Phoenix was freezing.
He’d almost been this cold exactly once. It’s not a memory he likes to revisit, but he can call it up too easily. Trying to run across that burning bridge and then falling, falling, falling into bitterly cold, absolutely freezing water.
The water Phoenix was in now was also bitterly cold, but this time that cold had seeped through his skin, through flesh, had become nestled in his bone. Warmth seemed to be a distant memory, an impossible concept. There was nothing but Phoenix, the cold, and the water surrounding him. It’d be so easy to just… stop. He wasn’t currently moving. If he wanted, he could stay like that, drifting, umoving, so still and so very cold.
But no, he couldn’t die, not yet.
He moved his arms and legs. They felt like lead weights, but he couldn’t stay here. He had friends, people who cared about him, who would care if he stayed here in the dark and cold and wet, so he had to move. There was ground beneath him, rocks and mud and algae, and it was the only way he knew up from down. He pushed off of it, upward. He attempted to open his eyes, but the water stung, and the world was far too blurry and dim to see anything.
It felt like he was swimming for months, years, centuries. Time had no meaning. All there was in the world was the water.
At first, when he reached the point where gravity had a hold again, he wanted to withdraw back into the water. Then, the smarter part of him realized that that sudden loss of weightlessness was the shore, was solid ground, was no longer needing to swim, and he dragged and clawed at the dirt, pulling himself forward and out. He shook like a leaf in the wind, legs still submerged, unable to go any further. He curled around himself and then, as if his lungs had only just realized what was going on, started throwing up water, coughing out lungs full of the liquid.
There was a part of him, calm and collected, sitting back and watching where the cards fell in all of this, that noticed just how much water he’d had in his lungs. Lungs that hadn’t burned throughout the entire swim, but had felt just as cold as the rest of him. It was easily enough water to drown someone.
The rest of Phoenix, however, didn’t care, just insistent on being able to breath again.
Breathing was hard, lungs spasming between wanting to cough more and wanting to have air in them again. He felt like his ribs were going to crack and break apart, unable to keep up with the frantic and desperate movements of his lungs.
He was still so cold, and he curled up even further. One hand felt something smooth and familiar and closed around it, bringing the item closer to his center like a lifeline.
Phoenix needed to move. He needed to get up, find help, get dry, do something!.
But he couldn’t.
There was sudden light and if he was capable of making sound, Phoenix would’ve protested against it. As it stood, all he could do was close his eyes tighter.
“F- Uh, M-Ms. Von Karma, I’ve found him! Von Karma! Mr. Wright, sir, can you hear me?! Sir?!”
The voice was so loud. There hadn’t been noise in the water. God, for all the effort Phoenix had made to get out of it, he found himself longing to be back there.
“Ohgodohgoddon’tbedeaddon’tbedead,”
The ground near Phoenix shook slightly and then, at long last, there was warmth.
At first, the heat only came from a pressure on his neck, and then it was gone. He’d forgotten what heat felt like, and he wanted it back immediately. He tried to say something, but he doubled over coughing again.
