THREE WEEKS LATER

The hospital lights were too white.

Too clean.Too bright for the kind of filth Sky felt rotting inside her chest.

The kind of filth she didn’t think could ever be washed off.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, her hands trembling in her lap, the hospital gown loose around her too-thin body.

There were stitches across her belly.

Angry, puckered wounds crisscrossing skin that still felt alien to her.

She wasn’t supposed to move.

Not after how much blood they said she lost.

Not after how close she came to never waking up.

Not after they spent eight hours pulling splinters of wood and shrapnel...