The Giver (2014)

I got lost. The good kind of lost. I saw sights and sounds I had no words to describe. Faces with flesh of all different colors. I felt so alive. This was forbidden? I didn't know what to think, what to believe. Have faith, the Giver told me. He said faith, that was seeing beyond. He compared it to the wind, something felt but not seen.

When I went over the Edge, we shouldn't have made it. This was a miracle. The Giver had talked about them. He told me that I could draw strength from the memories. I knew by giving them to Gabe, I could protect him.

Nothing the Giver had shown me had prepared me for the voices in my head, screaming at me to stop. But I knew Fiona would be punished for helping me, Asher, for letting me go. The only way to help them, to keep them alive, was to get to the Boundary, if it even existed. I strengthened Gabe with memories of having enough and knowing joy. It was the memory of Fiona that kept me going.

I wish I had been there when the memories returned. They were the truth. The Elders and their rules were the lie. So I do not apologize. I knew Fiona was safe, that I'd see her again, and that I held the future there in my arms. The Giver had led us here to this house. It was real. From far behind me, from the place I had left, I thought I heard music, too. Perhaps it was only an echo, but it was enough. It would lead us all home.