" It was little more than a weak flame flickering under the weight of his melancholia, but it was there. A splinter of possibility. Maybe he didn't want to die.
Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to live.
It didn't burn away his sadness. It didn't make his future appear any less dark.
But it was there—hope, perhaps, or something like it—and it was enough. "

― Traci Chee , The Speaker (Sea of Ink and Gold, #2)