His world fell silent. He could no longer hear the sounds of his brothers and sisters, and there was a powerful quiet that took hold of him, eventually giving way to loneliness.

The silence which hung behind the desert pulled his voice through its emptiness, and it rang in my ears like the pure and innocent cry of a newborn babe, magnetizing me, captivating me, urging me onward…

His manner seemed, all at once, strangely foreign and also more beautiful and natural than anything he had seen in all his life.

Once the gate possessed her, Maria begrudgingly, painfully, went back to her regular life, except now she focused every ounce of her energy on becoming Selfless.

He didn’t like the way he could feel the heat of his breath reflecting off the back, or the way the world looked smaller gazing through it.

Without a moment of thought, I cocked my head back, my face reaching towards the golden sun, and I let out a guttural cackle…