The Counted

At 3:04 a.m., seventeen-year-old Leon Novak wakes in a waiting room he has never seen, holding a ticket he doesn't remember taking. By evening he is dead at the bottom of Cinder Hill. Ninety minutes later, he is breathing again. Every broken bone went back into place, and every one hurt as much going back as it did breaking. In his pocket, the ticket carries a new stamp in violet ink: ENTERED.