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He was submerged beneath. Spindly fingers made of ice clawed up his skin, scratching sickeningly against his veins as they lurched higher and higher across his body. So cold it was hot. His chest burned with a frantic sensation, bubbling over and hissing as it turned to frost the second the cold captured it.
He felt like a child. His bones tremble against his body, too small, too ill-fitting, scraping against one another as sparks of ice invaded the small cracks made from years of running away.
But he could not run now.
His lungs contrasted and expanded fiercely yet they wheezed with a choked exhaustion, strength whittled away by ceaseless cowardice. How often had he forced his body to the brink only to escape the damage his icy implications had caused?
But he could not be a coward now.
His eyes could see nothing. Spots of sunlight danced across a vision yet the glow it emitted was too yellow, dusted in falsities. He was not seeing the sun. The furious and fickle sun that abandoned him at a moments notice, leaving him to the twisting tendrils of the night. His entire body shook with shivers, a disgusting, nauseating feeling that made bile jerk against the icy walls of his stomach.
Swirling splinters of white and star-light blue crawled into the corners of his vision. They settled there, frozen cracks searing into his eyes, calling to companions to conquer the rest of his sight. And conquer they did. He wanted to scream as boney splendours slunk across his sight, shattering with purposeful snickers and controlled mockery.
He wanted to scream.
But his voice was no longer his own now.
It came out of him, false and forced. Each word felt wrong on his tongue, an icicle plunging into the flesh of his mouth, burning it with cold. He wanted this to stop. He needed this to stop. He just wanted to curl up and begin nothingness beneath the ice-covered lake he had been wretched into.
Then, he saw it.
Barely there.
Just a flicker of something. It licked at his heels, nipping at the ice that armoured his skin with intense purpose. He swallowed a shuddering breath as it got closer, bringing heat with it. Was he humanity? Was Prometheus above him? Was he being gifted fire to warm his frozen existence?
He didn't know but he begged for it not to abandon him. And for a long time, it didn't, the warmth embraced his face, flourishing against his skin, sinking into his muscle and bone with fierce passion. The ice in him screeched, called spikes of chill to its command and lashed out. He fought the gentle, smoothing heavy would be snuffed out as his mind had been. It was not. The heat changed, rising to the challenge with ease.
