Eden Malcom

Once Eden was 220 pounds and could bench press 150. He was in his early twenties, had black hair and was covered in tattoos and would “need another body if he wanted to ink any more of his story into it” (73). Eden now weighs 70 pounds. He was a corporal in 1st battalion, 6th Marines (22), and in a Humvee blast in the Hamrin Valley, he was burned severely; due to his injuries, he is on life support, has lost both his legs, portions of brain functioning, and is continuously at risk of infection from his open wounds. Eden has been unconscious for three years in a burn ward of a hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Eden awakens in the hospital, but is unable to communicate this. His world shrinks to what is within his mind, and here he finds terror in all forms, including his phobia of bugs in a...