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Rendezvous at Stone Crossing
Unlike the bare concrete and steel of stations like Coldessi Boulevard or Paulownia Square, Stone Crossing had a grand street level lobby. White fluted columns held up the arching roof. Old ticket booths lined two walls, their windows barricaded with gilded brass bars. Advertising posters hung over every free section of wall space: shows that…
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 7
Bern, Rianne, Nico, David, Sakari, and Shavonne walked through the drizzle toward the Silver Arches subway station, stepping in and out of pools of bright light produced by the street lamps towering above them. It wouldn’t be long before Bern and Rianne split off from the rest to head home to Sable Heights. Nico told…
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 6
Rain pattered against the windows as everyone finished dinner. Mia and Rianne washed dishes while Cara put away the few leftovers. Shavonne pitched in by wiping down the table and kitchen counters. She also returned the folding chairs to the laundry closet. The boys gathered in the living room to stay out of the girls’…
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 5
A short time later, the eight were sitting around Cara and Mia’s dining table — four in the wooden chairs that matched the table, four in metal folding chairs the sisters pulled out of their laundry closet. They ate Chicken Parmesan off mismatched dishes. Only three of their glasses were identical. Cara took the container…
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 4
Cara, Nico, Sakari, and Shavonne returned from a successful scavenging trip. “The store was dark,” Nico reported. “Power must’ve gone out. Doubt the freezers were working.”
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 3
Mia unlocked the front door and stepped onto the faded burlap welcome mat. She flipped a light switch on the wall, illuminating a bright painting of sunflowers and a brass coat rack. “Come in. Make yourselves at home,” she told David, Bern, and Rianne. By instinct, Mia followed the hardwood floor left then right through…
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 2
Cara took out her phone to check her list, but she couldn’t go past the lock screen. She was so surprised by what she saw that she could only stare at her phone wide-eyed, saying, “Umm…”
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Dinner in Silver Arches, Part 1
There was no point in trying the elevators at the Coldessi Boulevard subway station again. The climb down the emergency staircase was just as dim as before, though it was much easier on everyone’s legs. It was also just long enough for David to share his story with Nico and Shavonne — the one he…
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Coldessi Park, Part 7
The eight huddled together against the wall of a graffiti-covered underpass. Bern would tell them later that he and his skater friends regularly hung out here. The bare concrete cave was quiet now. Nothing but the wind and what they hoped was the distant rumble of thunder.
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Coldessi Park, Part 6
Bern yelled and swung his skateboard at the empty air for a few more moments before collapsing, exhausted. Mia also sank to her knees. She stared at her hands, silent, mouth agape.