Dust (Silo, #3)

by Hugh Howey

‘It doesn’t bother me that I won’t be around one day,’ Lukas said after a while. ‘I don’t stress about the fact that I wasn’t here a hundred years ago. I think death will be a lot like that. A hundred years from now my life will be just like it was a hundred years ago.’

‘And every mistake. But every good thing we do as well. They are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on for ever. There’s no changing it.’

Elise asked what nostalgic meant, and Jewel said, ‘It’s where you think the past was better than it really was, only because the present sucks so bad.’

Sleep was a vehicle for passing the time, for avoiding the present. It was a trolley for the depressed, the impatient and the dying.