WEBVTT

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The world had ended at the ankles, leaving

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a leon standing somewhere between the Earth and

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the infinite.

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Before him stretched the vast Bolivian salt flat,

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a sprawling expanse of pure white crust buried

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beneath a millimeter -thin sheet of standing rainwater.

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It wasn't just a landscape. It was a

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cosmic mirror.

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As the deep night light settled over the

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high -altitude desert, the boundary between ground and

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sky dissolved entirely.

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There was no horizon, only a seamless, shimmering

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void where the salt met the stars.

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Elion took a slow step forward, the water

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whispering against his boots, sending delicate ripples across

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the detailed reflective texture of the shallow pool.

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Above him, the Milky Way blazed like spilled

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diamond dust, but when he looked down, the

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exact same constellations drifted silently beneath his feet.

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He felt less like a traveler walking on

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solid ground and more like an astronaut suspended

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in deep space, floating weightlessly through a galaxy

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of his own making.

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A gentle breeze swept across the flats, shivering

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the glass -like surface and blurring the reflections

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of a thousand distant suns.

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In that surreal, dreamlike atmosphere, time lost its

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grip.

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He closed his eyes, listening to the absolute

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silence of the plateau, knowing that long after

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he walked away, the earth and the stars

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would remain locked in this quiet, endless embrace.