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there’s defiance in your heart still, and the will to fight. you will not go down like this.

i am all teeth and claws, sharp and pointed. a thing like me can never be loved.

there is no monster like me.

i swear i will burn this city to the ground before i ever go out quietly.

there are no children anymore. only survivors. childhood and innocence are luxuries afforded to the privileged. not us.

i think i am angry. i think i’ve been angry for a long time.

she is fire. she is pain. she is a crack in the world through which something else—magic or god or the heat of every unanswered wish and impossible dream, burning eternal on the other side of everything—pours through.

there’s blood on your hands, i’m sorry i bleed.

you know what my mother used to call me? dangerous. “you’re a dangerous girl”. she was right.

i am sad and angry and i want everyone to be alive again.

there’s defiance in your heart still, and the will to fight. you will not go down like this.

dying is simple. it all just stops. you’re dead. the people around you dying … that’s the hard part.

parts of me died in the house i grew up in.

you love him despite the burden of atlas resting on his shoulders, and he loves you despite the death still clinging to your lips, and the blood drying at its corners. what a pair you make.

i can go anywhere i want ╱ anywhere i want, just not home.

i could always bear the burden because they told me i was strong. because they told me i was the only one who could.

if you stop fighting that force inside of you, if you embrace it, you will possess the very power of a god.

i should be dead already, but there is work to do.

why is it my job to save these people .ᐣ why do i have to be some kind of hero .ᐣ

i am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. there is an empty place where my heart once was.