My hand, Elian whispered, staring at his fingers.
He held his arm up toward the grid-patterned sky. The skin was pale, not from fear, but because the light of the sun was passing through it. He could see the jagged outlines of the rocks behind his wrist. The dirt beneath him did not feel solid anymore. It felt like walking on a layer of compressed television static.
Sarah scrambled toward him, her boots kicking up dust that did not fall back down. It hovered in the air, spinning in little geometric squares. "Elian, stay with me! Don't look at the sky!"
"I'm disappearing, Sarah," Elian said, his voice sounding hollow, like a recording played from the bottom of a well. "I can feel my memories slipping. It's like my childhood is being archived in a folder I can't open."
"You are not a fi
