Josef In the instant when Elena happened to wake up out of the fog that the narcotic drip had immersed her in, she woke to screams for help and running footsteps. Then she noticed that everything she heard came from the left, while the right side of her face was paralyzed, disconnected, and stiff. She sank peacefully back into the darkness with the hope that she would never again have to wake up. The pain was like scissors cutting, clumsily clipping their way in through her right ear canal. With a clenched fist, Elena pressed the bandage as hard as she could to her temple, but whatever was cutting her up in there was impossible to reach. After the nurses had forced her to wake up, the pain locked her into this spasmodic position. Curled up on the short end of the bottle-green stretcher, she had been able to see them clatter by with emergency carts in the hall of the hospital. The majority of the most serious burns had already been transported to intensive care after the explosion in the north tower of Wewelsburg.
