After that, she wasn't sure what the game was or if she'd imagined it. All she knew was that she had lost.

I got bored," he says. "Besides, you know what's creepier than walking around your dead brothers' apartment? Sitting alone in a hearse in front of his apartment.

If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.

Everyone danced -- sweaty bodies packed tight, drunk with sound.

It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.

A stray dog, I might understand," she said. "But this? You are too softhearted." No, Mabry," Ravus said. "I am not." He looked in Val's direction. "I think she wants to die." Maybe you can help her after all," Mabry said. "You're good at helping people die.