The Purple World

Rick’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned, fighting the urge to fall unconscious once more. It felt like they had been attached to twenty-pound weights as they fought against his command to open them, and his entire body ached with a bone-deep fatigue. Although he had been unconscious for the past six weeks, there was no portion of him that could even remotely be considered to have been “resting” during that time.

“Shepherd!” Katarina shouted as she rushed over to his bedside, the doctor and the two men she had ordered to drag him out of the room forgotten.