The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 332

Sloane slowly fluttered her eyes open, her mind hazy.

The first thing that registered in her vision was a blur of white—a white ceiling, white walls, blinding white lights.

She blinked. The white didn't fade; instead, it sharpened, becoming almost painfully bright.

Then came the sound—a low, rhythmic hum echoing from all directions. It wasn't noise, but rather the quiet, steady breathing of sophisticated medical machinery.

She slowly turned her head and saw a row of unfamiliar equipment lined up next to her bed.

The tallest machine stood waist-high, encased in sleek silver-gray metal. Sets of data curves she couldn't understand danced across its screen, with red, blue, and green waveforms crawling sluggishly across a black background, like the heartbeat of some deep-sea creature.

A clear tube extended from the side of the machine, the other end hooked into the vein at the crook of her left elbow. The fluid inside the tube was a pale, milky white, giving off a faint fluorescence under the glaring lights.

There was a smaller device near the headboard—a circular disc attached just above her left temple. It pulsed with a faint blue halo at a slow, deliberate frequency: glowing for three seconds, fading for one, as if patiently waiting for something.

Several people were standing around her bed.

A woman in a white coat with silver hair and piercing eyes was leaning slightly forward, monitoring the screen. A girl with a short bob, wearing a dark green flight jacket, stood with her mouth half-open, her eyes already rimmed with red. Behind them stood a tall, elegant man in a dark gray dress shirt, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He stood rigidly straight, his lips pressed tightly together as if he were violently suppressing his emotions.

Sloane's gaze swept over his face without pausing. She looked back at the woman in the white coat, her lips moving. Her voice was raspy and weak, like she hadn't used her vocal cords in an eternity. "What... happened to me?"

Vivienne moved to the side of the bed, leaned over, and gently pressed two fingers to Sloane's wrist to check her radial pulse. Counting the beats, she asked, "Are you feeling any discomfort?"

Sloane stayed quiet for a few seconds, taking a few deep breaths as if to assess her own body. "My chest... feels a little tight."

She lifted her right hand and lightly pressed her fingers against her chest. Through the thin fabric of the hospital gown, she could feel her heart beating faster than usual, the rhythm a bit erratic.

"That's normal," Vivienne said, releasing her wrist and taking the stethoscope from around her neck, tucking it into the pocket of her white coat. "You've just been through a very long recovery process. Your lungs were never in great shape to begin with, and just pulling through this is a miracle in itself. Your cardiopulmonary function will need some time to readjust."

'My lungs were never in great shape?' Sloane thought, utterly confused. As a competitive swimmer, her lung capacity was exponentially better than the average person's. Why would a doctor say that?