As Roran watched, the man's arms, neck, and chest shriveled, and his bones appeared in sharp relief-from the bowlike curve of his collarbones to the hollow saddle of his hips, where his stomach hung like an empty waterskin. His lips puckered and drew back farther than they were intended to over his yellow teeth, baring them in a grisly snarl, while his eyeballs deflated as if they were engorged ticks being squished empty of blood, and the surrounding flesh sank inward.

The ghosts that exert the most power in people__ lives-at least, the people I know__end to be of their own making, and consist of equal parts regret and old fears and just plain missing somebody.

The water wasn't the same down here. Water is what runs out of the kitchen taps or a playground drinking fountain. It fills bathubs and pools and yes, of course, the ocean- but at a certain depth, water becomes a barrier from all you remember, all you think you know.You're trapped within it, a plaything of it.Focus erodes. Your thoughts mutate. The pressure.The pressure.The soul can't cope with that. It shouldn't be expected to.Humans weren't built for this. There's a reason nothing lives down here.Or nothing should.

There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second.

The spark of consciousness is reflected in the river, where a dance of infinite faces lined in profane lights.

Eve was happy for her bestie. She just wished she had a guy who would look at her the way Seth looked at her friend, eyes all starry.No, that wasn't it. Or it wasn't completely it. Eve knew there were guys at school who liked her and would give her the Seth-look if she gave them the opportunity. But she didn't want the look from any of those guys. She wanted the look she could give the look back to. She wanted to find a guy she could all-out love who would all-out love her back.