Ellyn wouldn't fight that decision. All they had beyond hiding behind a tree was continuing. She came with Ion easily. The moment they were behind the tree, she laced her hand with his and squeezed to catch his attention. Despite the panic in her eyes, she spoke as clear and as loud as she could manage. They had about twenty seconds; her explanation had to be quick.
"Hold onto the tree for dear life. A branch or anything. So the reverse tide doesn't pull us out, and we can find our way back to the surface." She was hoping she hadn't spoken too quickly for him to catch that.
It didn't matter, she held his hand in a death grip and with her other grabbed the lowest and thickest branch she could manage, holding it with the same fierceness.
She wished she could have said something poetic about what happened next. Could have had a story to tell later, but there was nothing artistic or poetic about the wave. It roared like no beast she had ever heard and it crashed into them with what could only be described as a semi-truck of power.
The water was on them so quickly that by the time Ellyn had seen it they were in it. Her world spun and for a time, she had no idea which way was up or if she were even still alive. All she knew was she was holding a tree and a warm hand (for a split second she didn't remember that hand belonged to Ion.
She was absolutely certain she was about to die, and that realization pushed her into movement and clarity. They would need air soon, even sooner because there was barely time to prepare for the onslaughter. She squeezed Ophion's hand again, hoping for a reaction.
- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
Ophion was afraid. He couldn't truly remember having been afraid before. Not like this. He'd felt fear, of course, but only of stupid things. He'd feared failing, or not being chosen for an assignment, or half a million other things, but he'd never been afraid he would die until that point. Even when he'd heard there was going to be a tsunami, it still hadn't sunk in until right that moment.And sunk in it had. He squeezed her hand in a downright punishing grip, frantically searching for a low branch. In the end he jumped, grabbing onto a lower branch and physically hauling himself up. On any other day, he probably wouldn't have been capable - he was flexible, but not terribly strong. The power of adrenaline was a dangerous thing though, and he found it came almost easy as he pulled himself up, keeping a harsh grip on her hand.
The wave seemed to be over them in a split second, and all his effort trying to get him up higher ended up mattering not at all. The wave didn't care that he was maybe a foot higher than her. The wave didn't care about anything. Mother nature simply didn't give a fuck that he hadn't had time to take a breath. Mother nature didn't care that the water was cold, and that he didn't deal with cold well.
It seemed like there was nothing beyond the water and the cold - he didn't even realize there was still a hand in his grip until he felt it twitch, but he made no response - he was too afraid that if he losed his iron grip at all, she would simply slip away.
His lungs burnt under the water, desperate for air. Desperate for it to stop, for the tug to end. He didn't have enough time.
Ellyn didn't have time to worry about whether he was passed out, or how cold the water was. All she knew was that she had to find which direction was up and to do that, one had to be calm. With some effort, she quelled her panic; it was lucky that the water pulled back, then.
Typically, Ellyn didn't think that would have been a lucky thing, but they were uphill and far enough away from the ocean that they wouldn't be pulled into it, and hugging the tree -- that was a life saver. The rush of water was retreating almost as fast as it had come and that current was strong.
By the time, her lungs were burning with need, and the panic was rising anew, the water had retreated enough that she could get a firm handle on where the surface was and push toward it. She sucked air in greedily when she broke the surface. Her nose and throat burned with water that she had swallowed, and the tips of her fingers were numb, from the cold or Ophion's grip, she didn't know.
Above, things didn't look much better. The water was still deep enough that she couldn't feel the ground, and it was hard to see around the tree and the constant tide.
"O-Ophion?" Ellyn's voice was scratchy and high. She could hardly hear it over the sound of destruction and her heartbeat. God, please be alive.
- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
Ophion didn't make it. With the water so high, and with too little warning to have taken a breath, he broke. The water was still around him when he tried to breath, sucking in water rather than air.Before that moment he'd never given any real thought to what it felt like to drown. He'd never had any need to. He was a strong swimmer who didn't actually do that much swimming, so why care? Why worry? He wasn't high risk - he wasn't even medium.
It hurt. Drowning hurt. His vision had been black from the beginning, torn away by the darkness of the water, but if he'd been able to see he would have been able to see it going black. Instead he had no warning when his breath finally ran out, and suddenly it was too much. Suddenly there was water in his lungs, water being breathed in. It hurt, and it felt so wrong that he desperately wished he could have at least passed out first. A thousand thoughts burned through his brain, a thousand regrets and worries, from deep to genuinely banal, and then suddenly his head was over water.
There was no grand gasp or air, no desperate filling of his lungs - only an emptying. He was almost a foot higher than Ellyn, and it gave him a few moments of precious time. He hacked, not so much coughing up water as he was vomiting it up, emptying his lungs in a desperate bid to not die right there.
