When I cry - when I let myself cry - that's who I cry for. I don't cry for myself. I cry for the Cassie that's gone. And I wonder what that Cassie would think of me. The Cassie who kills.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.

Adolphus is not at his desk. That means he is somewhere in the Monstrumarium, has gone home for the day, or is dead.

It's hard to plan for what comes next when what comes next is not something you planned for.

It's like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it.

Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another.

So often the monsters that crowd our minds are nothing more than the strange and thoroughly alien progeny of our own fearful fantasies.