Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Finally, Mike heard a distant and familiar voice shouting excitedly: "He's holding my finger! I feel it! I really feel it! I really feel it!" Mike tried to look but couldn't open his eyes, but he knew it was Joe holding his hand.He tried to squeeze him hard, but the darkness overwhelmed him, and he lost consciousness again. It was a full day before Mike regained consciousness.He could barely move, and he had difficulty even lifting his eyelids, though the attempt was met with yells and laughter.A whole bunch of people rushed towards his barely open eye, as if they were peering into a deep black hole - filled with wonderful treasures.Whatever they saw seemed to cause them great pleasure, and they hurried off to spread the news.

Some faces he knew, but some he didn't—Mike soon learned that it was his doctors and nurses who hadn't.He slept a lot, but each opening of his eyes seemed to cause an unusual commotion.By the time I can talk, he thought, it's going to really overwhelm them. A nurse was to massage him to stop the pressure sores from spreading.It was only when she had to move that he realized painfully that he seemed to be wounded all over his body.Knowing that this therapy is often used on long-term unconscious patients doesn't help. At first, Mike couldn't figure out where he was and why he was in such a predicament.He could barely remember who he was.The morphine relieved the pain, which he was grateful for, but did nothing for recovery.Over the next two days, his mind gradually cleared and he was able to speak.Family members and friends kept coming to him, wishing him a speedy recovery or inquiring about some news, but they couldn't ask anything.Joshua and Kate are frequent visitors, and sometimes Mike dozes off, and they do their homework on the sidelines.For the first two days, they also had to answer his repeated questions.

At one point, after being repeated many times by others, Mike finally understood that he had been in a terrible car accident in Joseph and had been in a coma for nearly four days.Nam clearly wanted him to give a full explanation, but right now she was more concerned with his recovery than the former.His memory was a blur. I can only think of some sporadic fragments, and I can't string these fragments together according to a certain clue.He had a vague memory of driving to the shed, but then his memory was fragmented.In the dream, "Papa" appeared, the shadows of Jesus and Messi playing by the lake, and Sophia in the cave, and the light and color of the celebration on the grass, all of which came to mind like breaking Fragments dropped behind mirrors.Every scene is accompanied by excitement and joy, but he can't be sure whether they really happened or whether they are hallucinations caused by nerve damage and drug stimulation.

On the third afternoon after regaining consciousness, Mike woke up to see Willy staring at him impatiently. "You fool!" said Willie gruffly. "Nice to meet you, Willie." Mike yawned. Willie snarled, "How did you drive! Oh yeah, I remembered, farm kids don't know how to cross intersections. Mike, I heard you should have smelled that guy all the way of wine." Mike lay in bed, listening to his friend babble, trying to make sense of every word he said, but his mind was in a mess. Willie was still saying, "Look now, Nan is as nervous as a bumblebee, and won't talk to me anymore. She blamed me for lending you the jeep and letting you go to the shed."

"Why should I go to the shed?" Mike asked, trying to gather his energy. "I can't remember anything." Willie moaned in despair: "You have to tell her I told you not to go." "You persuaded me?" "Mike, don't do this to me. I wanted to tell you..." Mike smiled as Willy growled.If he had any memory, he would remember that this man cared about him, and that as long as he was around, he could make people feel relaxed and happy.He was suddenly surprised to find that Willie had bent over his face. "Honestly, is he there?" Willie asked in a low voice, then looked around quickly to make sure no one was overhearing.

"Who?" Mike whispered, "Why are we talking like this?" "You know, I'm asking God," Willie insisted. "Is he in the shed?" Mike was amused. "Willie," he whispered, "it's no secret. God is everywhere. Let's just say I've been in the shed." "I know that, you dumbass," Willie said angrily. "You don't remember anything? What do you mean you don't even remember the note? That note was from 'Pop' Yours, found in your mailbox when you slipped and fell on the ice and had a big fall."

