I do know who you are. I just needed to be reminded.

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.

Fighting for survival in a shattered world... the truth is her only hope.

That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way—which is that if they are persistent enough, even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back.

They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave

I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation.