CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
My head spun and I dipped in and out of consciousness every now and then. Sometimes, I would see bright lights around me and hear people talking—voices I couldn’t understand or recognize—only for the lights and voices to fade out and be replaced by the darkness of unconsciousness. Whenever I got close to consciousness, I would struggle to get up, but just as often I would also just lie there, hoping the pain would go away and that I would be able to simply sleep forever. Sometimes I would also feel people, hands, touching me, moving me around or shaking me, but like the voices, I couldn’t tell who was touching me or why.
Eventually, however, the periods of darkness grew shorter and shorter, while the periods of light became longer and longer. The voices I heard every n
