Beep... Beep... Beep...

My eyelids were very heavy and I was like in a tunnel, no, an abyss and I was sinking as if I was looking at the walls of an endless cliff, like in the chimney of a volcano, and, all of a sudden, a white square and... as if attracted by a magnet, the light enlarged and came to stick to my eyes. It was frightening but as soon as I opened my eyes, I was accompanied by a stabbing pain. Everything was pulsating and I could see blurry.

"MAMAAANNNN!!! help! Graaaaace, to me!!!"

I wanted to get up but I had no strength and my head felt like it was under water. I couldn't hear anything, except as if under 2 meters of water.

Everything was blurred, the sounds were accompanied by a high-pitched sound non stop. Tinnitus? Yes... that's it!.

"Aaargh!"

I heard the door slam and muffled voices.

My hands hurt horribly, my stomach and my skull.

Doctor Delobbel: "Mrs. Gramme, you'll have to be brave... Your son needs you more than ever right now.

The burns are terrible and we had to remove long strips of skin from his legs to reconstruct his forehead. The top of his skull, well ... it was scalped. His right hand was ripped off and it is a miracle that he survived his disembowelment from the shock. With the violence of the explosion, the flesh crystallized and fragmented. It is because he is young and growing that he was able to survive and that the tissues were able to be sewn back together, at least what we were able to collect and put in the ice bags.

He has a shattered eye. He will see light but that's it, the other one, we don't know yet if the retina will reattach or sclerose.

His spine is whole but the trauma will prevent him from walking normally and the damage in his ears is terrible. He will hear some noise but not like before.

I don't know if we can call this healing but his convalescence will be long and the rehabilitation endless.

You have to realize that Connors will remain disabled. Only time will tell how he will evolve.

I didn't understand anything but I cried out for help and felt hands calming me down. I was tied up and in pain. Very bad.

Doctor: "He's in pain and I'm going to give him some morphine, but it will also make him a little sleepy. You can't put too much in either. Too much for too long. Morphine is also the way to "put him to sleep" permanently or "Euthanasia".

"Please, Doctor... Do everything you can to save my child... He is so young..."

Then a detective entered the room but the doctor asked him to come back in 2 days, until the pain subsided and they could see if I could testify or not. Which really wouldn't be the case, considering my situation.

Grace, my older sister, was inconsolable and Dad held her close, Mom, holding my left hand and massaging my fingers.

"They will pay, the ones who did this to you! I promise!"

She had the inspector's card in her purse. And she was squeezing the location every now and then, as if the pressure could put the squeeze on the person or persons responsible.

The press got involved, and my story was reported all over the United States and even in other countries. The violence in schools and the availability of weapons and explosives were denounced again and again.

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But the lobbies were tough and the killing could still go on happily.

An officer came to find my father, also a career soldier. At first glance, this was beyond our family, who just wanted to be left alone to process the tragic events.

"Mr. Gramme, I know this is an inopportune time but you know as well as I do, we have taken first aid courses and the first few hours are always the most important when it comes to recovering from such trauma.

I am a medical officer and my wing deals with war trauma and victims of terrorist acts also come for treatment. This hospital is a military hospital, I don't have to tell you that, and we have a special program. Only young teenagers can receive this new treatment.

You can refuse, but the opportunity will not come twice. I work in the department of Professor Maltezer, who has done research on tissue regeneration.

There is not a minute to lose if you want your son to undergo this treatment.

"Are there any risks?"

"Yes, there always are. The substances are exogenous and come from studies on the regrowth of limbs and organs of certain reptiles. Sometimes one or the other scale could appear, but your son could pick up his life where it left off. That is, at the military burn hospital."

Mom grabbed dad by the arm: "Please, professor, fix my child, I beg you, we can't leave him like this

Then they signed papers but did not pay attention to the small lines at the bottom stating that the treatment was subject to study and that attendance or a recall was mandatory and that I could be called back at any time.

But everyone was only interested in treating me.

I was moved to an area reserved for military personnel and families.

Mom and Dad were allowed to accompany me.

With the morphine, I was delirious and dreamed that I was next to a huge water balloon that was going to explode and destroy everything around me.

Then came the bombs and the tinnitus.

I was permanently on a battlefield, like in the trenches in 1914.

I relived the explosion in all its forms and variations, even a clown from Mac Donald's wanting to blow up a paper bag near my ears.

I was going crazy. I couldn't take it anymore. It was a torture.

Then the awakening was excruciating.

I was on a stainless steel plate, like in a morgue where a coroner was going to inspect me but I was rinsed and with a kind of giant tweezers, or reptile tweezers, the doctor, or the nurse... I didn't know, was running water on my dressings, to soften them and remove them strip by strip.

The absolute horror.

Dad was in the room, wearing a doctor's outfit, disinfecting and wearing gloves. Mom was holding my left hand. Why not my right?

Yet I could feel my fingers.

Then came the pain. A pain in the middle of my wrist, an impossible area. I would have my wrist broken?

I was afraid. Then came the bandages on my arm, my stomach and my crotch.

Mom, seeing the wounds and my severed attributes, collapsed and fainted, unable to see more.

Grace went outside to vomit.

I was broken, half shredded and alive only by a thin membrane that still held my organs and blood together.

A man in a blue jacket with a red tie appeared with a briefcase and opened it outside the septic area. He handed over red vials preserved in dry ice.

No one paid any attention except the surgeon, assisted by Dr. Delobbel and the military medical officer.

I was injected with the serum and also with Valium, which took effect quite quickly. I relaxed and the stress, tension and pain subsided a little, and especially the tinnitus.

Then, Grace was seized with a histrionic anger

She began to scream. "Connor, Connor, my little brother .... I can't leave you like this! HAA HAA (Crying and despair)

She cornered the doctor "Take my eye and give it to him. Take as much skin as you need...please don't leave it like this."

Dad grabbed her and she struggled and unintentionally elbowed him in the jaw.

She was shaking my operating table. "Connors! Connors! I'll save you... you'll get some of me.

And, in the panic, liquids were spilled and wet the officer's glasses: "GET IT OUT OF ME!

And, in a hurry, the anesthesiologist took a syringe to inject a sedative to Grace but took the wrong vial...

He took the second vial of mutagen.

When everything was injected, Grace collapsed, not from calm, but overcome by the powerful mutagen containing dragon marrow.

No one noticed, the vials were thrown into the incinerator along with the needles and surgical waste, such as bandages, gauze and medical tissue.

No one blamed Grace, who had lost all her strength. The whole family was in shock.

And, wisely, they all went home, except for Dad, who was looking after me.

Everything was starting, after a night of sleep without nightmares or explosions. The first thing I noticed was that the tinnitus had disappeared.

I began to bless the inventor of such a remedy.

The next day, it tickled everywhere and I felt that I was healing very quickly.

My fingers were pulsating, my joints were throbbing and I could feel my shattered eye swelling back up.

Slowly, my right eye began to see something other than light and dark. I began to see shapes. And the same sensation began in my left eye, the most damaged.

Will I be able to heal?