Sarah Nutter

“Black is the color that is no color at all.
Black is the color of a child's still, empty bedroom. The heaviest hour of night-the one that traps you in your bunk, suffocating in another nightmare. It is a uniform stretched over the broad shoulders of an angry young man. Black is the mud, the lidless eye watching your every breath, the low vibrations of the fence that stretches up to tear at the sky.
It is a road. A forgotten night sky broken up by faded stars.
It is the barrel of a new gun, leveled at your heart.
The color of Chubs's hair, Liam's bruises, Zu's eyes.
Black is a promise of tomorrow, bled dry from lies and hate.
Betrayal.
I see it in the face of a broken compass, feel it in the numbing grip of grief.
I run, but it is my shadow. Chasing, devouring, polluting. It is the button that should never have been pushed, the door that shouldn't have opened, the dried blood that couldn't be washed away. It is the charred remains of buildings. The car hidden in the forest, waiting. It is the smoke.
It is the fire.
The spark.
Black is the color of memory.
It is our color.
The only one they'll use to tell our story.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”
― Nora Ephron

“Just trust me.” “Only three words worry me more,” the gorgon muttered. “Oh?” “Hold my beer.” I snickered.”
― R.J. Blain, Playing with Fire

“You wanna go build some shelves with me?”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight