Awareness came slowly, light blips on the edge of an unending darkness. And cold; it was so, so cold. It nipped at his nerve endings and…
He had nerves. He had nerves, and skin, and a body and—and oh God, God it hurt. Why did it hurt?
There was noise suddenly, like the grinding of the tube on its rails, like the raking of nails on chalkboards, like the scratching of sandpaper against rough wood. It was too loud; he wished it would stop, wished it would be muted. It was too loud, too painful.
And then he realized it was him. He was screaming. There was barely air in his lungs, and he felt his chest burning with it, the noise that wouldn't stop, the scream that wouldn't be silenced. He had lungs, he had a throat. He had a mouth, and if he had that, then surely he had a nose. And…and eyes. The knowledge was foreign to him; it didn't make any sense, because he didn't understand. He didn't know what was going on, all he knew was that it was dark and that it hurt. It hurt so much.
He could do nothing about it, though. There was nothing he could do to escape the pain. The darkness, though…perhaps that was something he could remedy. He opened his eyes – a harder struggle than it should have been, than it ever had been, and it, too, hurt – and suddenly, there was…
Darkness. Still, there was darkness. The screaming continued, and so he knew there was something, that it wasn't just nothingness, because there was sound. There had to be something!
A twitch. His finger, resting against his side, twitched. With it, he became aware of his limbs, stiff and foreign. He became aware of his control over them, of his influence over them. He could make them move, but it came at a price. As he lifted his arm, something in him screamed out, cried for him to stop. The pain was unbelievable, but he couldn't stop. He had to know if there was something, so he reached, up, up, and—
The back of his hand met something cold, through what felt like fabric now pulled tight over his face. It was colder than the rest of him – frigid, bitingly so. He recoiled, but then curiosity got the better of him and, ignoring the agony now ripping through his body, he reached again, and again he met with ice. Solid, and so, so close. It was on top of him, he realized, barely inches above his nose, and a sudden dash of fear lanced through his chest. What if…what if it wasn't just above him.
He threw his arm out, sideways, only to strike another wall of ice, and suddenly the clang of metal joined his screams. They hadn't stopped, and now, neither could he, throwing his arms this way and that, above him, beside him, thrashing his feet, anything. He had to know, was it around him? Was it there? Was it everywhere, holding him in, trapping him?
And it was. Oh God, it was. It was everywhere, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was trapped with nothing but the darkness, his screams, and pain. Searing, unbearable pain, and no one would help him.
Moisture gathered in his open, unseeing eyes, spilling over his cheeks as one thought congealed in the mad mist of his head.
'Jack…'