I couldn’t sleep.

My body felt hot, as if it were on fire. I was restless, every inch of me aching.

Two days had passed since I participated in the ritual, and the outcome wasn’t at all what I had expected. I had survived, walked out alive despite the fact that my head had been seconds from rolling onto the ground. But most of all, I had been given the gold I needed to afford my mother’s surgery. Thankfully, it was successful. My mother was stable for now, though the procedure only ...