A Thousand Million Lives

Uki has lived a thousand million lives - perhaps even more. Her existence stretches so far beyond ordinary time that days, months, and years are meaningless; only the heaving of continents and the fury of tectonic plates are vast enough to measure her age.

But now, something is wrong. Where her soul once slipped effortlessly from one life to the next-between the final beat of one heart and the first beat of another-there are gaps. Vast, echoing chasms of nothingness are beginning to spread b...