"At that age," "I was almost too short to look outside." "Through one of my windows, all I could see was a cloud, an ocean of ash." "It suffocated everything." "Out the other window, I saw the people in town." "Out both, I saw darkness." "Dad had always said, the job of dam keeper is to keep the darkness away." "But by then, I was doing it alone." "I was the dam keeper." "Ugh." "Ugh." "Dad had always said the job of a dam keeper is to keep the darkness away." "But he never told me what to do when it surrounds you." "His mask protected me from the cloud." "But nothing I had protected me from the people."