"I don't know quite what to think about this island sometimes," I admit. "I'm so happy just to be alive. I'm really grateful and I don't want to waste a minute of it. But then it does cruel things like taunting you that way, and I don't understand why, or how it can be so wonderful and so awful at the same time." Mathias has been here for ages, and I'm sure he's probably worked all of this out for himself, but I'm still quite new to it all. "If they're not really there, they can't hurt anyone, right? Not that it makes it any easier to have to see, but that's something, isn't it?"