Blood pooled under me, warm and sticky, spreading across the concrete in abstract shapes that probably meant something very important to trauma surgeons and absolutely nothing good for me.
My right arm had checked out entirely. No pain, no sensation, just dead weight, like it had rage-quit the body mid-fight. My chest burned with every shallow breath, lung punctured, ribs grinding together in ways ribs were never meant to discover about each other.
Pretty sure the human skeleton wasn't designed to sound like a bag of broken glow sticks.
But my mind was clear. Crystal fucking clear.
Which felt unfair, honestly. If I was going to be bleeding out in a parking garage on my birthday, the least my brain could do was shut up and let me hallucinate beaches or something.
