I flinched away and raised one arm in a vain attempt to ward off the blow. I knew it was futile, but despite my legs throbbing in fatigue and feeling like so much deadwood, it was still easier to put up one last struggle than to accept the end so easily. I still had something to live for, even if they were going to take it from me.
I didn’t know what to call this feeling. It was something past the fear and the panic, because I was already looking into the face of death and knew unmistakably that it had come for me. My chest felt full with it, ballooning with all the things I wish I could have said and should have done, and all the things I would do differently - not merely so that I could have avoided this end, but so that I would have lived a worthier existence, to have mattered and made
