Everything looks stark and vivid and frozen, as though drawn precisely and outlined in ink - parents' smiles frozen, camera flashes blinding, mouths open and white teeth glinstening, dark glossy hair and deep blue sky and unrelenting light, everyone drowning in light - everything so clear and perfect I'm sure it must already be a memory, or a dream.

That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot. It is hard and deep and angular, a system of blockades. It is everything and total. Hatred is a high tower. In the Wilds, I start to build, and to climb.

Time jumps. It leaps. It pours away like water through fingers.

Anger is useful only to a certain point. After that, it becomes rage, and rage will make you careless.

There is only what you want and what happens. There is only grabbing on and holding tight in the darkness.

My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart.

He was still in love with you, anyway.