Bab 208: Be a good patient

Healing was slow. And arduous. Ford stared at the ceiling as bitterness seeped deeper into his soul. Never had he had so much time to think.

His life had been work, and sleep. Backbreaking labor, and falling into his bed in exhaustion.

But now, for the first time, he had hours to stare and let his mind wander. He got to experience the rising and setting of the sun, the light and the natural darkness–but not total blackness–of night.

These rhythms, these patterns, were they what the rest of humanity took for granted? When he worked the night shift, he slept all day. When he worked in the day, he never saw sunlight.

He looked at his skin–it was pale. He convinced someone to move his bed next to a window, playing up his heroism to guilt them into it.

The window was too high for him to see anything other than the sky through it, but that was enough to drive a stake into his soul.