IMPORTANT NOTE: this post was written before the previous two, but not posted. I’ve changed the post date so that it appears before the other two posts. Its original post date was not Jan 17 but Jan 19 after the second post. No intent to deceive. DBJ.
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It had been a tough day for all concerned. The weather was awful. The animals were restive. The food was scarce and no one knew what was coming next. The hardest part was that they’d lost Anna. Anna had been their strongest fighter. She’d been experienced, committed and caring. She’d had a way of calming everyone. She understood the fight they were in. She’d been fighting even before they arrived. Now, thanks to yet another microspasm, she was gone.
No one really understood the microspasms. Yet, nearly every time they occurred, someone new joined them… or they lost someone. Some of the people they gained were even more useless at surviving the tough, mountain winter than they were. A few, like Anna, were warriors, survivors… and they made things easier.
The newest arrival had yet to awaken. That was the way it sometimes was. People came through the rifts violently, sometimes so violently, it killed them. This man looked strong. For one thing, he was armed . They’d learned quickly that those who came through armed tended to be more useful in the fight… but also more dangerous.
They didn’t tend to react well to being dragged headfirst into a new world – and some of them seemed to have no idea how it had occurred or even to have any knowledge of the microfractures in reality that occurred whenever the microspasms began.
So, for now, the newcomer’s weapons were stored. His Beretta, his backpack full of rations, ammunition, knives, and a journal that suggested he might come from a world very different from this one… but one where survival skills were apparently just as valuable.
dbjgold 