Raven RAVEN It's cold. And silent. And dark. I am as weightless as a thought, as a shadow underwater. The only thing that gives me substance is the sense of filling up with... something. Something thick and powerful and inhuman, unearthly. I want to squirm away from it but there is nothing to squirm with. All I am is a selection of verbs: to fill, to grow, to change, to perfect. It's as though I'm being rebuilt from scratch. Days pass like this. Lifetimes. A lonely wisp of nothing floating in a sea of... what's left of my mind searches for the word. Obedience? Duty? I'm being entwined in something, as though my nerves are unraveling and tangling into some idea of... I can't see it. I can't hear it or smell it or taste it. It's nothing, a void, like the space left behind when something is lost. I can feel its emptiness, feel it trying to consume me, to ensnare me. But there's something else resisting it, something stubborn and intractable, something human . Regret. And the idea that not every broken thing is unfixable. In the darkness, I sense someone with me, and though this someone is no more substantial than I am, they feel heavy, like tears of grief or remorse. Tiny yet galactic. "Hello?" I'm not sure how I say it. I don't seem to have a mouth. The answer comes back to me as an impression of force on matter--the particles of air vibrating from sound, the light flickering on August's hands moving as he signed. Memory. Oh... August. Get me out of here. I'm afraid. August? Excerpted from Cold Falling White by G. S. Prendergast All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.