My exit had not been so neat, had not been accompanied by flowers and a headstone and an obituary in the local paper so that everyone would know to stop looking for me. Instead I had been a ghost wandering our home: silent, watchful, intangible, but still relentlessly present. Restless and angry and unable to find the eternal rest I craved.
And then, strangest of all, I’d been reborn. Thrust into the sort of frightening new life where objects moved when I touched them, where my voice spoke aloud with the power to help or to harm. Mostly to harm. I was out of practice being real, being visible and able to touch.
And then, strangest of all, I’d been reborn. Thrust into the sort of frightening new life where objects moved when I touched them, where my voice spoke aloud with the power to help or to harm. Mostly to harm. I was out of practice being real, being visible and able to touch.
— Tom describing his time as a Controller, Animorphs fanfic Back to the Future
I can give you over forty thousand reasons why that sun isn't real. I know it because the emitter's Rayleigh effect is disproportionate to its suggested size. I know it because its stellar cycle is more symmetrical than that of an actual star. But for all that, I'll never actually know if it looks real...if it feels real.
— Cortana, Halo 4
