Chapter Text
Consciousness pulled at my core. The dark comfort of sleep slipped from me as if it were a handful of sand, squeezed too hard, slipping away at the edges. I surfaced slowly; my body felt like it was rising through viscous, dark water. I had been somewhere dark and cold. Somewhere final. My body felt foreign to me.
There was a weight on my chest, heavy blankets, pressing down on my skin. Was that why it was so hard to breathe? No, not blankets. Straps… cinched around my ribs. I tried to take a deeper breath and a sharp, blooming ache flared across my chest, hot and immediate.
A small tap, metal on metal, caught my attention. It was careful, quiet… repetitive. The sound felt deliberate, a clock ticking toward something I wasn’t ready for. Voices mumbled nearby, the words blurred and indistinguishable. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. It frightened me.
I kept my eyes shut. I wasn’t sure if I possessed the energy required for the herculean task of opening them. Besides, it felt dangerous to let them know I was here. If they thought I was asleep, would the voices leave me alone? Were they leaving me alone now?
“He’s waking, doctor.”
“Ready another round.”
The words slid in and out of comprehension. But they were words I could identify. Someone was near my left arm. I sensed the movement before I felt it, the cool drag of fingers against my skin and the faint pressure of something pinched. A sharp sting.
My body jolted on instinct. A small jerk of my shoulder sent pain ripping through my chest as if someone had torn open a fresh seam.
“He felt that.” A man’s voice. To my right. There was irritation in his tone, as if my pain were a technical inconvenience.
I wanted to speak, to ask where I was, why it hurt, but my tongue lay thick and useless in my mouth. Even the urge to speak sent a pulse of sharp pain up my throat. The smell of alcohol was almost overwhelming, but beneath it sat something metallic and unpleasant. Blood? Lots of blood.
A hand pressed against my sternum, firm and steady. “Easy. You’re safe. Stay still.” A woman’s voice. Soft. Calm.
Safe?
Safe…
The word drifted across me like something half-remembered. A word I wanted to hold onto, yet it made my heart ache.
A dark silhouette formed in my mind. Small. Her face framed by curls. Dark eyes that had seen far too much of the world’s shadows. Watching me with the focus of someone afraid to blink. I tried to hold onto her image, but the pain pulled harder.
A bright light pushed against my eyelids. I forced them open a crack and the world swam in a nauseating swarm of shades. A white ceiling, the blur of a lamp, the shadow of masked faces leaning over me. Icy sweat prickled at my temples. To my right, a machine beeped, fast and uneven, echoing the frantic rhythm of the panic inside my chest.
“Stay with us, Mr. Reiker,” the man said.
They knew my name. That was somehow worse. I wasn’t a random hurt stranger. I was still a German. A Nazi.
I tried to lift my head and a strap bit into my forehead. Another jerked tight around my right wrist when I pulled against it. Fear hit me clean and quick: I was restrained.
The masked figure stepped back, “He’s fully awake.”
The room shifted, voices jumbling together. “We can’t continue like this…”
“We don’t have the luxury of time. Get him under. Now.”
Hands moved with terrifying speed. Pressure bloomed across my torso. Pushing, pulling, a tugging that started on one side of me and streaked hot pain all the way up my back. A warm trickle ran down my side and pooled beneath me. Death was coming. I wouldn’t survive this. I couldn’t stop the low sound that escaped my throat.
Then something changed. A coldness spread through my arm racing both up my shoulder and down to my hand. My fingers went numb first. A strange calm washed over me as the sensation spread across my body. Their voices softened at the edges, the words dissolving into a humming silence.
There was a hand on my chest again. Steady. Heavy. Anchoring.
Everything else fell away.
*
The world was quieter this time when I woke. No clattering of metal. No hands inside my body pulling on veins and nerves. There was a low hum of something electrical and a thin shaft of sunlight nudging me into consciousness. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the brightness. The small shaft of sunlight splashed along a white wall across from the end of my bed.
My first breath was shallow, fear keeping me from testing the boundaries. The air slid in and out of my lungs without the sharp, tearing pain from before. My chest still ached but I could tell that medicine was keeping the worst of it at bay.
Afraid to move, I lay still, mentally checking the edges of my body. My toes flexed slightly under the sheet that draped across me. I tensed the muscles in my legs just enough that I knew I still had them. My fingers, my arms, and then I slowly tried to draw in a breath to test the edge of my limits. I couldn’t breathe deep without my body starting to object, but I was still alive and I was surprised.
