Author's Note: Day 5 is...Jayden!

A flickering light kept pestering Jayden on the other side of his eyelids. He groaned and threw an arm over his face. "Who's flicking my light on and off?!" he demanded. Then he realized he wasn't in his bed. He was laying on something hard and cold. Jayden's eyes snapped open and he sat up. 'I'm…in my zord?' He looked down at himself to double check, but he wasn't morphed. 'What- oh. Right. The battle.' A particularly strong Nighlock that could generate explosions had used it to his advantage and nailed the Megazord. Jayden focused for a second, trying to remember what had happened. 'The last thing I remember was the explosion hitting us… Everything was sparking and shaking and then…. I fell backward.' He glanced back at the wall behind himself. 'That would definitely de-morph someone.'

Thankfully, he was mostly just sore, so Jayden didn't have any trouble walking around. He rubbed the console where his mega-blade usually was. "You ok, buddy?" While he couldn't hear the lion folding-zord, like was half convinced Antonio could hear his zords, but always felt in tune with it's emotions. A sense of pain ran up his hand and arm, making his fingertips tingle. "Hmm… That's not good." His samuaizer went off. "Hello?"

"Jayden!" Kevin gasped. "Thank goodness you're alright."

"Do you know where the rest of the team is? Are they ok?"

"Yeah, everyone's here with me, except for Antonio. He's finishing off the Nighlock in the Clawzord."

"That's good."

"Where are you? We all got separated when the Megazord disassembled."

"Uh… That's…a good question actually." Jayden walked a few steps closer to the view outside his zord. "It's…dark. Really dark."

"Dark?" Kevin sounded confused, a slightly concerned. "Jayden…it's the middle of the day."

"Oh no, what if he's blind?!" MIke's voice distantly came through.

"He's not blind, Mike. Don't be ridiculous. Don't worry Jayden, Antonio's coming right now. He can track your samuriazer."

"Hey," Antonio said, his voice getting louder as he approached. "Are you guys- wait, where's Jayden?"

"We don't know. He's says it's dark, so he can't see where he is. Can you-"

"Ah, say no more. Hang on, Jay! I'll find you in a few seconds." Distantly, Jayden heard the beeping of Antonio typing on his morpher. "Ok…triangulating with your samuriazer and…you are…"

After a few seconds of silence, Jayden frowned. "Antonio?" he asked cautiously. "Did it work?"

"Uh…hang on. I'm trying it again, I must've messed it up somehow…" Once again the gold ranger's voice trailed off.

Now sensing something was wrong, Jayden used the "leader voice". "Antonio, tell me what's wrong."

"Uh…Jayden, according to my tracking…you're in the ocean."

"The ocean?"

"Maybe he's in a cave?" Mia suggested.

"What cave?" Antonio replied, clearly frustrated. "According to my morpher he's in the middle of the water."

"Well, it's not like he's just chilling on the ocean floor," Mike said.

Jayden's heart stopped as he stared at the viewing screen of his zord. "I'm…on the ocean floor," he said slowly, his voice sounding far away, even to himself. "I'm inside the lion folding-zord, on the ocean floor." This felt like a bad dream. It was like one of those nightmares where he was trapped on a tiny piece of debris, surrounded by the rising waters of the Sanzu River. Except this was real life. His real life that often felt like a living, walking nightmare. He took a few deep breaths, trying to rein in his panic. That was when he realized his team on the other end was silent. "Guys? You still there?"

"Yeah," Kevin said, now sounding a lot more tense. "We're here just…processing."

"Does processing include a plan to get me out of here? Because the lion folding-zord is damaged from the battle, so I don't think it's going anywhere right now."

"Let's just go get a boat," Emily suggested.

"It's not that simple," Antonio told them. "That area has a lot of drop-offs, especially with how far out he is. Who knows how deep the zord landed."

"Let's at least go down to the beach," Kevin said. "We can think there. Jayden just…sit tight. We'll let you know when we have a plan."

"Ok." Jayden hung up, then sat down, leaning on his podium. "Well, buddy, looks like it's just you and me." He sighed. Not wanting to lose his mind from boredom, he stood again so he could stretch the soreness from his muscles. He paced in the small space of his zord, swinging his arms. 'I never really noticed how small this cockpit is. Especially compared to the Megazord. I wonder if Antonio's cockpit in the Clawzord is this small?'

When pacing got too boring, Jayden once again sat, back against the podium. 'I grew up with almost no friends and I've never been this bored.' At least in the isolation of the Shiba House, there was always stuff to do. Jayden started tracing different symbols on the floor with his finger. In his mind, he could see each stroke, not unlike when he actually did them. Luckily, he knew a lot of kanji. Eventually, his samuraizer went off. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jayden," Mia said. "How're you holding up?"

"Fine. My head hurts but that's probably because I hit the wall when I fell."

"Yeah, we all fell pretty hard. Mike's got a huge bruise on his face from hitting his podium. Don't worry though, we're working as fast as we can to think of a solution."

"I have complete faith in you guys." Jayden hung up, then sighed again. He went back to tracing symbols on the floor, not knowing what else he could do. Unfortunately, his headache didn't go away like he hoped it would. On the contrary, as time passed, it seemed to be getting worse. And his chest started hurting. He rubbed it absentmindedly with his left hand. "I just need to sleep it off when we get home. We all probably do." Maybe he could talk Ji into giving the team the day off from training tomorrow so they could relax. He blinked, then closed his eyes for a few seconds. The pain was starting to become distracting, so he changed tactics. Jayden sat straighter and sat on his knees so he could meditate. This helped a little bit, but didn't fully relieve his pain. Eventually, his samuaizer went off again, disturbing his meditation.

