The vagueness in the feeling of muscles starved of blood made interpreting the sensations around me impossible. All I knew is that I was facing up. And... in the arms of someone. Against the night sky, the moon framed the face of Captain Anchor in silver. “Samael? Samael? Samael, please answer me, please, are you awake?”
Oh, how I wanted to answer her. I wanted so badly to reach up to her face and brush off the blood I’d flung onto it. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t. My muscles didn’t move when I commanded them to, my tongue didn’t articulate such, and my mind was slipping slowly from her. Into and out of black and red. My lungs couldn’t even lurch out the seawater. And so my jaw lodged open, anticipating a cough, a word, a breath- anything- and nothing came.