This remark made McMursay suddenly enlightened, and the plot that had been blurred in his mind suddenly became clear.When he connected the fragments and filled in various details, everything suddenly made sense.The note, the jeep, the pistol, the trip to the shed, and bits and pieces of that glorious weekend... a flood of images and memories with such force as to lift him up and throw him out of bed , swept out of this world.He cried as he thought about it, tears rolling down his face. "Mike, I'm sorry," Willie pleaded apologetically at this moment, "what did I say wrong?"

Mike reached out to touch his friend's face. "Nothing, Willy . . . I remember it all now. The note, the shack, Macy, Daddy. I remember it all." Willie froze on the spot, not knowing what to do.He was worried that he was pushing his friend too much, and it was he who brought up those topics just now.Finally he asked, "So, are you going to tell me he's there? I mean God. Is he there?" Mike laughed and cried. "Willie, there he is! There he is! Wait, I'll tell you later. You won't believe it. God, I can't believe what I went through." Mike paused, lost in memory for a moment .Then, he said, "Oh, by the way, he wants me to bring you a sentence."

"What? Me?" Willie had a look of concern and suspicion on his face. "What did he say?" He leaned closer again. Mike said one word at a time: "He said: 'Su, v, Qi, Li, I, special, special, like, like, him.'" After Mike finished speaking, he saw that his friend's face and mouth were tense, his eyes were full of tears, his lips and chin were trembling, and he knew that he wanted to control himself.Willy finally whispered hoarsely: "I'm leaving, and you'll tell me everything in the future." After finishing speaking, he turned around abruptly and left the room, leaving Mike alone to think and remember.

Then Nan came in.She found that Mike sat up on the bed with support, grinning with a big mouth.He didn't know where to start, so he let her speak first.She added a few details that still puzzled him, and she was glad that he could finally remember things instead of forgetting them after hearing them.He was nearly killed by a drunk driver and underwent emergency surgery for multiple broken bones and internal injuries.He thought he would fall into a long-term coma, but his awakening made everyone feel relieved. As Nan told this, Mike felt that it was all very strange, just after he spent a weekend with God, he was involved in a car accident.Wasn't this seemingly accidental disturbance intentionally arranged by "father"?

