T W E N T Y N I N E
I open my eyes with effort. I’m not sure if I’m dead or alive, but if I’m alive, I didn’t know life could feel this way: every muscle in my body is on fire. I am shaking and shivering and have never been so cold my life—yet at the same time I am also burning up, a cold sweat running down the back of my neck. My hair clings to the side of my face, and every joint in my body hurts more than I can describe. It is like the worst fever I’ve ever had—times a hundred.
The epicenter of pain is my calf: it throbs and feels like the size of a softball. The pain is so intense that I squint my eyes, clench my jaw, and pray silently that someone would just cut it off.
I look around and see I’m lying on a cement floor, on the upper story of an abandoned warehouse. The wall is li
