A heavy breathing—he recognized it later as his own.

A beep, which soon was revealed to follow a regular pattern.

And soon, murmurs, but it would take him time to identify them as voices, two of them his parents'.

Later, he didn't know how much time later, he felt something warm on his hand. It had to be another hand holding his.

Time was something immeasurable. He didn't know for how long he stayed awake or how many times he fell back to sleep. But at some point everything around him became clearer and, although he felt them heavy, he was able to open his eyelids. Then, he found he had a mask on which brought cold, fresh air into his lungs, was lying on a bed with different clothes and his mother was looking at him with tired eyes, while his father slept on his wheelchair, with his head cocked to one side at the feet of his bed.

A soft whine escaped his lips and that broke his mother's trance. She let out a gasp and her eyes immediately filled with tears as she grabbed his hand.

"Timmy…." She was crying, but at the moment he couldn't possibly imagine why.

His father woke up when he heard voices ending the silence. He looked around, disoriented, until he saw his wife looking at him with a smile and holding the hand of their son, whose eyes were open. Then, all of his sleepiness was gone completely. He drove his wheelchair to the other side of the bed to caress his cheek. Timmy also noticed his eyes getting wet, and still didn't know the reason, because fathers never cried.

"Richard, Richard! Richard!" Mr. Burch stormed out of the room while Timmy's mother stayed, looking as if not even a hurricane would have been able to move her away from his side.

Timmy opened his mouth but no sound came out of it.

"Ah! You're awake! Thanks heavens, we were starting to think you'd go vegetative!"

Who was the person in white who came into the room with his father? Timmy understood nothing, why everybody was surrounding him, so excited. The man in white called three more people dressed in uniforms and they did weird things to him, examined him very, very closely, sometimes with a small flashlight, commanded him to follow their fingers and to blink. Sometimes Timmy understood, most of the time he didn't.

He gained awareness as hours, days passed, but still felt terribly numb for some time. His head, he found, was bandaged. The man in white, the doctor, mentioned several times that he had been «incredibly lucky».

Everybody was worried sick about him. Mr. and Mrs. Burch made some calls to Timmy's school and the parents of his friends (of course, the children had to pick up the phone and deliver the message because the adults didn't seem to understand). It was too soon to allow visitors in, the doctor said, but his friends were informed of his progress. They had paid him a few visits while he was unconscious, so many people brought him presents: signed cards, plushies, balloons, flowers; his Special Ed classmates, Jimmy, Craig's gang, Kyle, Stan, Kenny, the girls...Timmy couldn't imagine where all of this concern came from, until his father explained to him that many children had been injured, but he had been shot in the head and for some days the doctors had told them he was looking grim and they had to be prepared for the worst outcome.

Timmy often tried to remember what happened, when he was shot, by who, but found he didn't retain any details. He only knew he dried his wet hands in his pants. He only got knowledge about the incident from what his parents were told and the little note in the newspapers they kept with them to follow the issue.

A sixteen-year-old boy, a former student of the school, wanting to get revenge for all those years of mockery because of his crooked teeth and girly voice, was the one who pulled the trigger. He acted alone, in spite of terrified students thinking it was two or three attackers, so he was easy to intercept and shoot down. Before that, he claimed the lives of three girls and two boys, ages six and eight. With his death in the hands of the security forces, the problem was solved and quickly forgotten. There was a student march, Mayor McDaniels promised, as always, she would work hard so that no more children died at school, and life went back to its normal course.

It all seemed surreal during his stay at the hospital. Timmy couldn't deny he felt overwhelmed sometimes, like his big head was not able to take all that information and check-ups. Good thing the people around him were extremely patient, even spoiling, and let Timmy go at his own pace.

A month passed. The bandages of his head were removed. There was a horrible scar which Timmy didn't like to look at, but he guessed it was a good price to pay for staying alive. He was ready to go home, the doctor said. He would probably feel disoriented and suffer migraines, so he had to be patient. But he was a strong little guy, he would surely have no problem recovering.

It was still soon to go back, but the day in which Timmy crossed the door of the classroom eventually came. He felt shivers, finding himself back to that place, some things he used to find absolutely normal and quotidian now puzzled him. His parents wanted him to stay home for a bit more, but he felt the doctor was right: he was strong, he could do this. His coming made so many heads turn and brought lots of smiles.

"Hey, fellas, look at that! It's Timmy!"

"Timmy!"

"Oh, my God!"

Timmy never felt so overwhelmed but loved, seeing all of his partners run to hug him and pat his shoulder.