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Her eyelids were heavy. No matter how hard Adi tried to open them, they didn’t respond. After a while, she gave up and just lay there. Where was she? She ran a quick checklist—fingers, arms, back. The surface soft but scratchy. Her fingers wiggled slightly, but her arms hurt. Then she tried her legs, and ouch, that really hurt, particularly her calf.
She stopped twitching and listened. There were steps, lots of them. Some heavy, some lighter, some rushing, some hesitant. People speaking in hushed voices. A biting, familiar smell in the air. Disinfectant? She tried her eyes again, blinking owlishly against the bright light. She wasn’t ready to move her head yet, but she knew now where she was. Hospital. She tried to swallow, but her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. It wasn
