As Nis slipped out…
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Across Lives Part 6
(Photo by Moli Maeder) Life inside the archives improved rapidly for Nis. The instant the archivists saw the ink stained journal and heard Nis’ excuse that she was too cramped inside that little room, a larger room was found and made ready for her. This one had been used in the past to hold meetings,…
Bridge of Broken Glass 