When he heard Nan say that the car accident happened on Friday night, he asked, "You mean Sunday, right?" "Sunday? You think I'll lose track of the day? It's Friday night, and they flew you here." Her words confused him, and for a moment he suspected that what had happened at the shed was only a dream.Maybe it's just a space-time fusion trick played by Sarayu.He consoled himself. When Nan finished speaking, Mike began to tell her what happened to him.But first he confesses why he lied to her and asks her forgiveness.This startled Nan, who attributed his unprecedented candor to trauma and morphine. He told Nan what happened that weekend, but Nan kept reminding him that these things actually happened within a day.He finished the story in fits and starts.Sometimes the drugs would bring him to his knees, forcing him to drop the story and fall into a dreamless slumber.Once or twice he fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.In the beginning, Nan took care to keep herself patient and focused, doing her best not to judge, not to take his nonsense seriously, only as if his brain was still recovering from the injury.But the vividness and depth of his recollections struck her deeply, slowly undermining her resolve to remain objective.The stories he tells are full of vitality.She soon realized that, whatever happened, these events had greatly affected and changed her husband. Her skepticism loosened, and she agreed to find an opportunity for Mike and Kate to talk alone.It made her a little nervous that Mike wouldn't tell her why, but she was willing to trust him in this matter.Joshua was sent out to buy things, and there were only three of them left in the ward. Mike held out his hand and Kate took it. "Kate," he said, his voice still weak and hoarse, "I want you to know that I love you with all my heart." "I love you too, Dad." Seeing him so emotional, her attitude obviously softened a little. He smiled, still holding her hand, and his attitude became serious again: "I want to talk to you about Messi." Kate stepped back, as if stung by a wasp, and her face suddenly turned ashen.Instinctively, she wanted to withdraw her hand, but Mike exerted considerable force and held it tightly.She looks around.Nan came and hugged her.Kate was shaking. "Why?" she asked in a low voice for an explanation. "Katie, it wasn't your fault." She hesitated, almost as if some secret had been exposed on the spot. "What's not my fault?" Mike struggled to say the following, but she heard it. "We lost Messi..." When he tried to express it simply and clearly, tears were already flowing freely on his face. She flinched again, turning her back on him. "Honey, no one blames you for this." Her silence lasted only a few seconds before the levee burst. "If I'd paid more attention in the canoe, you wouldn't have to..." Her voice was full of self-hatred. Mike cut her off with his hand on her arm, "Honey, all I want to tell you is this: It's not your fault." Her father's words seeped into Kate's deeply wounded heart, and she whimpered, "But I always thought it was my fault. I think you and Mum blame me, I don't want to..." "None of us want this to happen, Kate. It happened and we're all going to get through this. Let's face it together, shall we?" Kate didn't know how to answer.Unable to control her emotions, she sobbed, shook off her father's hand, and rushed out of the room.Nan, whose face was full of tears, cast a helpless but encouraging glance at Mike, and hurried to chase after his daughter. When Mike woke up again, Kate was lying on the edge of the bed, snuggled up to him, sound asleep.Nan apparently helped Kate take some of the pain away.When Nan noticed that his eyes were wide open, in order not to wake her daughter, she approached him softly and kissed him. "I trust you," she said softly.He nodded and smiled, surprised to realize how important it was to hear that.Maybe it was the drugs that made him so sentimental, he thought. Over the next few weeks, Mike recovered quickly.A month after he was discharged from the hospital, he and Nan visited the new deputy sheriff of Joseph City, Tom Dalton, and told Tom that he wanted to go to the shed and go further.As the shed and its surroundings have returned to their original desolation, Mike worries whether Macy's remains are still in that cave.Law enforcement would ask him how he knew where his daughter's body was hidden, and it would take a while to explain.But Mike believes that Tommy and Tommy are friends, at least the other party will first believe that his words are true. Tommy was really nice and sweet.After hearing about Mike's weekend experience, despite chalking it all up to a still grieving father's fantasy, he agrees to go to the shed with Mike.He wanted to be with Mike anyway.He also has an ideal excuse to spend some time with Mike, which is to return a personal item recovered from the wreckage of Willy's jeep.So on a bright, cold Saturday morning in early November, Willie took Mike and Nan to Joseph City in his new-looking second-hand SUV, where they met up with Tommy and the four of them entered the reserve . Tommy watched in amazement as Mike walked past the shed to a tree near the start of a trail.As Mike had explained to them on the way here, he found and pointed out a red arc at the base of the tree.Mike still walked with a slight limp, but he led them for two hours and finally into the wasteland.Nan didn't say a word, but she couldn't hide the strong emotions in her heart, and she insisted on walking step by step.Along the way, they kept finding the same red arcs on trees and rock faces.When they reached the large rock formation, Tommy was finally convinced that what Mike said was true.He was not convinced that Mac's strange story was true, but that they had indeed traveled along a carefully marked path.These marks may have been left by Messi's killer.Mike walked straight into the maze of rocks and walls without hesitation. If "Papa" had brought Mike here, they might not have found the place at all.On top of the stone block on top of the pile of stones in front of the cave, there is a red marker pointing outwards.Thinking of the scene when "Papa" picked up the stone and put it at the entrance of the cave, Mike almost laughed out loud. You did find the right place.They were about to open the cave when Tommy stopped them, no doubt about what was inside.Although Mike was a little reluctant, he understood the importance of re-plugging the cave to protect the site, so he accepted Tommy's dissuasion.They will return to Joseph City.Once back, Tommy can notify forensic experts and relevant law enforcement.On the way back to Joseph City, Tommy heard Mike tell the story again, this time more honestly.Tommy uses this opportunity to instruct his friend on how best to handle the grilling he will soon be confronted with.Even if Mike's alibi is impeccable, he still has to be prepared to answer some tough questions. The next day, experts came like vultures and found Messi's body, bagging the sheet and whatever else they could find.In just a few weeks, the police collected enough evidence to track down and arrest the "girl killer".Armed with clues that the man had marked the cave where the body was hidden, authorities were able to pinpoint the exact location where the remains of the other girls he murdered were found.