01c. 1981 ADWe keep sending colonies up into space,” Akilah says, “and we don’t even know what’s at the bottom of the sea.”“Yeah, we do,” I counter. “Fish and stuff.”Akilah laughs. “We’ve barely explored the sea. There are places where the water is so deep that it has never seen light.” She sighs. “I would like to go to those places. I would like to sink down and down and down and see what’s hidden at the bottom.”The sea is a dangerous place because it makes you believe in forever. I stare back at the shoreline, where heavy boulders clutter the shore, a remembrance of the attacks during the Secessionary War. For all the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the war, more are dead and gone beneath the waves of the sea. I tread water, turning slowly, so the island’s behind me and all I can see is the blue-green waters. The sea goes on forever and ever. We are tiny, almost invisible specks. It could swallow us up. We are less than the bright stars of the night sky, compared to the vastness of the sea.And it is this place, as one tiny, barely visible speck bobbing in the water, where Akilah feels safe.Maybe being alone in the sea, with its unexplored depths, its clawing-finger waves, really is safer compared to the land, where there are people and malice and death.Beth Revis / quote ↗
02c. 1981 ADMaybe one day the smears of paint Harley left throughout Godspeed will fade, and maybe the stars never will, but i'd rather have Harley's colors.Beth Revis / quote ↗
03c. 1981 ADAnd I look at Harley, and the billions of stars are in his eyes, and he's drinking them up, pouring them into his soul.Beth Revis / quote ↗
04c. 1981 ADI stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of buBeth Revis / quote ↗
05c. 1981 ADI cannot imagine a more perfect hell than being trapped inside my own mind.Beth Revis / quote ↗
06c. 1981 ADI feel alone.I don't mean i feel lonely; I mean i feel alone, the same way i feel the blanket resting on my body, or the feathers of my pillow under my head, or the tight string of my sleep pants twisted up around my waist. I feel alone as if it were an actual thing, seeping throughout this whole level like mist blanketing a field, reaching into all the hidden corners of my room and finding nothing living but me. It's a cold sort of feeling, this.Beth Revis / quote ↗
07c. 1981 ADI realize the simple truth is that power isn’t control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.Beth Revis / quote ↗
08c. 1981 ADWhat you really want to know,” I say, “is how to make sure we all don’t just rip each other apart, right?” The fight earlier is way too fresh in our minds. We are a powder keg; just a spark will blow us apart.Beth Revis / quote ↗
09c. 1981 ADIf I can only see him in madness, is it worth trying to hold onto sanity?Beth Revis / quote ↗
10c. 1981 ADHow ironic it would be, to die at his hands while trying to save him, when he first came to me because he was trying to save me.Beth Revis / quote ↗
11c. 1981 ADI’ve made her relive, over and over, the last few days,” I say softly, watching Ms. White’s body. “I’ve had to fill in the blanks with my own feelings and experiences. She’s spiraling around those last moments, those times when she went against me, and she’s feeling it from my side, the pain, the betrayal.”She thinks she’s awake. I’m doing to her just what she did to me. I’m making her feel what it was like to slowly go crazy, to question everything. To watch my mother die. To fight for my life against my best friend. To feel the man who loved me try to kill me.To know that the woman I trusted as much as my own mother betrayed me.That’s what I’m making her feel.I’ve turned her into me, and made her live the life she forced me to live.Over and over and over again.Beth Revis / quote ↗
12c. 1981 ADKayleigh was right. Without the pills, you really do feel nothing.And nothing can be nice.Beth Revis / quote ↗
13c. 1981 ADWhen you wake up, your face will be dry. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t cry.Beth Revis / quote ↗
14c. 1981 ADThe silence in our house now is born from the need for intense concentration, as we all carefully step around the truth we wish we didn't know, the person we can't help that Bo became, the future we're all afraid is collapsing around us, falling as silent and cold and crushing as snow.Beth Revis / quote ↗
15c. 1981 ADI wish you were here,” I say, shutting my eyes and remembering the way Dad looked in my hallucination.I hear his voice again, so real that I’m worried I’m about to fall into another hallucination. Maybe that’s what I really want. If I can only see him in madness, is it worth trying to hold onto sanity?Beth Revis / quote ↗
16c. 1981 ADElla!" the voice yells, but I cannot tell where it is coming from. The sound wraps around me, spreading like spilt water and then evaporating into silence.Beth Revis / quote ↗
17c. 1981 ADThere are countless reasons to be jealous. But that doesn’t mean you have to succumb to them.Beth Revis / quote ↗
18c. 1981 ADAnd then I realize: this isn’t dirty water falling from the sky.It is—literally—blood.I look up, and a droplet of blood splashes directly into my eye. I curse, rubbing my face, trying to get the blood out, but it’s everywhere, it’s like trying to dry off in the middle of the ocean. Shielding my face as best I can, I stare up into the sky.I am in the center of a cyclone.Giant white clouds swirl like a spiraling galaxy above me, the eye a tiny dark speck. The storm rages, throwing out bloody rain like punches, the wind so vicious it tears my clothes and cuts my skin.Representative Belles’s mind is swirling with dark thoughts—bloody thoughts—and they have created the biggest storm I have ever seen.I have to stop the cyclone. I have to get him into a peaceful reverie, something that he can hold on to while I root around his brain, looking for answers.I focus all of my concentration on stopping the bloody rain. The drops come slower and slower. I take a deep breath, imagining the clouds breaking up, spinning into fluffy bits of cotton-candy like clouds. I don’t open my eyes until the sounds of beating rain disappear and I can feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun on my face.Beth Revis / quote ↗
20c. 1981 ADPeople are, at their heart, constantly moving toward a state of entropy. Much like this ship. We’re all spiraling out of control.Beth Revis / quote ↗
21c. 1981 ADShe stops speaking, but I can hear her silent sobs. They’re the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.Beth Revis / quote ↗
22c. 1981 ADMy heart stutters—not why? or how?—those are not the important questions. The really important question is: by whom?Beth Revis / quote ↗
23c. 1981 ADMore than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass....Beth Revis / quote ↗
