I feel his heartbeat against my cheek,as fast as my own. "Are you afraid of me, too, Tobias?" "Terrified," he replies with a smile.

A sob racks my body again, and he wraps his arms around me so tightly I find it difficult to breathe, but it doesn't matter. My dignified weeping gives way to full-on ugliness, my mouth open and my face contorted and sounds like a dying animal coming from my throat. If this continues I will break apart, and maybe that would be better, maybe it would be better to shatter and bear nothing.

No factions? A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can't even fathom it. I imagine only chaos and isolation.

I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm.

I know that change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten.

If utopian fiction became the new trend, I wouldn't read it.

Do the elevators work?" I ask Uriah, as quietly as I can. "Sure they do." says Zeke, rolling his eyes, "You think I'm stupid enough not to come here early and turn on the emergency generator?" "Yeah," says Uriah. "I kinda do.