It takes hours before Roland awakes and the medical staff stops moving so quickly around the room. It all passes in such a blur that I can't tell how many hours it is.
It certainly doesn't help my attempt at tracking time that I personally can't stay awake long, either.
While the injuries I sustained weren't nearly as bad as Roland's, the exhaustion piled atop them and made staying awake for more than snatches of time difficult for those hours.
Even from within the infirmary myself, I can tell the atmosphere in the city improves significantly in the interim, as the cloud of despair dissipates with the end of the assault.
Somehow we managed to cling to life, pushed just to the edge of the abyss.
As the shock and the fear fades with the danger, it's only natural a sort of giddy joy follow it, tempered as it may be by the injuries sustained in our survival.
