“Now that I've said this, I can't help but say more, can't help but speak the words that have been gathering in my head like dark clouds before the storm, building pressure and growing, and rolling over themselves in chaos.”

“[In my dream] they slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain...I can't struggle, I can't stop laughing, I can't resist these people who once were.”

“He stares at the two girls. Two broken bodies that moments before had been whole.He did this. He helped to break the world.”

“But then he whispers, "It will be okay, Mary." He pulls my head down to his chest and he wraps both his arms around me and all I can think is why can't life just stop here and now and leave us be in this moment.”

“It's as if everything shifts around me, the pieces that didn't fit together finally twisting until they match. The terror that had been clouding and suffocating me begins to filter away, dissipating in the night. "I want something more too," I whisper. "I want more than looking back and wishing for what was or what could have been. Who I was or could have been. I want..." I lick my lips, tasting him. "I want you.”

“Do you ever think it's the dead that have the happy ending? Just they don't have to worry about surviving.""But they're dead," he says"Yeah. That means they don't have to remember anything."Elias shakes his head. "That means they can't ever love."I snort. "So they don't know loss.”

“...I realized that life isn't something to be scared of. That you don't have to hold on so tightly that you can't breathe.”