I shiver as I pile more clothes onto myself. It's quite terrifying to think that these few layers of fabric are all that are stopping me from becoming so cold that my body will start to shut down.
I never imagined as we felt the unbearable heat of the flames caused by the explosion that in a few short hours we would be at the other extreme. But the main engine had gone, and the back-up power wasn't working. We were stranded, no power, no heat, and very soon, no air.
The feeling isn't pleasant. First you start to feel the cold in any unprotected extremities, fingers go numb, and quite disconcertingly, the tips of the ears. Next the cold seems to strike into your very bones. Almost as if it's found it's way inside you and is trying to chill you from the inside out.
The muscles grow stiff, and you find yourself not wanting to move from a spot which you've been occupying for a while, not only because it's absorbed your body heat, and if you move you can't get that heat back, but because each movement takes so long and causes so much pain that it hardly seems worth it.
And in the midst of all this, Zoe lay unconscious. Blissfully unaware of the cold, the lack of air, the frightening reality that this might be the end.
I can't help but wonder what happens when you freeze to death. Are you aware of it all? Can your brain register the fact that your body is slowly shutting itself down. Do you realise that your fingers have stopped moving, that the only part of you that you have strength to move is your chest, gasping for the cold air that chills your lungs, causing you to cough so hard that it feels as if your throat is coated with gravel. Can you feel death creeping up on you, placing his icy fingers round your throat, squeezing until you don't have the strength to draw breath. Or does your brain shut down first, so that you slip from this life without realising.
I shiver as I feel the ship getting ever colder - It scares me.