The first rays of light through the window, pale and cold.
The sun is rising.
A new day.
The sixteenth of December, nineteen-hundred-and-forty-eight. The rain has stopped.
The room is strangely still. Unnaturally still.
Something is missing. Something has gone.
What can it be?
The rasping has stopped.
The wounded man opposite me lies still, his head to one side. His breathing has stopped.
A person is gone.