Warning: drowning

The water around his feet is cold.

He isn't very deep, less than a dozen feet down, but it might as well be a mile. His knife is gone, lost in the debris hanging suspended around him, the aftermath of an explosion almost caught in time. Almost. If he looks up, if he focuses, he can see it moving, shards of metal and plastic, negative spaces in a sea of blue as they sway to the ocean's unseen rhythm.

It would be pretty, would be tranquil, but

the water around his knees is cold.

Or maybe that's the cabling knotted around his legs. Tight, not heavy. Holding, not dragging. Damning, not innocent.

His shoulders burn, strain with effort as he claws at the cables, a vain attempt to free himself; he claws at the water, a vain attempt to drag himself up. He's stuck, caught, trapped without knife, without oxygen, without radio. Alone.

Alone, helpless, a single fish snared in a tidy trap. Neat, efficient, a slow death circling him from a distance, waiting, waiting for him to wear himself out, to succumb to the inevitable.

No.

He clenches his jaw, locks his teeth over the air pushing up out of his lungs, stops the bubbles from seeping out between his lips. He needs it. Can't let it escape.

Slow. Steady. Calm. Panicking wastes air, wasted air beckons death closer. Death is close enough, it isn't welcome.

The water around his waist is cold.

He looks up. The negative spaces are farther apart, opening above his head like a gateway. Between them lies glittering light, brilliant, blinding, warm where it brushes his cheeks, his open, upraised palm.

Because he reaches. He can't not, drawn toward a world he calls home, a place he has breath, has brothers. Fails to find either. Reaches again, harder, desperate. Touches the underside of the water's surface, fingertips rippling the reflection of a blue sky, tearing it in two without ever pressing through it into the air above. Bubbles rush up from his mouth, faster now, escaping without his consent, tickling his arm, wrapping around his fingers, cruel, mocking, wasted pockets of air, before vanishing up into a sky he cannot touch, no matter how hard he tries.

Drowning. He's drowning, away from the air, away from the sun, away from everything and everyone he loves, and he can't save himself. He's trying, trying so hard to grasp the sky, to hook his fingers into the murky shadow of far-away clouds and drag himself above the surface, out of certain death and into life, but he can't, he can't.

The water around his chest is cold.

So cold, needles stabbing into his lungs, many tiny punctures allowing what little air remains inside him to escape. Streams of bubbles drift upward, thinner now, lazy, with all the time in the world, catching in his eyelashes, making him squint, blink, shake his head, a laborious movement, one that costs too much energy but serves to free the trapped bubbles, allowing them to continue their journey up. up. up. A journey he'll never make again.

The water around his throat is cold

icy fingers squeezing, squeezing hard, choking him. More air escapes, but it's hard to follow its trail up now. Maybe he can't find it, maybe it's too narrow to see. Focusing hurts, but hurts different than the terrible ache in his chest, scraping up his throat, a hollowness that can't be filled. He bites numb lips, seals them shut, maybe

because feeling is becoming difficult, but he knows

the water around his elbow is cold

even though he's reaching for the sun, it's too far away.

Deep inside the very core of him, something breaks, the void ruptures, and death rushes in, done circling, done prowling, a fundamental law running its natural course. It sears through him, wrong in every way imaginable.

He chokes.

The water around his wrist is cold.

He convulses, fighting his own body with fading strength. Too long. He's been here too long, unwelcome until he is. Awareness drips away, a steady leak, all he has left, ungiven but taken anyway.

He stills.

So far above him, so very far, the surface no longer glitters. It's unmoving, a matte gray. Maybe it's better here after all. Quiet. Peaceful.

The water around his fingers is cold

sunlight gone

and then it isn't.