“We walked to another door with an amber light above it. This one led to a hall I hadn’t seen before. It was less pristine than the others. There were whiteboards on the walls, scribbled with notes about cafeteria menus and security sweeps. There were even a few flyers taped up, advertising cars for sale or asking if anyone knew a good tutoring service for high school biochemistry. It looked so much more real than the place I’d been since I woke up, so much more human, that it almost made my chest hurt. The world still existed. I’d died and come back, and the whole time I was gone, the world continued.”

“This time, the anger in her voice wasn’t there, and the tears were beginning to overflow her lower lids, starting their slow tracks down her cheeks. She looked old, and tired, and like the woman I’d only ever seen in pictures taken before I was even born. She looked like someone who could have loved me.”

“I was still wearing my shoes. The staff was paid to wash the sheets after every visit, and by the point we left the field, I’d dressed and undressed so many times in the course of decontamination that I never wanted to remove my clothes again. I’d just wear them until they dissolved, and then spend the rest of my life naked.”

“The echoes of my knock were still ringing when the door swung open, revealing a short, cheerfully curvy woman with spiky brown hair streaked with bleach-white lines that looked more accidental than anything else. She was wearing an electric orange T-shirt that read DO NOT TAUNT THE OCTOPUS, jeans, and a lab coat, and was pointing a hunting rifle at the middle of my chest.”

“Gregory smiled a little, holding up an empty syringe. “I’m afraid you don’t have all that much choice in the matter. I added a little something to your IV line. We’ll see you in a few hours.”“What—?” My eyes widened. “You bastard.”“My parents were married.”“You could have… could have asked me…” My voice was already slowing down. I didn’t know whether it was psychosomatic or just very well timed, but either way, I was pissed.”

“You know what? Fuck it. Just fuck it. The Rising didn't manage to wipe out the human race, it just made us turn into even bigger assholes than we were before. Hear that, mad science? You failed. You were supposed to kill us all, and instead you turned us into monsters.”

“…and Dave and I, we were doing this…this weird circling thing, like we needed to figure out every single line of the script before we could even start the movie. I knew, and he knew, and we didn’t do a damn thing about it…It’s like we thought everything had to be perfect, or it wouldn’t work. Like it was a story.”