• Chapter 14

  • When I woke up, the faint scent of antiseptic lingered in the air.

  • I had been transferred to a hospital back home.

  • The doctor told me I had spent two full weeks in the ICU.

  • My internal organs were severely injured, and I had taken a bullet to the shoulder.

  • But by some stroke of luck,

  • my spleen wasn’t ruptured, and the bullet hadn’t caused an exit wound.

  • The blood loss wasn’t severe, and that’s how I managed to survive until the peacekeepers rescued

  • me.

  • I knew clearly in my heart–it was because Joseph shielded me twice.

  • He saved my life.

  • I reached out to everyone I could, trying to find any trace of him.

  • But they all said the chaos at the time made it impossible to recover Joseph’s body.

  • With casualties mounting, Doctors Without Borders had suspended its projects in North Kivu.

  • I had no chance to go back and look for him.

  • Just like that, Joseph vanished.

  • Every night, I woke up screaming, gripped by terror.

  • His dying moments replayed endlessly in my mind, refusing to fade.

  • The doctor diagnosed me with PTSD.

  • I began taking medication, attending therapy sessions, even resorting to alcohol.

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  • Chapter 14

  • But nothing worked.

  • starting anew, to stop

  • how could I?

  • died for

  • an unshakable shadow,

  • made me hate myself for still being alive, hate that it wasn’t

  • for not

  • edge of

  • the very last moment, I would pull

  • one Joseph gave everything

  • longer had the

  • returned to work after my

  • no longer face cameras or photographs.

  • ended up requesting a transfer to a behind–the–scenes

  • I remained a walking

  • it anymore and

  • me to

  • no interest and only wanted to say a few polite words and

  • then I

  • moment I saw

  • identical to Joseph’s–I

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  • Chapter 14

  • every ounce of strength I had not to

  • the

  • first, treating him as a stand–in

  • mundane, ordinary days were

  • I would cook dinner and wait for

  • on the couch and watch

  • when nightmares woke me in

  • beside me would let me

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