When the taxi hit the water Henry felt as if all the air had been knocked out of his lungs.
The force of the impact thew him backwards in his seat, he bounced from his seat banging his head hard against the car roof before his body jerked forwards suddenly, throwing him head first into the reinforced screen like a rag-doll. His forehead made impact with the hard material, sending a sharp pain through his temples.
His eyes immediately darted towards the passenger window and in a daze he watched the water level outside disappear as the open water began to swallow the car whole, the cab sunk into a nose dive, falling deeper and deeper into the dark murky water.
Panic flooded through his body at the sensation of the cold, icy water creeping up his legs and ankles at an alarming speed.
The thought of his lungs filling with liquid and choking the precious air out of him almost paralysed him. Henry may be immortal but drowning was not a pleasant way to die, a death he would very much like to avoid.
Dread seized him as Henry clawed desperately at the door handle to no avail. He scratched at the cheap leather and the doors locking mechanism in a hurried frenzy, cursing when the door didn't move at all.
By now the water had risen to his chest and Henry could already feel his fingers becoming numb and useless.
He banged angrily against the window of the taxi, kicking out with his feet and cursing at the now empty drivers seat as he tried to break the unpenetrable screen separating him from the front of the car.
Of course his stalker had vanished; giving himself a swift, quick death he had left Henry behind to die slowly. The cab had been driver-less went it had swerved off the road and into the water.
The doctor sneered in anger as he continued to kick and hit the glass.
By now the car was almost completely full, he barely had enough time to inhale a lungful of air before he was completely submerged.
With his final breath and last burst of energy he kicked the window weakly one more time but the glass still didn't shatter. Abruptly he was overcome with a wave of exhaustion, his vision began to blur as the oxygen deprivation set in.
Henry's limbs drifted weightlessly in the murky water and time seemed to slow down. There was no sound this deep in the canal, only the soft slowing thumping of his dying heart.
It might come as a surprising revelation but despite dying many times before Henry still feared death. Death was uncontrollable, like bungee jumping without a parachute; you knew you were going to hit the ground but inevitably still flinched before impact. Once you'd jumped there was nothing you could do but wait for death.
There was no control.
There was a certain feeling of defeat, dying felt worse when a stranger was the one responsible. He had no option but to wait for his rebirth; Abe would not be happy to learn that he had died again.
Just as he allowed his eyes to close and wait for darkness too wash over his dying body, Henry could have sworn that he saw the shadow of a figure out of the corner of his eye.
His oxygen starved brain was definitely playing tricks on him.
He couldn't hold his breath any longer, his lungs burned as he choked on cold liquid.
Henry embraced the darkness.
Henry was very much disoriented when he returned to a conscious state.
There was a loud, unfamiliar voice shouting in his ear that made him want to cover his lobes but he didn't seem to have the strength to move a muscle.
'Sir! Sir can you here me?'
He couldn't stop shaking. Tremors wracked through his body. His gut clenched painfully as he convulsed, retching water from his mouth.
No amount of coughing seemed to be able clear the aching pressure in his chest.
Henry gasped and spluttered, his lungs heaved as he took in precious air, but the breathlessness remained.
Only when he felt a hard surface beneath him to it even occur to him that he wasn't in the water.
Henry could feel a pair of strong hands, gasping him firmly on both shoulders.
Something was very wrong.
Rebirth was never like this, this was something else entirely.
'Sir, help's on the way, stay calm for me okay? just keeping breathing.'
He managed to pry his eyes open enough to see the silhouette of a police officer, kneeling beside him.
What on earth...
'W-what-'
His rasping voice turned into violent coughing and he heaved again, bringing up more water. His ribs ached from the strain, he found himself unable to do anything but rasp and pant. He was shivering violently, his clothes saturated and sticking to his body.
Henry was struck with disbelief.
His clothes; he still had his clothes on; he had somehow managed to escape death.
'Sir, don't try and talk, save your breath; an ambulance is on the way okay?'
He blinked owlishly at the stranger above him when the world suddenly seemed to tilt dizzyingly, he turned his head to one side and emptied his water logged stomach contents on the pavement beside him.
The were an assortment of voices echoing above his head, but the bright lights from the street lamps blinded him into a state of lost equilibrium. The faint crackling of a police radio was almost inaudible with the ringing in his ears.
'-I repeat, we have a code eight, I need a backup unit to the canals and an ambulance immediately, we have one injured passenger'
'Any sign of the driver?'
'I didn't see anyone else man, hard to tell it's so dark down there'
'Driver of the vehicle is still unaccounted for, possible DWI'
It was impossible to tell what was making Henry's inside's clench so painfully, the mention of the unaccounted driver, the close call of nearly dying in front of witnesses or the hypothermia freezing his body from the inside out.
A weak glance confirmed that he had been stripped of his wet coat and scarf, a large police jacket was tucked around his weak body but he couldn't feel the material of the jacket through his fingertips.
He couldn't feel anything, not even the cold.
His body was going into shock but there was nothing he could do about it.
A heavy wave of exhaustion finally swallowed him whole, his eyes fluttered to a close and the noises around him faded into silence.