“Leather cut into Usha's flesh and she screamed. She screamed for the soreness in her back, she screamed for the throbbing sensation in her soft belly, she screamed for the hope that was being lashed out of her; multiple screams for the first few lashings then whimpering as blinding pain clouded her head, numbness froze her body. Hope became hopeless. After twenty lashings even the whimpering stopped, only the nothingness of nothing remained.”

“We've been here before. She knows I won't stop until she screams. Her pride won't let her scream until she's on the cusp of death.”

“Hazel screamed at the top of her lungs, but it was a scream of delight. For the first time in her life-in her two lives-she felt absolutely unstoppable.”

“Her dizziness has faded, but the rocking sensation continues. She feels as if her footing has been swept out from under her. Her body's interior has lost all necessary weight and is becoming a cavern. Some kind of hand is deftly stripping away everything that has constituted her as Eri until now: the organs, the senses, the muscles, the memories. She knows she will end up as a mere convenient conduit used for the passage of external things. Her flesh creeps with the overwhelming sense of isolation this gives her. I hate this! she screams. I don't want to he changed this way! But her intended scream never emerges. All that leaves her throat in reality is a fading whimper.”

“Finally, the lock clicked and she tugged the secret door open. A rotten stench hit her like a fist. She drew away. The boy at her side recoiled, afraid. Sarah fell to her knees. Sarah could not speak, she could only quiver, her fingers covering her eyes, her nose, blocking out the smell.....She sank to her knees again and she screamed at the top of her lungs, she screamed, for her mother, for her father, screamed for Michel.”

“The sound of her voice was painful. She screamed, sobbed, whispered Hallelujah. But she never sang it.”