For a second I think about how easy it would be to pass back to the other side, to walk straight into the laboratories and offer myself up to the surgeons. You were right; I was wrong. Get it out.

I start to back away before I do something wildly inappropriate, like jump on top of him.

The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.

It is a ruined-world, a nonsense-place.

That is the rule of the Wilds: You must be bigger and stronger and tougher. You must hurt or be hurt.

This was what true fear was--that you could never know other people, not completely. That you were always just guessing blind.

Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says. it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.