Compression

by Karen Hallam

The pictures anchor us to the past.

Waking from the long sleep, my old body is gone, I slip into a new outer shell. Only consciousness crosses over.

At least I still have eyes, I’m seeing in the same colour spectrum. I spit out the bitter waking solution, confirming tongue and taste remain. My first breaths tell me I have lungs.

The inspector strolls over, without a care in the world, not having been compressed into a nightmare. The dreams they tell us, are the passageway. When we awaken a new world is possible. It looks the same to me.



Author bio: I'm a member of SCBWI and International Thriller Writers. My Young Adult novella, The Unmoving Sky was published with Leap Books in 2016, and my Sci-Fi story Charger Nine was featured in the anthology Alien Dimensions #13 (October 2017). Over and Over is the debut issue of Fantasy Short Stories Anthology (Sept. 2018), and my SFF story G.L.O.R.I.A. published in Alien Dimensions #16 (Sept. 2018). Currently revising a historical fantasy.
www.karenleehallam.com 
www.klhallam.com
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Compression is part of 101 Fiction issue 25.