Til Death Do Us Part

15

The gentle swish, swish, of something outside of my consciousness brings me around, and warm fluttering heat that seems to be growing over my back, heels, skull, and legs, as my limbs tingle back to life, and I start to cough. Not warm enough to heat my lifeless corpse and the inner block of ice that is my organs.

My body wracks with the sudden crack of a violent choking fit that fully wakens me because it hurts like hell as though there's a fire in my lungs. My eyes flutter open, through the hazy fog of a headache that's awful, to the point I'm nauseous with it, and my body feels like it doesn't belong to me.

My fingers flinch of their own accord, and the sudden sensation of smooth yet also rough and damp textured balls pull my eyes to where I can feel it. Blinking, fluttering my lashes until my hand comes into focus, and I realize it's laid on gravel and sand, mixed. Wet, shiny, tiny stones and pebbles smothered in grittiness. My fingertips are dirty as it sticks with clinginess to my wrinkled skin, clogged under my nails. I groan out loud and make to move my head.

I shift my shoulders and roll, coughing once more, bringing up water and phlegm, and the metallic taste of blood that follows makes me gag. I have intense hunger pangs and all-over body aches. My belly is aching and cold with the damp surface I seem to be lying face down on, also bumpy and textured, and yet it helps bring back sensation to the heavy body I couldn't feel a moment ago.

It takes a minute to come around and get my bearings fully. The dull light of the sun coming up and warming my frozen bones back from death, and yet I can't move properly at all. My hair tugs as I incline my head. A yank and pull makes me groan feebly, and I sink back to my previous position with no energy to do more. My skull is unbearably sensitive.

I lie here and look around me. Seeing an expanse of more of the same terrain in my line of vision, and although I can't see it from this position, I can hear the lapping of the water washing up on the shore. The swoosh of the sea behind me is low like a hum and not invasive at all because my hearing is messed up with waterlogged eardrums. It gently tickles my left foot as it comes closer, and I cringe. It's all I can manage.

I'm not in the water anymore, and it seems to be pushing to dawn as a tide comes in with the threat of washing me away. I'm disoriented, yet my consciousness starts flooding back at speed, remembering everything, and I try again to get up.

Everything hurts. And my lungs are struggling, fighting the weight of my limbs. I manage to drag my knees under me in a bent-over position and feel my way with my fingers into my hair on the back of my head to rip myself free of the branches that are holding me captive. I lose handfuls of hair and hurt my hands in the process. The tree that saved my life is wedged up behind me and seems to have dragged me ashore at some point while I was passed out cold.

If the tide is coming in again after depositing me here, it means it's been hours since I crashed Jyeon's car. If memory serves me right from high school, it means I've spent at least twelve hours out here, if not more. I slept through an entire cycle of the sea.

That fact hits me right in the face, and I sit up weakly, pushing myself with great effort onto my knees and gaze around in disbelief. I must have hit my head hard to have been able to lie here all that time and not have any awareness about what was happening to me. I don't know how I'm not dead. I feel like I might be though.

It seems to be a beach of sorts, with a back wall of sparse forest in front of me and no real signs of civilization. It's a cove in a little arched and shaded area where I can't see around the curve. Out towards the sea, it's foggy and conceals anything out there from sight with muggy weather and a threat of rain. All the eye can see is just open water with the possibility of mountains in the mist. I don't know which direction I came from as the view offers no hints at where my city is; it's too unclear a day. It feels cut off, like a deserted island, and I'm all alone. My lip trembles with the sudden sense of hopelessness.