Each night he would give up on sleeping in his pain and drowning in his silence; he would watch the few stars that were in the sky that night, but he would never be living them. Something has taken his warmth and replaced it with a starless sky.

After all, courage is knowing that fear is inevitable, but living your life despite of it,' she murmured, the words partly obscured by his shoulder. 'Don’t fear love anymore. Sometimes, you just have to keep going and remember that you are not your heartache...' her voice was soft, pronounced, '...and you will find a way.

Delight, pain, agony, ecstasy, rapture, woe—what curious things.He made himself promise to never ignore them again.

The world, Kieran thought, is cruel. But it was the people in it who made it filthy.

I guess—I’ve been hurt by him,' he continued, not sounding like himself, 'but the reason I am hurt is because I love him. And I know that love is weakness, and that you always told me not to give my heart to anyone who could destroy it, but I guess, that is the point of love, is it not? To give yourself so fully to another, knowing that they have the power to destroy you?

And like a rushing tide against his skin, Kieran felt the full weight of the very heavens press against his shoulders; and Kieran marvelled at the whole unfairness of it all.

The thought would not leave him. How God, if there were such a dictator, could allow the cruel to inherit the earth and poison the cups of the innocents, was lost on him.