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an excerpt

"First of all, my name is Cara Danielle Sanders. I'm twenty-three years old and am originally from what used to be called the United States. Now, though, people have taken to calling it just the Northwestern Continent. A lot of people still just don't like to admit that the whole thing now belongs to Canada. Who knew that they would end up paying off our national debt?"

"The nearer I got to the little girl and the fountain, the more detail seemed to jump out at me. Although the girl's clothes were clean and pressed looking, the edge of her knee-length skirt was frayed. The light blue color looked as though it had once been bright, and the heels on her shoes were worn down. Her hair was just longer than her shoulders, severly straight, and the color of dark chocolate. It was held back from her face with what I'd assumed to have been little hairclips. Therefore it was a bit of a surprise when I realized them to really be paperclips, just normal everyday paperclips. I became more and more curious the closer I got, and I could feel myself being sucked into that realm of caring about someone else."

"Time seemed suspended as we both stared at the fountain. When I first started looking at it all I could see was a giant stone basin that was continuously being over-filled by water. Slowly, though, I was mezmerized by the sound of the water tinkling down and splashing into the bottom pool. The sheets of water eventually became individual drops that slowed to the point where I could watch each one make its own slow decent. The morning light was reflected tenfold in each drop, making the plain fountain explode with color as the sun rose up past the horizon."

"Her hand slowly raised toward my shoulder. I didn't even blink or turn my head, my body felt disconnected from my mind. When she finally made contact it felt as though a butterfly had landed on my brain; they were the only two physical things left in the world, and even they were starting to slip away."

"She searched everywhere she could think of in the classroom, her calls to Thomas getting more and more frantic. he wasn't hiding in the storage closet, or under any of the desks. he wasn't standing behind the curtains on the windows, he wasn't anywhere! It was then that Mrs. Johnson happened to notice that the door leading to the playground was unlocked and that all of Thomas' belongings were gone. She rushed to the door and jerked it open, searching the empty playground for any sign of movement. There was none.

'Thomas! Thomas, where are you,' she screamed across the empty grounds. There was no answer."