Revolution in the Underground Read Online Free

few hours after it had happened.  His sister told him. 
    Ember’s sister, Maggie, always seemed to be at the right place at the right time.  She was always up-to-date about the latest happenings in Erosa and was never shy about sharing the latest gossip.  Ember did not know why she took so much joy in such things, but he suspected it resembled his own desire for adventure and excitement—a different manifestation of a similar longing.  Though she was not the type to revel in others’ misfortunes, she couldn’t help but get excited at the slightest signs of imperfection.
                  In this sense, Ember was no different.  He liked the thought of Rogue crying—though he did not like the thought of liking the thought.  He imagined the tears slowly rolling down her rosy cheeks as she desperately tried to mutter some semblance of words.  How mortified she must have felt, yet how alive!  The passion, the build, the height, the fall, the despair—it was beautiful.  The raw emotion.  The imperfection.  If only my friends knew, Ember thought to himself.   If only people knew how I felt.  What would they think of me if they knew how I wanted to lick her tears and caress her face?  How I long to hold and comfort her—how I long to tell her that everything is okay, knowing full well that everything isn’t.  Talk all night about things that wouldn’t be and could never be.  To talk about mistakes and then pretend they never happened.  To hope against all reason that things would get better… and then…  fall down again.  To hope that one day things would be great, without it never actually being great.  All would not be lost, because we would always have each other and always hope would remain.  They would call me crazy… but maybe that’s what I am.
                  Often times Ember was happier inside his little overly dramatic world.  When he closed his eyes nothing else in the world besides his own thoughts seemed to matter.  It was his own special place that no one, not even Maggie, knew about.  Some days Ember would close his eyes for hours at a time—building entire worlds and constructing complete realities. 
    There was a part within his brain that deeply believed in the reality of these worlds.  Even while in his romantic revelries he knew their existence had to take on a different form—they did not and could not exist in the same sense that Erosa existed.  Several times, during his waking hours, Ember had tried to justify the existence of his worlds.  He would draw upon numerous metaphysical arguments, call into question the notion of a transcendent reality and certainty, and throw around words like “subjective” and “ambiguity.”  Ember wasn’t afraid of believing in his fantasies, but no matter how detailed his arguments would become, he could never get himself to truly believe in their reality—not while his eyes were open.  Though he was prepared to accept all the philosophical consequences of his various lines of reasoning—some of which were considerable—he could never truly convince himself.  When his eyes were opened, not even he could fool himself.  Ember figured that it was his body’s natural defense mechanism to prevent his fantasies from colliding with the real world.  If there was one thing he could count on, it was that the light would sterilize everything. 
                  As Ember opened his eyes, his fantasies vaporized.  Suddenly he knew just how short lived Rouge’s mortification was.  He knew that she, just hours after enduring such great humiliation, was relaxing and giggling with her friends.  He knew that she would hardly spend more than half an hour in the ensuing months recollecting about the event.  It was nothing to her.  She did not really care and he did not really love her.  He loved the thought of loving her, but he did not love her.
                  Ember’s body had drifted