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'll be your family now," he says.

If I don't survive," I say, "tell Tobias I didn't want to leave him.

I'll have to keep looking for more of them, more brief moments of freedom in a world that refuses to allow it.

Drink this," she says. "What is it?" my throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?" "Can't tell you that. Just trust me." I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

Part of me wonders if this is a suicide mission disguised as a game.

Eyes open, then," I say, tapping the skin between my eyebrows. I don’t really need her eyes to be on mine, but I feel better when they are.