Shattered

Начало книги

When I was alive, I dreamed of flying.

Or maybe I should say: When I was alive, I dreamed.

Sometimes it was flying; more often it was falling. Or burning—trying to scream, trying to run, but frozen and silent and consumed by flames. I dreamed of being alone. Of my face melting or my teeth falling out.

I dreamed of Walker, his body tangled up in mine. Sometimes I dreamed I was Walker, that my hands were his hands, my fingers the ones massaging soft, smooth skin, getting caught in long strands of blond hair. Awake, people talk about becoming one—but in dreams it can really happen. His lips, my lips. Our lips. Our bodies. Our need.

In dreams you can become everything you’re not. You can reverse the most fundamental truths of your life. You can taste death, the ultimate opposite.

I can’t. Not anymore. Machines can’t die, can’t dream.

But we can fly.

From inside the plane, jumps don’t look like jumps. One second there’s a figure in the jump hatch, fingers gripping the edge, hair whipping in the wind, wingsuit rippling. Then the wind snatches another victim, an invisible hand yanking its prey out of the plane. Leaving nothing behind but an empty patch of murky gray sky.

Читать дальше →