"The rising light paused, then lifted, crashed, and shattered, a million red diamonds raining onto the ocean where they sank and reignited, more brilliant than before, caught in the swirling body of a vast thing, an ancient brainless thing, its glowing tentacles fanning net-like over the black water as it reached and spread its magnificent length toward me.

The jellyfish resembled the thing in Sidney's video the way a living, breathing human resembled a hasty tracing of their photograph. Or the way sound resembled the description of sound. The video was a mockery, the poorest attempt at an approximation. [...]

The light hurt my eyes, but it was the kind of pain I craved more of. I pushed onto my toes, leaning through the broken pane and into open air." (P.80)

"I wouldn't ever know the answers to these questions. I kicked, my legs like concrete pillars, but the ayakashi had me in its tentacled grip. It reeled me down into the darkness and I surrendered to it. I was nothing to this many-minded creature. A speck. A short-lived bubble that flitted and popped. There was relief in being made so small." (P.94)

"The diverse forms and bold colors of jellyfish have inspired a host of creative common names. A selection of this author's favorites includes: the purple people eater, the sea tomato, the bitey whitey, the flower hat jelly, the long stringy stingy thingy, and 'the noodle goon'. (JN: You made this one up.) (AA: Just checking to see if you're paying attention.)" (P.109)

"There was no one on Shattering who both knew him and knew how the loss of him had nearly destroyed me.