"Hi, Jayden," Emily said. "Kevin asked me to check on you."

"I'm doing ok," Jayden reassured her. "My head and chest hurt, but I'm managing."

"Oh, well that's too bad. We're still trying to figure out what to do. It's hard because we don't know how deep in the water you are, or how to get you out of your zord safely. But we'll find a way."

"Ok. I'll be here. Waiting." Jayden hung up again, then leaned back against the podium. 'Kind of ironic if after all these times they tried to kill, the Nighlocks accidentally drowned me.' Especially since the Nighlocks' ultimate plan was to flood the world with the Sanzu River. Jayden winced and held his head in his hands. 'Man my head really hurts. And my chest.' Breathing felt harder. Like when he had run several miles. It was painful, but more in an uncomfortable way. Not like his head, which was just pain and more pain. Jayden ended up just leaning his head back and closing his eyes. He tried to just focus on breathing. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, not unlike his meditation. At one point he inhaled, only to start coughing when he exhaled. His samuriazer went off again. "Uh-huh?"

"Hey, Jay," Antonio said, already sounding concerned. "How do you feel?"

"I'm-" Jayden was cut off by coughing for a few seconds before he could continue. "I'm ok. My head hurts and breathing is-" More coughing. "Uncomfortable." Antonio was silent for a few seconds. "Antonio? You there?"

"Uh…yeah, Jay. Just…keep hanging in there, ok? I'll call you again in a few minutes to keep you occupied. Ok?"

"Uh…sure." Surprisingly, this time it was Antonio who hung up first. Jayden just shrugged and went back to relaxing with his head back. He kept trying to focus on breathing, but he couldn't help them getting faster. It was like his lungs needed shorter breaths. 'Maybe practicing kanji will help me.' Jayden forced himself to sit up, then started tracing. However, halfway through his first symbol, he paused. It took his brain a moment to remember what stroke came next. The rest of the symbol went fine. This quickly became a pattern though. Despite many of his symbols being muscle memory, he found himself hesitating when it came to strokes or switching to a different symbol halfway through. Which he found very frustrating. It was an almost welcome distraction when his samuriazer went off again. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jayden," Mike said. "Sorry, Antonio got distracted by the conversation. Hang on, I'll put you on speaker so everyone can hear you." A pause and then a beep. "Ok."

"Jayden," Kevin said, no nonsense. "Have you noticed anything strange about the air in your zord?

Jayden frowned. "The air? Why?"

"Because…You're probably running out of oxygen."

It took a few seconds longer than it should've for Jayden to process that. "I'm…running out of oxygen?"

"Yeah. Antonio, explain it for him?"

"So basically," Antonio said in a very tense tone, which wasn't a good sign, "your zord became air tight once it was underwater to protect you. The same thing would happen if you were in space, right? But, because it's now air tight there's a limited supply of air in there. God only knows how much oxygen there was when you started."

Jayden sighed. "Well…that explains a lot."

"Mike's going to keep talking to you while we work."

Figuring he'd better reserve what oxygen he had left, Jayden mostly listened. Every once in a while he gave Mike a short response so the green ranger knew he was still there. But his brain kept wandering and scrambling. He would zone out, only to discover he hadn't heard a word that Mike had said. "What was that, Mike?"

"Oh, I said that we have a plan," Mike repeated. "It's not a good plan, but under the circumstances-"

"What's the plan?"

"So, because they're the strongest swimmers, Kevin and Antonio are going to swim out to where you are and dive down to get you. So don't worry. Help's on the way."

'That's good…' Jayden thought. Mike kept talking, but Jayden found it harder and harder to listen. Focusing on him was just too much effort. He kept coughing and breathing heavier; like he had to fight against something heavy on his chest. 'Just stay focused. Keep breathing. Focus on breathing. In and out. In and out.'

Jayden felt himself getting more tired as well. He had to put his smauraizer on speaker mode so he could set it down. He felt exhausted. Like he'd just fought a huge battle. His headache had progressed to a pounding in his temples, which made it even more tempting to go to sleep. He yawned, then coughed.

"Don't fall asleep!" Mia said quickly. "I know it's getting hard, Jayden, but you can't go sleep. Understand?"

"Uh-huh." Jayden dug his fingernails into his palm to wake himself. 'I'll get up and pace to help myself stay awake.' When he stood though, he only took a few steps before he lost his balance a fell. "Oof!"

"Are you ok?" Mike asked.

"Yeah…" Jayden coughed and wheezed. The pressure on his chest was unbearable. He tried to get up, but even lifting his torso was too much. 'I'll just…lay here,' he thought, giving up. 'Laying here sounds good.'

"Jayden? Jayden?! Are you there, man?"

"Yeah…" Jayden's voice sounded distant. He wasn't even sure if it was really his own. Mike kept talking, but his brain wasn't processing any of it. His eyes flickered to one of his hands and he was vaguely aware of a blue tint under his fingernails. But his brain was moving too slowly to realize that was a bad thing. He coughed again, then sighed. 'I'm just so tired…' He blinked, having to force his eyelids open. 'Not supposed to sleep…' Why was he not supposed to sleep again though? There was an important reason, but he couldn't pin it down. 'It must not be that important.'

The air itself felt heavy, lulling him into a sense of calm. Despite his racing heart and pounding headache, Jayden win't afraid. Just tired. Every breath was a battle; one he didn't feel like fighting. Not this time.

With cornered voices yelling far away, Jayden coughed and wheezed as he fell asleep.