Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Pitiless. This was Luke's second and overriding sense. Beholding them. Luke realized for the first time in his life that there are things on earth, or beyond it, who are careless in the most quotidian terms: they lack the inclination or desire to care for anything. They are pitiless in the most simplified fashion, as they simply lack the ability to feel it.

The water wasn't the same down here. Water is what runs out of our kitchen taps or a playground drinking fountain. It fills bathtubs and pools and yes, of course, the ocean--but at a certain depth, water becomes a barrier from all you remember, all you think you know. You're trapped within it, a plaything of it. Focus erodes. Your thoughts mutate. The pressure. The pressure. The soul can't cope with that.

Luke's feelings for her changed gradually. Before the incident, he'd loved his mother openheartedly in spite of the worrisome signs--the spankings that left welts, the way her gaze could sit upon his skull like a tarantula ready to sink in its fangs. But during the Bad Years, she became truly cruel. In time, Luke realized that cruelty was an implicit facet of her nature; she'd simply taken awhile to express it.

He may not have drunk water in days. He'd forgotten to, probably. That's how it went with the 'Gets: you forgot the little things first, then the not-so-little things, then the big ones. Next, the critical ones. In time, your heart forgot how to beat, your lungs how to breathe. You die knowing nothing at all.