We will cry and bleed and lust and love, and we will cure death. We will be the cure. Because we want it.

I don't want to hear music, I don't want the sunrise to be pink. The world is a liar. Its ugliness is overwhelming; the scraps of beauty make it worse.

I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread.

The shadows of the room pool in the lines of our faces, draining our eyes of hue. "There's nothing left worth saying.

It frustrates and fascinates me that we'll never know for sure, that despite the best efforts of historians and scientists and poets, there are some things we'll just never know. What the first song sounded like. How it felt to see the first photograph. Who kissed the first kiss, and if it was any good.

I wince at her use of the word "human." I've never liked that differentiation. She is living and I'm dead, but we're both human. Call me an idealist.

I can feel it... the chance to start over, to live right, to love right, to burn up in a fiery cloud and never again be buried in the mud.