When he Came to, Sam was staring at the sky as it darkened to evening. He was weak, almost beyond caring. He felt forsaken and would have cried, but there didn’t seem to be enough water in his body. He must be near the end, because most of the pain had faded into numbness, tamed by his acceptance of its all-pervasive presence. He felt calm, detached from his body. The world around him seemed at once blurred and more sharply defined than he had ever known it.