Malala Yousafzai

So I was terrified that being an advocate for education and then getting in trouble and being kicked out.

I think for me it was just wanting to disobey rules.

I thought I had to live up to expectations and be a certain way.

I could never get in trouble.

I thought if this is something that puts me in the cool kids category or the rebellious kids category, I want to give it a try.

I wanted these college years to be that experience that I otherwise would never come across.

Suddenly, I was 15 years old again, lying on my back under a white sheet, a tube running down my throat, eyes closed.

For seven days, as doctors tended to my wounds, I was in a coma.

From the outside, I looked to be in a deep sleep, but inside, my mind was awake, and it played a slideshow of recent events.

My school bus, a man with a gun, blood everywhere.

My body carried through a crowded street.

Strangers hunched over me, yelling things I didn't understand, my father rushing toward the stretcher to take my hand.

As the images repeated in the same sequence over and over, I raged against them, trying to beat them away.

This isn't true, I told myself.

The real Malala is the one trapped in this nightmare, not the girl on the stretcher.

Just wake up, and it will stop.

Wake up.

I had tried to force my eyes open to see something other than this carousel of horrors.

Inside, I screamed.

Outside, my lips stayed closed, motionless.