I'm sorry for making this so angsty and tragic... but well, this is a death focused chapter so...
Death was cast over Anna, like it is cast over every single living organism in this world. There would come a time where her existance on Earth went no further than a corpse in the ground and the memories that lived on in people's minds. Death stood over her, threatening to snatch her into some kind of personal singular oblivion of her life as the poisoned blood pulsed through her veins for it's last time. Death was coming for her- it was just waiting for the right moment.
...
Augustus knew he was dying. He'd been aware that he was dying since he'd understood that he was living. He was dying, like every other person on the planet. No matter what mark he'd made on the world, or what mark anyone else had made on the world, every human being who had been in existance would at one point have to face the unfortunate fate that is death.
For the first time since his diagnosis, he could truly feel like he was made of cancer. Sure, he'd spoke the point aloud before, but it was the first time he'd actually meant it. Maybe it was just the cocktail of drugs seeping through his system, keeping him somewhere between unescapable darkness and some kind of drug-induced paradise plastered over reality, but he honestly could feel the tumour in his hip sitting against the bone, eating away at the unhealthy cells trying to gain strength for itself.
...
As humans, we are an ignorant race. We focus on our busy materialistic lives, getting caught up in our selfish actions, without once taking a step back to admire the beauty of the creation of both life and death around us until it's too late to savour it. Anna stared at the sea from her hospital bed, thinking of the lively fish swooping through the water; of the passing on of energy between different species through food chains; of the lives of the poor little dead fish lying at the bottom of the ocean who'd never get the chance to live; wishing that she could have just a few more days. She'd die without being a
...
Hazel was about to explode. She could feel it, despite the haze of medication she was on that made her not feel so scared about the fact she could barely breathe. Soon, her parents would be pulling bits of her shrapnel from their skin, just like she had done just a few months ago with Augustus. Before her eyes began to droop, threatening to never open again, her eyes fixated on Isaac as she thought about his future; if robot eyes would ever actually be invented; if he'd get back with Monica; if his cancer would make a reoccurence, and take more than his sight next time.
...
The layer of thick black fabric was pulled over Anna's face, hiding her colourless, cold skin. For the first time in a long time, Anna's mom broke. She honestly felt like she'd been smashed into a million pieces.
Anna's mom had been plagued with the same dream for many nights, terrified about the day it would become reality.
...
Peter Van Houten's fingers clutched around the glass as he stared at the photograph. Amelia. His perfect little Amelia. Stolen away at the hands of death. The silence diffused through the room, drilling into his skull as the glass of scotch carelessly clinked against the floor. He glared at the photo again, gazing up and down at his beautiful little girl.
