There will be so much more in between. So much uncertainty. I don't know if we'll survive the catacombs, let alone the rest of it. But it doesn't matter. For now, these steps are enough. These first few precious steps into darkness. Into the unknown. Into freedom.

~ Sabaa Tahir

Sabaa Tahir Elias Escape Freedom Laia

It is always the enemy who started it, even if he was not the first to speak out, he was certainly planning it; and if he was not actually planning it, he was thinking of it; and, if he was not thinking of it, he would have thought of it.

~ Elias Canetti

Elias Canetti Canetti Crowds Elias Enemy Power

How easy it was to slip through the cracks alongside him. To fall in the very same trap I had committed to free him from.

~ Jonathan Friesen

Jonathan Friesen Clara Cracks Elias Fall Falling Free Promise Trap World

No, no. Not a genius. This is like what reading is like for you. You look at the squiggles and loops, and the puzzle opens until suddenly nothing means something, something more than the sum of the parts, right? I see one hunk of metal and then another, and the puzzle opens. They turn in my mind and just make sense. Together they all mean something.

~ Jonathan Friesen

Jonathan Friesen Build Clara Elias Illiterate Meaning Puzzle Reading Some Of The Parts

What's wrong with me? I lose my footing, in here.' He touched his head. 'When a neuro-typical looses their footing, they yell or escape to the TV, or maybe the doctor throws them on depression meds. But when I slip, I fall all the way through. I feel the ground give way and I'm gone. It's a crack -- a crack in what's real, and beneath there I'm stuck. Then, I guess I become someone else. Mom says I still know my name, but I walk a different world. The shrink calls it DID -- Dissociative Identity Disorder -- with a little added autism to spice up my other personality. I suppose he's right, but only I know how it feels to slip through the cracks. Then the monster shows up.

~ Jonathan Friesen

Jonathan Friesen Brain Clara Disorder Elias Falling Identity Mental Monsters Multiple Personality Disorder Stars

We're all here. We're close to the truck, and we met Kenton, a fine citizen of Salem. We rescued Izzy and found our way through a very sad darkness, dangers that we knew from Izzy's Orion interpretation would be waiting for us. We're definitely on the right track.

~ Jonathan Friesen

Jonathan Friesen Clara Elias Heroes Izzy Kenton Path Salem Summary Weird

Wanting and wishing are very different

~ Jonathan Friesen

Jonathan Friesen Clara Elias Truth Want Wanting Wish Wishes Wishing