The transition from life to death did not feel like a sudden, violent plunge; it felt like sinking into freezing, pitch-black water, where the surface grew further and further away until the light was nothing but a pinprick.
Inside Operating Room 3 at St. Jude’s, Ruby Vance was drowning. She was vaguely aware of her physical body—the agonizing, icy pressure in her chest, the sharp, metallic tang of the oxygen mask, and the frantic, echoing shouts of the surgeons. “She’s crashing! Push another unit of O-negative, now!” “We’re losing the pulse!” The harsh clink of stainless steel instruments sounded like distant thunder. But slowly, the noise began to warp, stretching out until the flatlining scream of the heart monitor became a single, continuous drone.
Then, the physical world vanishe
