More Than This

by Patrick Ness

unable to move or think or receive input, able only to exist.

Is this a dream? he thinks, the words coming to him slowly, thickly, as if from a great distance. The last dream before death?

maybe it isn’t really even a place at all, maybe it’s just what happens when your final dying seconds turn into an eternity. The place of the worst season of your life, frozen forever, decaying without ever really dying.

it would do so without you ever being able to convince it not to and without you ever knowing why you were dying.

“I risked being happy. I did risk it.”

you continue to believe I am in need of your permission.”