She stared at Raven in a long second of shocked silence, before sagging to the floor.

At some point, even the greatest misery begins to fade. Life, or what passes for life, plods on in it's own unending weary footsteps, and somehow we plod along with it, if we stay lucky.

The Professor gripped his axe, having pulled it, with some difficulty, from the boy's head.

Despite the horror, we survivors were endowed with a will to survive. Or instinct. Or maybe it was faith.

In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.