I woke up to my arm screaming.
Not literally — arms don't scream. But the nerve damage had its own voice. A deep, grinding, electric buzz that started in my blackened fingertips and crawled up past my wrist, past my elbow, into territory it hadn't reached yesterday.
I held my right hand up in the dim light. The charring had spread overnight. Yesterday the black stopped at the elbow. Now thin dark veins — like cracks in burned paper — had crept three inches past it. Reaching toward my bicep. Reaching toward my heart.
[STATUS UPDATE]
[RIGHT ARM — NERVE DAMAGE: SPREADING]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO CARDIAC FAILURE: 5 DAYS, 14 HOURS]
[RECOMMENDATION: SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL INTERVENTION]
Five days. Father John said a week. An that was just yesterday.
The damage was accelerating.
I flexed my right hand. The fingers moved — slow, stiff, fighting me. The pinky didn't move at all. I tried again. Concentrating on it and forcing it to move.
But nothing happened. It was dead.
