Ed used to dream himself whole every night. No matter what else was happening to him in the land of nod, that was one thing he could always count on: that he'd be there, all of him, warm and weak and flesh.

At some point, without his realizing, everything changed. In his dreams they'd be back home with their mother, playing a game or digging in the garden, and he'd look down and realize that one of his six year old hands had become a dark, heavy metal.

He wondered later if that was when he began to lose hope.