The First Binding (Tales of Tremaine #1)

by R.R. Virdi

I don’t know if you’re aware of what it’s like to be deprived of your past, your parents. The idea that there is nothing connecting you to anyone in this world apart from your work. There is a certain hollowness, singular and all encompassing, that fills you. The notion that you are all that is—nothing more—and when you’re not much on your own, it’s a rather crushing thing.

“The mistake people often make about pain is that larger ones inure you to little ones. False. It all hurts. Big or little. And the more you endure in life, the more you become aware of it all. Pain is pain. It’s all valid. It’s all felt.”

fear knows all too well how to keep you stuck in a place that will be the slow death of you.

To some this sounds silly, but I wonder if those people ever wondered where their next meal might come from … much less when? If they knew the different kinds of pains hunger fills you with. A man grown familiar enough with barely eating could tell the day by the shape of the hunger hurting him.