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1 TWILIGHT DREAMS live in a mental hospital. I’m not actually crazy; I just like it here. I The Inward Care Center has a lot going for it. They give you clean clothes and neat foam slippers, feed you, and protect you, and nobody questions the bizarre. I can feel safe here. Sure, it’s all low- grade construction, dull white walls, and linoleum. Everything smells like pine oil cleaner mixed with a hint of cigarettes, and the only breeze comes from sterile air-conditioning. But I don’t live here for the scenery. I live here because it’s the only place I have left in this world, the only place where they’ll believe in me. You see, I’m a god. There you go again, thinking I’m crazy. I’m not, I swear. I go by Sara Vanadi. They used to call me something else entirely, of course, pious lips and tongues caressing the perfect syllables of my —-1 name alongside countless prayers, but that doesn’t matter anymore. —0 —+1 1143-64653_ch01_2P.indd43-64653_ch01_2P.indd 1 007/27/167/27/16 77:32:32 aamm They don’t believe in the old titles any longer, so why should I keep them? All that’s left of my heyday are scattered myths and a blur of faded memories. Don’t trouble yourself wondering who I was. Today I’m just a girl who wants to stay safe and hold on to the last embers of belief that she can find. “Hey, how are you?” a baritone voice asks, interrupting my daily pity party.
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