If you're thinking of reading this after finishing Echo, I would urge caution. Unlike Echo, which juggles many emotional threads in a way that alternates tension and release, this story is like diving into your favorite lake and sinking ever so slowly to the bottom before something grabs you to keep you there, the pressure of the water crushing your lungs as you starve for air. Even after it lets go and you come back up, the lake never feels the same. An undeniably powerful experience, but one I almost regret for how it haunts my memories of its predecessor.
Wow! That's an apt description of how fucked it makes every emotion a human being is capable of feeling, and possibly some we have yet discovered. This story is so good it honestly should be made to be released so it reaches the main stream. It could have a cartoon or animated film made of it, it's that well written. Though I'm not sure the public would be ready for the emotional disembowling it inflicts on the reader.
The question I ask myself everytime I finish it, "How can something so brutal, horrifying, disturbing and dark, also be so beautiful, heartwarming, adorable, inspirational and perfect 👌‽?!" It's just not possible. It's like a Volvo with a gun rack, it's just doesn't belong and I worry Arches may break reality as we know it if enough people read it.