For weeks, sleep had become something Hunter only remembered, not something he experienced.
The nights were the hardest. When the world quieted and the lights went out, his mind would return to the crackling sound, the flash, the unbearable jolt that changed everything. Even in silence, he could still hear the wires — buzzing, snapping, alive with invisible danger. Rest felt impossible. Peace felt distant.
Until, finally, something shifted.
Hunter slept.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no announcement, no applause, no triumphant music playing in the background. It happened quietly, in the early hours of the morning. His breathing slowed. His shoulders relaxed. The tension that had kept his body braced for impact softened just enough to let him drift.
For the first time since the accident — since what he now calls “the war in the wires” — Hunter slept through the night.
To anyone watching from the outside, it might seem like a small milestone. But to those who have lived through trauma, the ability to rest is nothing short of revolutionary.
The accident had been sudden. One moment, routine work. The next, chaos. High-voltage current doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t warn. It strikes with brutal force. In the aftermath, there were hospital rooms, procedures, hushed conversations in hallways, and the long, uncertain road of recovery.
But the physical injuries were only part of the battle.
What lingered most was the invisible aftermath: the hyper-awareness, the flinch at unexpected sounds, the restless pacing when night fell. Hunter described it as his body refusing to believe it was safe. “It’s like my nervous system never got the memo that it’s over,” he said once.
Sleep became fragmented — minutes here, an hour there. He would jolt awake, heart racing, as if electricity were still coursing through him. Doctors spoke about trauma responses, about how the brain rewires itself after shock. Therapists talked about grounding techniques and retraining the body to recognize calm.
But progress felt slow.
There were moments of frustration. Moments when exhaustion blurred into despair. When Hunter wondered if he would ever feel normal again — or if “normal” was something he had to redefine entirely.
Yet recovery rarely announces itself in grand gestures. More often, it arrives in subtle breakthroughs.
The night it happened, nothing seemed different. There were no new medications, no dramatic conversations. Just the same routine: dimmed lights, controlled breathing, the steady encouragement from those around him to be patient with himself.
Somewhere between memory and morning, his body let go.
He didn’t wake up gasping. He didn’t bolt upright. Instead, he opened his eyes to sunlight filtering through the curtains — confused at first, then stunned.
He had slept.
Not for minutes. Not in restless fragments. But deeply. Continuously. Peacefully.
It’s difficult to overstate what that means to someone emerging from trauma. Sleep is more than rest. It’s trust. It’s surrender. It’s the body believing, even temporarily, that it is safe enough to power down.
For Hunter, that single night became proof of something powerful: healing was not theoretical. It was happening.
The “war in the wires” — the internal battle between fear and recovery — had not ended. But for the first time, it had paused.
In the days that followed, there was a noticeable shift. His laughter came easier. His focus sharpened. The dark circles beneath his eyes softened. Family members noticed the change before he even spoke about it.
“You look lighter,” someone said.
Maybe it was the rest. Or maybe it was hope.
Trauma recovery often unfolds in uneven waves. There will likely be difficult nights ahead. Setbacks are part of the terrain. But breakthroughs, even small ones, carry immense weight.
Hunter now speaks about that night not as a finish line, but as a turning point. “It reminded me that my body is trying to heal,” he says. “It’s not fighting me. It’s fighting for me.”
There’s something universally human about that realization. In a world that celebrates dramatic comebacks and sweeping transformations, we sometimes overlook the quiet victories — the moments when the body and mind decide to cooperate again.
Rest, after all, is an act of courage when you’ve been shocked by life.
Hunter’s breakthrough doesn’t erase what happened. The scars, both visible and unseen, remain part of his story. But they no longer define the entire narrative.
Instead, there is this: a morning filled with sunlight. A steady breath. A sense that the worst may truly be behind him.
After the surge, after the chaos, after the relentless hum of memory — there was silence.
And in that silence, finally, sleep.
