The Magician's Apprentice

Repercussion

I thought I knew what it felt like to be cold. I fell in a half-frozen creek on a camping trip when I was six. I got lost in a snowstorm when I had to walk home to school after mom got too drunk to pick me up. I even had a few nasty brain-freezes, so I thought what true cold-inflicted pain felt like.

But when I plunged into the water, I thought that I had fallen in a pit of frozen needles. It felt like each and everyone had lodged themselves in every pore of my body and began to stab them repeatedly. The chill began to spread throughout the inside of my body until it reached the insides of my bones, where they instantly began to ache as if they were solid bruises.

I could feel myself drifting deeper and deeper in the depths of the water, and my head began to grow cloudy with pain and the cold, not to mention the lack of oxygen.

That sucked, I thought dully as I felt my muscles begin to lock up. I was beginning to wonder if it was possible to get any colder, but I was startled to feel my entire body beginning to grow numb.

Whatever. My life sucked anyways. I guess it's no surprise that it's ending.

I wondered how long it would take for me to lose consciousness. And would I die from drowning, or hypothermia? I guess I was going to find out...

Just as the numbness began to reach my mind, I felt the water around me get stirred, and I heard the rushing sound of someone swimming. Then, to my puzzlement, my sinking stopped, and I began to rise.

I was almost completely unconscious when I managed to break the surface of the water, and the feeling of fresh air on my face made my dull aching erupt into agony, and I choked on the remaining water in my mouth.

I could hear someone's voice, loud and insistent, but it was too muted from the roaring of the water and, unsurprisingly, the crackling of ice.

"Evie! Evie!"

It was Wong...

I tried to shut his voice away in hopes of going back into the peaceful silence before, and I would have succeeded if Wong hadn't given my cheek a small slap and growled, "Stay with me, Evie."

My conscious slightly resurfacing, I realized that Wong was keeping me afloat in wherever the hell we were. How far we were from shore, I had no idea.

Anger surfacing through the pain, I feebly shoved him away and mumbled, "Stop..."

Wong sighed. "And leave you to drown or die of hypothermia? I think not; Strange would do stupid things if I allowed that to happen."

The agony in my chest was reaching a breaking point. Wong or not, I knew that I wasn't going to last long with one of my ribs popped out of place. Desperate for the pain to ease, I let out what little breath I had. For a moment it worked, as my deflated lungs were no longer being irritated. But Wong was rude enough to give me a rough shake and snapped, "Breathe, you foolish girl!"

I shook my head. "Hurts," I choked, spluttering on salty ice water.

Wong muttered something under his breath in a language I didn't recognize.

As he continued to guide me through the slushy water, I could feel my eyelids droop. I was so cold that I was beginning to forget what was even happening or what I was doing here in the first place.

At one point, we finally reached something solid, and Wong heaved me onto what felt like an iceberg. Shivering uncontrollably, I curled onto my side, wishing for all of this to be over soon.

The sudden whooshing sound of a portal opening snapped me out of my half-frozen stupor, and Wong practically shouted, "Where the hell were you?"