I looked around the room. Half room. It was divided by a long curtain that sectioned off the space. I was in a hospital bed, a small table beside it and another curtain, half-drawn, revealing a slice of the outside world. The room was dim yet felt blindingly bright to my eyes. The air was laced with the sharp scent of antiseptic
Footsteps approached, quick and practiced. A moment later, the fabric shifted and a nurse stepped into view. She was young, in her twenties like me, with a neat pin securing her pale hair away from her face. Her large brown eyes assessed the clipboard in her hands but registered surprise when she looked up and met my gaze.
“Oh!” she exclaimed softly. “You’re awake.” She moved closer, her shoes whispering against the tile of the floor. Her gaze swept over me with careful assessment. “Mr. Reiker, can you understand me?”
I nodded slowly, the motion making my head throb.
She gave a relieved breath. “Good. That’s very good. You’ve been unconscious for several days. Nearly a week.”
Her words were quick and clear and reminded me of a small bird’s chirps. I looked down at my lap and tried to absorb the words. My memories were a jumbled mess that made little sense. Shadows of voices, hands adjusting blankets, drops of water against my lips, someone turning me… half memories of it all slid away before I could catch them.
“You’ve had a serious operation,” she continued. “You mustn’t try to sit up.”
As if on cue, a slow, spreading burn woke along my side. My fingers curled against the sheet with the growing intensity. She stopped her movement around my bed and watched me. “I’ll fetch the doctor,” she said gently. “He’ll want to see you.”
She slipped away, the curtain falling back into place. Alone again, I breathed as evenly as my lungs would allow and looked up at the ceiling. It was clean and white and pocked with small indents that I counted to try to distract from the pain.
A week. I’d been unconscious for a week. I let the number settle. In that time, the world outside went on. Trams running, people living, clocks turning. And somewhere, far away, PB walked through her days without knowing if I was alive or dead. Guilt crept along the edges of the burning sensation that lapped at me like waves on a lake’s shore.
The thought unsettled me but eventually I could write to her and tell her I was alright. Hopefully.
The curtain parted again, this time two figures entered. A different nurse, older with tired eyes, and an older man, the doctor, with thin spectacles that perched high on the bridge of his nose. He carried the air of someone who had spent too many years keeping men alive by giving up years of his own.
“Good morning, Mr. Reiker,” he said checking the chart. “Or afternoon, rather. You’ve given us quite a bit for concern.”
He handed the chart to the nurse and examined the bandages across my ribs and across my left shoulder. There was tubing that ran from an opening in my side and attached to a bag at the edge of my bed. His hands were steady, clinical, and confident.
“You’re healing,” he said finally. “Slowly, but well. You’re not to be moved yet, do you understand? No lifting, no sitting upright without assistance. You’re still in a critical recovery window.”
I nodded again. I didn’t think I could do any of those things anyway. I felt too weak.
“I don’t see any signs of infection, which is wonderful. You lost a significant amount of blood,” he added, matter-of-fact. “It’s a miracle you made it here in time.”
A miracle. I didn’t know what to do with that word. I didn’t feel like a miracle. I’d been little more than a weight to anyone who had shown me kindness for a long time now.
The doctor studied my face. “Do you remember anything before the surgery?”
I sifted through the fragments of memories. Running. A farmhouse? Gunfire. Hands pulling at me. Pain pooling in my shoulder. PB’s voice… her tears. I wasn’t sure what was a dream and what was real.
“Very little.” I said, my voice was rough and raspy.
“That’s common.” The doctor nodded. “Your body shut down to survive. Let it heal now.” He gave me a gentle pat on the back of my hand.
“What happened?” I pushed the words out even though the effort felt like blades in my throat.
The doctor looked at me for a long moment, deciding something. “You were shot, Mr. Reiker.” He took a deep breath. “On the left side, as I’m sure you can tell. It shattered your clavicle and partially collapsed your left lung.”
Fear poured through me as I processed his words.
“You’re safe here, Mr. Reiker.” His words were gentle and I believed him. “Rest. We’ll take care of you.”
The nurse busied herself around me. She’d changed out a bag of fluid near me and then touched my arm with a cold swatch of antiseptic followed by a prick in my arm with a small needle.
I tried to trust the doctors’ words and closed my eyes. He murmured some soft instructions to the nurse and they both stepped out of my curtained room leaving me with the soft mechanical hum to soothe me. The burning pain subsided. It must have been some sort of pain medication the nurse had given me.
I focused on the beating of my own heart. I let the rhythm carry me back under.