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“Hold it right there!”
He shook me from my pleasant daydream. I turned back and lost my balance. I crouched and clung to the girder.
“Come back here! Or I’ll open fire!” one of the Changeling soldiers said.
His blaster was aimed directly at me.
I peered between him and the engine’s tip just a few short strides away.
“If you want me, you’re going to have to come get me,” I said.
I straightened my back to full height and marched toward the engine.
“I said stop!” the Changeling soldier said.
But I kept moving. Now I was only a dozen yards from the engine.
“I’m warning you!” the Changeling soldier said.
Just three yards to go.
I’m going to make it!
A bolt of plasma screeched, no more than an inch above my shoulder.
The shock made me jolt.
On a narrow ledge, that was exactly what I didn’t want.
The Changeling that’d threatened me had been the one to open fire. His buddy had knocked the rifle off target at the last moment.
“You fool!” he said. “If you hit the engine, we’re all dead!”
The entire scene happened in a fraction of a second.
And just like that, I lost my balance and sailed over the edge.
Toward the floor far below.
Toward my death.
The fall was a long one.
I sailed down…
Down…
Down…
The closer you got to death the slower time went.
I recalled when our minivan sailed over the cliff edge and into the ravine below, bound for the jagged and weighty rocks.
We were doomed for sure.
Time slowed to a crawl then too. I had never been more aware of my surroundings than I had been during what I thought would be the final few seconds of my life.
My meditation teacher would have been proud.
