The Infinite Sea

“Five men and two women, strangers to one another on the eve of that final growing season, now bound by the unspoken promise that the least of them was greater than the sum of all of them.”

Through unnamed characters, the Prologue introduces the theme of Compassion as a Defining Element of Humanity. A group of survivors has gathered at a farmhouse, connected only by the fact that they have survived when others have not. Despite this, they see the value in each of them as individuals, “greater” even than the group as a whole. Without the individual humans that make up humanity, the idea of humanity itself means little.

“The world is a clock winding down. I hear it in the wind’s icy fingers scratching against the window. I smell it in the mildewed carpeting and the rotting wallpaper of the old hotel. And I feel it in Teacup’s chest as she sleeps.”

Cassie considers their situation in the hotel in terms of a metaphor, comparing their lives to a “clock” that has almost finished counting down. She personifies nature itself, emphasizing the impact it will have on their chances of survival, while also noting the decaying of the hotel and Teacup beside her. These three things—nature, manmade objects, and people themselves—all deteriorate as humanity reaches its end.

“Fire will consume the things we made from wood and plastic and rubber and cloth, then water and wind and time will chew the stone and steel into dust. How baffling it is that we imagined cities incinerated by alien bombs and death rays when all they needed was Mother Nature and time.”

Cassie extends the metaphor of the clock, then discusses the idea of time in a literal sense. While they face an existential threat of the Others destroying humanity, she notes the underlying fact that time itself will end up killing them, even if the Others don’t. She emphasizes the impact of natural elements like the wind, water, and fire destroying everything that humans once made.