Dean Koontz: Intensity

Finally words came haltingly: “This…this is the best…the best gift I’ve ever had, honey. This is the best there could ever be. This is all I want…for you to try.”

She read the four words again, through tears.

I want to live.

Chyna said, “But you don’t know how to get back, do you?”

The girl was very still. Then she blinked. Both of her hands tightened on Chyna’s hands.

“There’s a way,” Chyna assured her.

The girl’s hands gripped Chyna’s even tighter.

“There’s hope, baby. There’s always hope. There’s a way, and no one can ever find it alone, but we can find it together. We can find it together. You just have to believe.”

The girl could not make eye contact, but her hands continued to grip Chyna’s.

“I want to tell you a story about a redwood forest and something I saw there one night, and something I saw later, too, when I needed to see it. Maybe it won’t mean as much to you, and maybe it wouldn’t mean anything at all to other people, but it means the world to me, even if I don’t fully understand it.”

I want to live.

Over the next few years, the road back from the Wild Wood to the beauties and wonders of this world was not an easy one for Ariel. There were times of despair when she seemed to make no progress at all, or even slid backward.

Eventually, however, a day came when they traveled with Ned and Jamie to that redwood grove.

They walked through the ferns and the rhododendrons in the solemn shadows under the massive trees, and Ariel said, “Show me where.”

Chyna led her by the hand to the very place, and said, “Here.”

How scared Chyna had been that night, risking so much for a girl she had never seen. Scared less of Vess than of this new thing that she had found in herself. This reckless caring. And now she knows it is nothing that should have frightened her. It is the purpose for which we exist. This reckless caring.