#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. Or beat up by a werewolf. “Yes,” Steven says, in the same detached way. “You are alive.” I worried him, that much is clear. For him to be retreating into himself like this, so much like when I first met him. I wince as I lift my hand from under the covers. “You need rest,” he says, but doesn’t move to stop me as I stretch out my arm and place my hand over his where it sits atop the mattress. He looks down at it, then sighs, and some of