"You are dying, Kip Pilgrim."

Everything inside of him resonated with those words. It was like the framework of a scaffolding was collapsing, and every time, sending little pulses down into the ground, again, again, again.

He looked at the girl sitting on the grass in front of him. When he stared straight at her, she looked like a shadow. An outline of a girl, filled with ink. When he looked away, he could see her; blurred, in red, blonde, thin; looked back, darkness. A shadow.

"What?"

He was still lying in the glass velvet grass. The sky had changed colors. The clouds were gone, four suns were shining, each a different shade of red.

"You are dying."

He giggled, laid his head back down into the grass. He could feel her words as she spoke them. They felt like the grass, but they were brushing his insides. His stomach, his throat, his brain. So many slivers of glass, of velvet glass, painting pictures on his organs, painting them green.

"Thanks."

He heard something moan. Looked up, heard it, felt it coming from the girl.

"What?"

"Don't you want to live?"

Kip dragged a hand across his face, felt his liver painted, let his pinky sit in the corner of his lip.

"I don't know."

In the corner of his eye, Kip saw the girl smile.

"Is this living?"

Smile fades. Tendrils grip tendons.

"This is nothing."

The girl rapidly rose, walked a few feet away, stared into the suns. She spread her arms wide, opened her mouth; a sound like scraping chalk retched out; blackness flew everywhere.

Kip covered his face, burrowed into the grass, cringed at the feeling of that scream. He could feel it clawing at his insides, an angry worm, livid, squirming, tearing, rasping.

It subsided in time. Kip was covered in sweat.

Lifts his head, stares at the girl. There is no more blackness.

"I have broken myself for you, Kip Pilgrim. I have broken who I was, so that you and I could be."