It begins.
He stopped. The air was unfamiliar. Cold. Musty. Empty. Foreign. Where was this place? A dream world? A halucination? Where's the stadium? The city? Maybe he'd been drugged in the confusion, or maybe he'd simply landed too hard on his head and was confused?
He slowly, delicately twitched his fingers, flexing them and making certain he still has four fingers and a thumb on each of his numb hands. Once satisfied, he dragged his aching palms across the dry dirt in which he lay face down, prostrate. Bringing his hands in parallel with his chest, he hoisted himself upward and awkwardly sought to find his feet to stand on.
His feet, too, were numb and for the time being he resigned himself to sitting back and wriggling his toes inside his heavy boots. He was unsure if he was indeed moving his toes or not as the cold bit its' way through the leather and sank deep into his skin, but soon enough he spelled relief as he lifted a leg off of the cold rock and into the fog. The effort was great but it appeared nothing was broken.
Elevating each of his other limbs in turn he came to the same conclusion about these also; nothing broken. A huge relief.
For the first time since he'd awoken, he turn his head this and that, looking for the damaged buildings, his home and the stadium. Instead of being greeted by his familiar surroundings, what he was expecting, he was greeted with something far more disturbing and unearthing.
Where had all this water come from? Had Zanarkand been drowned? He could hardly believe that to be the truth and queried his mind for logical solutions. It was a dream? Or maybe… Maybe what? He was sure he was awake and splashed himself with a handful of the water that has enclosed him.
A lone gull flew overhead, wailing as it flapped it's scrappy wings. He recalled a myth he'd been told once, by his mother, that seagulls were dead fishermen, and the cry of the gull was the scream of the seamen who'd drowned at sea. Drowned. Dead. Death on wings. Ridiculous, he shuddered. A gull. So then, he wasn't alone? At last, a sign of life. Albeit remote. Life.