Viki

“With a wave of this body’s hand all the braziers are snuffed out in this Inverted Theater. The movement is sudden, as is the disappearance of the light, the darkness you are submerged in so complete you can feel it as a presence that surrounds you, blocking sight of even your own hand. It is not so much an absence as it is an overwhelming smog. You can feel it in your chest. The tightness of your breath. The darkness is closing in on you.

Such was the quality of night in the Old Country, or what they then knew as the true dark, which, when the sun fell from its daily perch, was total and unyielding.

What else could they have hoped for, with no moon in the sky?”
― Simon Jimenez, The Spear Cuts Through Water

“Don't let this silence become a habit.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I wish I’d found you before. Not someone like you. But you.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. Memory may not be the heart of what makes us human, but it's at least a vital organ. Nevertheless, we must take care not to let the bliss of the present fade when compared to supposedly better days. We're happy, sure, but were we more happy then? If we let it, memory can make shadows of the now, as nothing can match the buttressed legends of our past. Do not let memory chase you. Enjoy memories, yes, but don't be a slave to who you wish you once had been.
Those memories aren't alive. You are.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea