Its hard to tell when you're awake or not when the world is dark. There is a dull ringing that won't stop, the base of his skull is screaming at him, his bones ache and every inch of skin above his hips feel like its on fire.
Just beyond the incessant screaming in his ears he can hear the bleeping of machines and sobbing of his grandmother as she begged him to do something, to say something or move.
He could do it, should maybe, to reassure her he is alive, but, he doesn't want to honestly. He didn't want to face being alive, being awake. Didn't want to face what he knew would be waiting for him if he let them know.
No.
The longer he lay here in this worrying darkness that closed in around him, grabbing and clawing at longer he pretended to be dead, meant the longer he could put off the inevitable.
It meant he didn't have to know why he couldn't feel the rough blankets on his feet, Why the world was so dark, and why Virgil had never answered his pleas.