“Every punishment you’ve ever subjected anyone to? You do it to yourself every day. Every minute. Your pain is chronic. Your existence is pointless. When your consciousness blinks out—which it will,” he added with an irreverent wink and a toast of his empty glass, “it will be as if you never existed at all. There will be no lovers, no family or friends to think fondly of you the moment your hold over them collapses. No memories for anyone to treasure but the ones you manufactured, which will dissolve into
