Chapter 71: The Awakening

MATEO POV

I woke up to a constant beeping in my ears. It was sharp, repetitive, like the ticking of a clock that refused to let time pass. At first I thought I was still dreaming, but the brutal pain dragged me back to reality.

I tried to move, and an unbearable burning sensation shot through my right leg. My head felt as heavy as if it were filled with molten lead. It took me a few seconds to understand where I was. The smell of disinfectant, white walls stained with damp patches, cold neon lights. A hospital.

I swallowed. My throat was completely dry, like sandpaper. I tried to speak, but only a hoarse groan came out.

“Easy, Monsignor. Don’t strain yourself,” said a female voice with a Chiapas accent.

I slowly turned my head, feeling every muscle protest. A young nurse was checking the machines beside my bed. She was smiling, but her expression showed deep exhaustion.

“How long…?” I managed to ask with difficulty.

“You were in an induced coma for twenty-seven days. You were very lucky, Monsignor. It could have been much worse.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling pain in my ribs. Memory hit me like a hammer: the sound of the engine accelerating, the car lights blinding me, the impact that sent me flying. Then nothing but darkness.

But there was something else. A voice. A soft, trembling, desperate voice. I had heard it clearly at some point between darkness and consciousness. It spoke to me with heartbreaking tenderness. It begged me not to leave, to come back. I also remembered something about girls. I didn’t know if it had been a dream, a feverish delirium, or something real.

Lucía.

Her name lodged itself in my mind like a red-hot knife.

The nurse adjusted an IV line and checked my casted leg.

“You have a femur fracture in three places. You’ve already had two surgeries, but you’ll need months of physical therapy to walk properly again. Take it very slowly.”

I nodded weakly. Just breathing exhausted me completely.

A doctor came in shortly after. He checked my vital signs, shined a small flashlight into my eyes, and smiled with weary professionalism.

“You gave us quite a scare, Father. You were hit very hard, at calculated speed. It was a medical miracle that you survived. Technically, you should have died on impact.”

“How long was I unconscious?”

“Almost a full month. Twenty-seven days in an induced coma. You’re no longer in immediate danger, but recovery will be long and painful.”

I nodded in silence. It wasn’t the first time I had survived something that should have killed me, but this time the cost felt different. I sensed that part of me had been left behind on that cobblestone street.

“Doctor,” I said after a moment, gathering courage, “did anyone come to see me? A young woman?”

He checked the visitor log hanging at the foot of the bed.

“Your visits were very restricted by order of the Archdiocese. Only the auxiliary bishop and some priests from nearby parishes came. No woman was officially registered.”

I lowered my gaze, feeling a sharp pain in my chest. I didn’t insist. But I knew with absolute certainty. I had heard her voice. Lucía had been there, by my side.

The following days were slow, monotonous, and filled with pain. Medication every four hours, constant medical checks, pain that never fully subsided.

Every movement was a titanic effort. My muscles refused to respond. My leg throbbed as if rusty nails were driven into it. I spent hours staring at the stained ceiling, listening to prayers drifting in from the street through the window. People never left the hospital, day or night. Indigenous faithful came every day, praying, singing, leaving marigold flowers.

The doctors said that collective affection helped recovery. But I knew that what truly kept me awake was something else: the feeling that she had been close.

At night, when the lights dimmed and the hospital fell silent except for the groans of other patients, I remembered the voice with chilling clarity.

“I love you. The girls need you. You have to come back.”

It was so clear, so real, that it sent shivers through me every time.

Had she said “the girls”? I didn’t understand what it meant. But the phrase repeated in my head over and over like a scratched record.

In the second week, they got me out of bed for the first time. Two burly orderlies helped me stand, supporting me on either side. The pain was absolutely unbearable. I bent forward, drenched in sweat, but I didn’t give up.

“Slowly, Monsignor,” one of them said. “This is just the beginning. You have months ahead.”

Each step was a battle against my own body. I felt my bones creak, my muscles rebel. But deep down, every painful movement was a silent promise: I will come back. I will walk again.

I clung to that idea desperately.

The auxiliary bishop visited me several times. He brought theology books, new rosaries, handwritten letters from parishioners.

“The entire neighborhood is praying for you, my son,” he told me one rainy afternoon. “People haven’t stopped coming for a single day. They say you’re a living saint.”

I nodded and thanked him in a weak voice. I sincerely appreciated his words, but deep down I thought only of her. Of Lucía.

Four weeks passed before the chief physician signed my discharge.

“You can continue your recovery at the episcopal residence, but you must use crutches at all times and attend physical therapy three times a week here at the hospital. No exertion, and no standing masses.”

“Understood,” I said.

I left the Regional Hospital leaning on aluminum crutches, my body exhausted and my soul tightly knotted. Outside, literally hundreds of people were waiting. They had improvised hand-painted banners, flowers, and a small marimba band playing soft music.

When they saw me come out limping, they burst into loud applause.

Some cried openly.

