I had watched entire worlds die. I had lost my own race. How could I care so much about this one small, unsteady creature? How could her death cut me so deeply?
—The Ellimist, Animorphs - The Ellimist Chronicles
There were large red flowers growing along the edges of the walls defining the rooftop patio - a gift from one of his magic children, right before she died. "To help you breathe," she said kindly, before she breathed her last. Her lips were pale, her eyes were the color of milk, her hair had fallen out months before. He usually did not learn the names of his magic children - or anyone, really. People die so quickly when they are not enhanced, and only the Minister is enhanced. He has seen to that. But the magic children, they die quicker. Best not to know them.
This one, though. This one he knew. Not her name, of course, just the fact of her - that inscrutable bit of the Self that cannot be drawn or recorded or named. And after all these years, he mourned her. A raw, painful, immediate feeling of loss.
—The Unlicensed Magician, by Kelly Barnhill
Most ten-year-olds were under the assumption that they were immortal. Death was a concept that they were so far removed from that it almost didn't seem real.
That wasn't the case for Ash, though. To him, death was a very real thing. Sid, Reid, Jack...Chance Chapman—all names of people he had once known whose lives were snatched away from them like it was nothing.
See I never thought I’d live past twenty.
Where I come some get half as many.”
—My Shot, Hamilton
'Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883,
That about 200 children were launch'd into eternity.
—The Sunderland Calamity
by William McGonagall
by William McGonagallAnother head hangs lowly.
Child is slowly taken.
Child is slowly taken.
—The Cranberries, "Zombie"
Teddy sniffing glue, he was twelve years old.
Fell from a roof on East two nine.
Kathy was eleven when she pulled the plug
on twenty-six reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, fourteen years old.
Looked like sixty-five when he died.
He was a friend of mine.
Fell from a roof on East two nine.
Kathy was eleven when she pulled the plug
on twenty-six reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, fourteen years old.
Looked like sixty-five when he died.
He was a friend of mine.
—Jim Carroll, "People Who Died"
Janice Rand: "So, what do you think happened to those colonists who were missing after the attack by that Andorian marauder? Three of those colonists were children! I hope they're okay."
Christine Chapel: "They're probably hiding somewhere safe and sound. It would be horrible if they were killed. They must be safe."
Janice Rand: "Maybe the reason they haven't been found is because they've been buried under the rubble!"
Christine Chapel: "That couldn't be! Imagine those poor kids dead! They have to be safe! They're just waiting for a search party to find them!"
— Star Trek Logical Thinking, "Appeal to Emotion"
On the fifth day, he found a corpse.
Its skull, spine, and arms poked out of the sand, stripped clean of flesh. The bones were dilapidated, cracked open where some scavengers had gotten at the marrow. Whatever clothes or supplies the person had carried were gone. Who knew how long the man had been dead?
No, not a man.
Not a woman either.
Even if it still wore flesh, the body would've been smaller than his own.
A child.
He buried the bones. Then he said a prayer for the soul of the departed, that it would find water and shade, and that it would be remembered truly. The prayer was a ritual everyone from the City of Lies had memorized, one every child spoke a hundred times before their cutting.
The next day, he found two more corpses. He buried them and prayed for them as well, though he felt uncertainty as he did so.
Where were the corpses coming from?
And why were they all so small?
Its skull, spine, and arms poked out of the sand, stripped clean of flesh. The bones were dilapidated, cracked open where some scavengers had gotten at the marrow. Whatever clothes or supplies the person had carried were gone. Who knew how long the man had been dead?
No, not a man.
Not a woman either.
Even if it still wore flesh, the body would've been smaller than his own.
A child.
He buried the bones. Then he said a prayer for the soul of the departed, that it would find water and shade, and that it would be remembered truly. The prayer was a ritual everyone from the City of Lies had memorized, one every child spoke a hundred times before their cutting.
The next day, he found two more corpses. He buried them and prayed for them as well, though he felt uncertainty as he did so.
Where were the corpses coming from?
And why were they all so small?
