CAIRN POINT OF VIEW.

For a moment, I stayed there.

Kneeling beside him.

The world around me felt distant, muted, like everything beyond the rise and fall of his chest had stopped mattering. My focus narrowed to that single movement, that fragile proof that he was still alive.

I listened.

Closely.

Measured each breath as it came, uneven, shallow, struggling against something that threatened to take it away completely.

I watched.

The faint twitch of his fingers.

The slight tension in his ...