Others shouted with emotion:

“Welcome back, Monsignor Mateo! God saved you!”

“It’s a miracle!”

I walked slowly among them, feeling every step. My leg hurt brutally, but I forced myself to smile. I blessed them with my trembling right hand. It was too much concentrated love—and at the same time, an unbearable burden.

Deep down, I knew the real miracle wasn’t being alive, but continuing to endure Lucía’s absence without completely losing my sanity.

Life at the parish slowly returned to its routine.

The first Sunday I officiated Mass again, the Cathedral of Saint Michael the Archangel was filled to the last corner.

Candles lit, pews packed to the back, Televisa and TV Azteca cameras outside filming.

The auxiliary bishop insisted on accompanying me throughout the ceremony. I agreed. I climbed to the main altar supported by my crutches. Each step burned like fire, but the sound of the people pushed me forward.

“Brothers and sisters,” I said at the beginning, my voice still weak, “God has given me another inexplicable chance. I am here because your faith sustained me when my body could not.”

The people applauded emotionally.

Many cried without hiding it.

But behind every word I spoke, I felt a deep, dark loneliness.

When the Mass ended and I returned exhausted to my room at the episcopal residence, I sat in front of the window overlooking the atrium. My leg throbbed with constant pain. I took a small, worn Bible from the nightstand. Between its pages, I still kept Lucía’s farewell note.

I opened it with trembling hands. I read it once more, though I knew it by heart.

The paper was worn with time, but her handwriting was still clear.

“Thank you for the best night of my life… but I can’t drag you into my misfortune. Please don’t look for me.”

I closed my eyes, my heart heavy as lead. I wanted to believe that her voice during the coma had been a fever dream. That she never came to see me. That my mind had invented her presence to comfort me.

But something deep inside me knew with certainty that she had been there. I could feel it in my bones.

The days that followed were brutal.

Physical therapy left me completely exhausted. My muscles were slow to respond. I walked with painful slowness, with conscious effort, but I never stopped.

At night, physical exhaustion wasn’t enough to erase her from my thoughts. Sometimes I woke abruptly at three in the morning, convinced I heard her calling me again.

That voice. That desperate whisper: “I love you, Mateo.”

I couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Not with the bishop, not with my fellow priests, not even with God in confession.

It was my private condemnation and my secret refuge at the same time.

Desire was still alive, hidden beneath the habit and the monotonous routine. Every day of prayer was a brutal internal struggle. I prayed for the people, for the sick, for the poor of the neighborhood, and in the end I always ended up praying for her.

For Lucía, wherever she was in this world.

One night, a month after my discharge, I was in my office reviewing administrative parish paperwork. My leg still hurt constantly, but I could already walk short distances without crutches. The cathedral was in absolute silence. Outside, rain poured heavily over San Cristóbal.

My cell phone vibrated.

I answered with a tired voice.

“Yes?”

On the other end, I heard a familiar voice I hadn’t heard in months.

“Mateo.”

Only my family called me by my real name.

I stayed silent for a few seconds before replying.

“Santiago.”

“We heard about your accident. We followed everything closely from Guadalajara,” my brother said in a controlled voice. “We sent trusted people to look after you from afar. We didn’t come in person because we know what it means to you to keep your life completely separate from ours.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” I finally replied. “There was no need to put your people at risk.”

“There is always a need to protect family,” he answered, his voice hard as steel. “No one touches a Salazar and walks away. Ever.”

“Don’t do anything, Santiago,” I warned firmly. “I don’t want more blood because of me.”

Santiago sighed on the other end of the line.

“I can’t promise anything, little brother. But rest assured, the one who did this to you will pay dearly. We already know who it was.”

“Leave it in God’s hands. He will know what to do.”

“God doesn’t punish everyone in this life, Mateo. Some need a more… immediate human reminder.”

I didn’t argue. I knew that when Santiago spoke in that tone, he had already made an irreversible decision.

“How are you really?” he asked then, his voice softer.

“Alive. Walking in pain. Thanks to God and the doctors.”

“Good. If you need anything—anything at all—call us. No matter the hour or the reason.”

“I will.”

“Take good care of yourself, brother. We love you.”

The call ended. I stared at the phone for a long moment in silence.

Outside, the rain kept beating against the cathedral’s new stained-glass windows. My leg throbbed constantly, but it wasn’t the physical pain that weighed on me like stone.

It was another pain—deeper, invisible, permanent.

I turned off the office lights and limped to the window. From there, I could see the main square, candles flickering, the shadows of the faithful still praying under the rain for me.

I thought of Lucía. Of her voice during the coma. Of the words I believed I had heard with absolute clarity.

“The girls need you.”

I leaned against the cold window frame and squeezed my eyes shut.

Maybe it was a fever dream. Maybe it wasn’t. But if it was real, then she had been there, by my side, when not even the doctors knew if I would survive.

And that—more than the medical miracle of surviving the accident—was what truly kept me standing.

The hope that someday, somehow, I would see her again.

Even if only one last time before I died.