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side of her eyelids a painful white. |
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Sunlight. Heat. When she had pleaded to go into the future, the sky had been gray, the air cool and moist. She forced herself to open both eyes and look around. |
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Towering above were two beasts resembling elephants, creatures she had only seen in sketches in books, one small but the other large with curling, threatening tusks. Out in the lake was a third, a rampaging beast, huge and brutal, its snakelike nose raised between long, pointed tusks as though to strike her, its expression wild and frenzied. |
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Caught in her long skirt, hampered further by the black, viscous substance seeping about her on the bank, Abby scrambled to escapethen stopped. The creatures nearest her were not moving. Even the one in the lake barely stirred, just swaying slightly without sound or forward momentum. All seemed frozen, as though time had stopped. |
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Her hand pressed to her mouth, Abby drew in her breath. Had time stopped? |
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And then a voice called, "Abby!" A wonderful, deep, rich voice that she had hardly dared hope to hear again. |
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She looked around. Before her was a pool of water oozing with thick, inky pitch. Behind her was a fence of woven metal. |
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And beyond the fence was the strong, solid fig- |
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