Lauren Oliver

She knew that this day, this feeling, couldn't last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why it was so beautiful. Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too.The bravery was in moving forward, no matter what.

Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says.it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.

They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how it happened for me.

Maybe before you die, it's your ghosts you see.

Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.

At least when I'm sleeping I can dream myself back to Alex, can dream myself into a different world.

In my dream I know I am falling. But there is no up or down, no walls or sides or ceilings, just the sensation of cold and darkness everywhere. I am so scared I could scream. But when I open my mouth, nothing happens. And I wonder if you fall forever and never touch down, is it really still falling? I think I will fall forever.

I can't stop thinking about what Caroline said to Minna about death. It isn't an infection, she said. She might be right. Then again, we've nested in the walls like bacteria. We've taken over the house, its insulation and its plumbing - we've made it our own. Or maybe it's life that's the infection: a feverish dream, a hallucination of feelings. Death is purification, a cleaning, a cure.

Is it true?_ I ask him.__s what true?_ His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.__hat you still love me,_ I say, breathless. __ need to know.__lex nods. He reaches out and touches my face__arely skimming my cheekbone and brushing away a bit of my hair. __t__ true.___ut . . . I__e changed,_ I say. __nd you__e changed.___hat__ true too,_ he says quietly. I look at the scar on his face, stretching from his left eye to his jawline, and something hitches in my chest.__o what now?_ I ask him. The light is too bright; the day feels as though it__ merging into dream.__o you love me?_ Alex asks. And I could cry; I could press my face into his chest and breathe in, and pretend that nothing has changed, that everything will be perfect and whole and healed again.But I can__. I know I can__.__ never stopped._ I look away from him. I look at Grace, and the high grass littered with the wounded and the dead. I think of Julian, and his clear blue eyes, his patience and goodness. I think of all the fighting we__e done, and all the fighting we have yet to do. I take a deep breath. __ut it__ more complicated than that.__lex reaches out and places his hands on my shoulders. ____ not going to run away again,_ he says.__ don__ want you to,_ I tell him.His fingers find my cheek, and I rest for a second against his palm, letting the pain of the past few months flow out of me, letting him turn my head toward his. Then he bends down and kisses me: light and perfect, his lips just barely meeting mine, a kiss that promises renewal.

And then, just at that moment, when I'm no longer sure if I'm dreaming or awake or walking some valley in between where everything you wish for comes true, I feel the flutter of his lips on mine, but it's too late, I'm slipping, I'm gone, he's gone, and the moment curls away and back on itself like a flower folding up for the night.

He pauses for only a fraction of a second. Then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine, and the whole world powers off, the moon and the rain and the sky and the streets, and it__ just the two of us in the dark, alive, alive, alive.

That was the problem with the outside world, the human world. The whole thing was made up puzzles, of a language she didn't quite speak.

She lives for this-the fight, the battle for survival. She actually enjoys it.

I'm not ugly but I'm not pretty either. Everything is in-between. I have eyes that aren't green or brown, but a muddle. I'm not thin but I'm not fat either. the only thing you could definitely say about me is that: I'm short

Amazingly, I can still see the stars: whole galaxies blooming from nothing - pink and purple suns, vast silver oceans, a thousand white moons.

When she was little, she'd liked to pretend that stars were really lights anchoring distant islands, as if she wasn't looking up but only out across a dark sea. She knew the truth now but still found stars comforting, especially in their sameness. A sky full of burning replicas.

People are stubborn and stupid. They're irrational. they're destructive. that's the point, isn't it? That's the whole reason for the cure. People will no longer destroy their own lives. They won't be capable of it.

__nd you completely blow me away and rip my world up and everything else, and then you go back to ignoring me._ __ blew you away?_ I squeak out before I can stop myself. He stares at me steadily. __ou blew everything away.