Wayward: Wayward Pines: 2 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)

by Blake Crouch

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. —John Milton, Paradise Lost

Shakespeare could have been writing about Pines: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.

It wasn’t just a physical confinement, but a mental one as well, and it was the mental aspect that made it feel like a stint in solitary. The inability to outwardly acknowledge one’s past or thoughts or fears. The inability to truly connect with a single human being.

In Pines, it was only ever small talk, and getting accustomed to that level of interaction had been one of the toughest hurdles to her integration.