I don't know how long the darkness lasted. Nor do I know if it deserved an ending. Sometimes darkness is not the absence of light: it is a pause that the body needs to find its form. From that place without clocks, the only thing I could think—or feel—was a straight line, drawn freehand, connecting two points on my chest. And a word that I did not say, but that I heard very clearly: "Come back."

Consciousness came and went like the tide. At times, a warm wave lifted me toward the light; at times, a whirlpool dragged me to a thick, boundless depths. I tried to open my eyelids. Nothing. A stone weight kept them closed. Through that dark world, voices came as if from another room.

"Is she going to be okay?" I recognized Roman's broken voice, without his usual composure, touched by a fear I had never heard in him before.

"The patient is in serious condition," replied another voice, professional and neutral. "Internal bleeding. We'll admit her to the ward right now. For now..." A brief pau