Maybe the last human being on Earth won't die of starvation or exposure or as a meal of wild animals. Maybe the last one to die will be killed by the last one alive.

Prayers and promises. The one his sister made to him. The unspoken one I made to my sister. Prayers are promises, too, and these are the days of broken promises.

To hold on, you have to find something you’re willing to die for.

When you look death in the eye and death blinks first, nothing seems impossible.

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

He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he’s holding it, like it belongs to him, the hard-fought-for territory he’s won fair and square.

There are those who labor in the darkness, that the rest of us might live in the light.