Chapter 176 Recovery

• When I blink my eyes open, I’m in my bed in the Pyramid. Steven is beside me, resting on the edge of the bed. My ribs ache, but the pain isn’t so all-encompassing this time. It’s more a dull thrum, present, unavoidable, but not overwhelming.
• “You have several broken ribs,” Steven says. He delivers the news with a cool, scientific authority. “Fortunately none punctured your lungs or other vital organs.”
• “I’m alive?” I ask, half-joking, half-not because I do feel like hell on earth. Like I got hit by a pickup truck or smashed by fallen space debris.