Standard things. Disclaimers. Don't own.

Lots of wonky stuff in this story.

Updates are never regular, get them when they come out.

Love you all. 3

-ihm

It was cold.

The sensation wasn't new. It was just the beginning of feeling again.

(It was cold.)

Pain. Pain that had never faded but she had faded out of, striking back. Sharp stabs that punctured every movement, from the slow blinking of her eyes, to the fingers that scraped the ground below her for purchase. Stabbing that made her gasp, made her choke, spitting, coughing the blood that collected into her chest, her throat, her mouth, onto the ground.

(It was cold.)

There was commotion about her. She knew, she could hear it, under the white noise buzzing into her ears, filling her head with a static that collected. Others finishing what she had started, what she knew she had started...and failed to finish.

(It was cold.)

She couldn't see. Not from her eyes, lashes finally closing, tacky with blood. Behind her lids all that played were patterns and flashes of light that moved too fast for her frosted brain to keep up. Did it have meaning? Did it matter? It didn't seem to, really. Nothing mattered right now.

(It was cold.)

She was growing numb where she lay, unknowing if her fingers were even moving anymore, the feeling of not feeling sliding from the tips up to her arms. Cold seeped into her side, through the broken armor and along her ribs, puncturing into her lungs as sharply as a dagger. Her legs felt as if they were being speared with a thousand needles, sharp and sudden before the sensation died off completely. The white noise in her head grew.

(It was cold.)

A sliver of metal...rubble or a shattered part of something she had been using...a gun, a knife...burned against a bare arm, so cold it felt like fire. She wanted to move. She knew she needed to move.

But blood was freezing in her throat, her nose, along her face, lungs pained by any simple effort, body dead to any fleeting, coherent commands she could think to make.

Hands grabbed her suddenly. Freezing hands, hauling her upright as she sputtered and blood, hot and fresh, tore it way up her throat and through her lips, steaming on contact with air so cold it burned. There was the sensation of something ripping, tearing, lashing out internally as her heart kicked up a feeble beat and her eyes tried to open. They failed, and she heard a voice. The words never mattered. She was beyond understanding what was being said. The anger was something she could taste though, as hot as her blood as something burned into her veins from the touch.

(It was cold.)

And while it was the sensation that awoke her, it was sending her back to oblivion.

Lips pressed to hers, so cold she had a disjointed thought that her lips must be blue with cold, if they weren't already. She could feel the pressure, of something breathing into her mouth, trying to clear the passage to her lungs, a burning that punctured its way down to her core.

She was too cold to scream. Hadn't enough air for the action, but a splutter, blood forcing its way back up.

Fingers not her own wiped at the blood coating her eyes.

She breathed in.

And knew no more.

So we tell this story, even if we start at the end.