Author's Note: This chapter's kind of short, but it makes its point, I believe.
He felt an inch away from hell as he threw his body up onto the shore, vomiting the water out of his stomach over and over onto the wet sand until nothing remained and he collapsed onto his chest. He couldn't guess how long he had been swimming, but it didn't seem possible that it was settling on dusk already. His breath screeched so deeply in his stomach that he was sure he would suffocate in a matter of minutes—he must have been swimming for hours. Even still, the feeling had remained that Tom was right behind him with every stroke he made, waiting to reach out and snatch him and take him down. Even now, as he lay in the sand, eyes half closed and hazed, that fear still spurred in him. But he could no longer push his body further, shivering in the cool air and half aware of twitching the fingers on his numb and bled out hand. He'd never felt so vulnerable before. The devil itself could be standing before him with its foot hanging above his head and all he would be able to will himself to do would be to let out the faintest of whimpers. Fear no longer mattered. His body had been spent.
His physical pain began to take over now that he had been robbed of his intense adreniline, crashing into him like a wave and peeling back his skin to rake across every aching muscle. Every vein was pulsing, from his head to his feet, his upper back and neck to his groin, and everything inbetween. His arms were slack at his sides, buzzing from the pain and fidgeting with the urge to wipe the sand from his face but lacking the strength to do so.
He faded restlessly. In and out of consciousness. Colored dreams behind his eyes and black and white when he opened them. When at last he lapsed out of the cycle, he realized that he could not have laid here nearly as long as he had thought, for the light had not changed around him. His breath had finally calmed into a ragged pattern, his throat raw and his body shaking, but he could at least move once more. He forced himself up onto his hands and knees, feeling as though balancing his weight took every ounce of effort left in him so as not to make a face plant back into the sand. He didn't recognize where he was. He could have wound up on some deserted island or he could have even somehow gotten turned around and landed back onto the beach he had tried to escape just a few hours before. Whatever the case, he knew that lying out in the open was a bad option wherever he happened to be.
His legs felt like melted lead as he lifted them up, trying to keep himself standing once he reached his height. Ruffling his hair hard to bat away the gathering of sand, he blinked out into the distance and sighed. His head throbbed and he felt ill, the puncture wounds in his wrist still bleeding. He'd never felt worse. No less than the day he had awoken to this disaster. At least then there had been uncertainties; oppertunities to hope. But now, nothing save the greyscale before him. Still, his nonchalant detatchment kept with him and he could think of nothing else but the step after the current one as he stumbled forward into the trees of this (presumed) island. His feet were cut and bleeding, his face mussed over with sand and gore, he didn't care. Something else was in the way. That odd sick growl in the pit of his stomach.
Water. That was all he could think about. Finding something to drink was what mattered now. Despite the irony of just having spent the past few hours of his life in the water (granted, it having been salt water), he could only follow the desire that told him to find something to drink. So he searched.
Night was falling, and he was growing weaker by each moment. He knew that if he passed out, he would likely not wake up again unless he had some form of rehydration. Survival instincts kicked in, and through his search, he was graciously awarded a small stream pooling down into a collected pond of fresh water. He fell to his knees awkwardly, placing a trembling hand into the water and bringing it up to his lips. He thought he felt himself drinking, going for another handful, which leaked away from his fingers as his head hit the ground. He was too tired to keep himself up, and his spinning vision did nothing to help him. The light was still grey as the edges around his world blackened and shrowded him, and he was every bit sure he would be unimaginably sore come morning. But a deeper sensation pulsed within him, willing his eyes to close and his chest to contract gently. With one further labored pant that dwindled into a languid rustle, Tyler Kawazumi was dead.
Author's Note: Uhrhrm, no, the story doesn't end here.