Somewhere in the choking and the coughing he passed out, although he couldn't have said when. His arms kept right on gripping to the branch and to the hand in his grip, and he only realized he'd passed out when things were suddenly bright again. He was above water. He was above water, and his lungs burned like someone had poured liquid fire into them, but he was breathing. There was air in his lungs, even if it wasn't nearly enough, and he was still spluttering, coughing in a desperate attempt to clear the rest of the water.
Ellyn felt lightheaded by the time the water had pulled back enough that she didn't feel like she might drown. She wanted to lay down, her arms and legs were so sore, her head was pounding, her fingers were numb, and her chest was tight. But at least, they were alive. She could hear Ophion coughing, and it was the biggest relief she'd ever experienced.
She was silently treading water and focusing on breathing until the water had lowered enough that she felt the ground, if only barely. It must have taken a long time, at least. Ellyn though it had been a long time. Time was suddenly lost on her. She felt the reverse current as it rushed passed her and made a mental note of being careful when moving.
"A-Are you okay?" she asked as she looked up at Ophion. He didn't look too good, but he hadn't drowned, so that was something. Obviously, he wasn't, but Ellyn wasn't sure what else to say.
She laid her forehead on the wet bark of the tree and honed in on the feeling of her heart and her blood and everything around her. Part of her wanted to cry, but most of her couldn't. She felt... empty.
- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
He didn't have time to feel empty. All he could feel was like death warmed over. His throat burned, his lungs burned, and just in case that wasn't quite enough, his entire body had started to tremble, wracked by shivers. He had never been good with the cold, and now he was soaking wet in cold ocean water. His body couldn't tell if he wanted to keep on choking out the last remains of the water, of it wanted to just shiver in place.In the end, he did neither. HIs arms gave out, and he dropped the foot or so to the ground, landing with a splash and another weeze. It wasn't deep enough for him to really drown in, but it was deep enough for him to go under temporarily, bursting back up to the surface with another shudder.
"'S - 's cold." He mumbled, trying to drag himself back towards the tree. The water was draining back towards the ocean, and it wasn't terribly strong, but even so he was still having trouble with it.
Ellyn hadn't consider that he might be so cold. It wasn't a concern of hers. Although her clothes were soaked through and she wasn't feeling particularly warm herself, she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, hoping her body warmth would be enough for the two of them.
Hug me would have felt strange to say, so instead she said, "let me help." It didn't sound much better, but she felt she had to say something. She wasn't just going to let him stand freezing there. "We should make our way further uphill. We can get you out of the water then."
She didn't feel she had to tell him that she would stick close and offer her body warmth to him as they traveled. What with her hugging him, it seemed like common sense right then.
- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
Ophion looked so much smaller than he did before the wave had hit. It was like he'd collapsed in on himself. His clothes clung to his skin, his hair clung to his head, and he seemed to have lost a few inches from the fact that he was hunching slightly, trying to keep himself stable against the pull of the water.He was shuddering, but it was all wrong - not quite a shiver, instincts fighting against instincts. He wasn't truly cold blooded, but he wasn't running at human normal either. He had a lot of his mother's traits, and the ability to shiver or sweat wasn't one of them. His shivers looked less like shivers and more like him having tiny measure seizures.
Somehow, his fingers found her shoulders as she hugged him, clamping down desperately. A part of him was genuinely afraid that if he lost her, he was going to just fall over in the water. It was too cold for him to function, and the constant tug of water against his legs felt like a siren song.
Ellyn returned his hug without much thought. He looked...strange. That was the only way she could describe it. He was convulsing. God, this was bad. He had shown her scales earlier, like a snake's scales. She didn't want to put those pieces together because they made this situation a thousand times worse.
She had to think in steps now. One step at a time. Trying to think of everything at once was just going to fuck her up. Her grip on him tightened, and she turned somewhat forward, ushering him gently into walking with her. The first step, get to higher and drier ground. Then, warm Ophion up. Those were all Ellyn needed to know right then.
The trek uphill was worse than it had been before the wave hit. That was no surprise. There was water, Ophion was barely there, and the slope was slick, which meant they had to be more than slow. They had to be very slow. But finally, after what felt like hours (and hey, it could have been) they were out of the water and Ellyn sat Ion against a tree.
Her mind was moving a mile a minute. She was looking around for something -- anything -- to get him warm. "Ophion, you have to take off your clothes okay? Just the top layer. I'll be right back." She made a dash into the trees.
It took her several minutes to come back, but when she did, she was dragging a long, damp branch full of leaves and other muck on it. She heaved it up and leaned it against the tree, creating a kind of teepee effect. She did this on his left side as well. It wasn't a perfect shelter, and it could fall over easily, but Ellyn recalled that sled dogs buried themselves under the snow to keep warm. This would have to do. She had no time and no other resources.
She would strip off the top layer of her clothing, keeping only her undergarments on and sitting at the open side of the "shelter" and wrap and arm around him to share her warmth.
- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
At some point during the long uphill slog, Ophion stopped responding. He wasn't truly passed out, but he was close - he'd slid into a twilight state, neither awake nor asleep. He was slow. His heart wasn't beating fast enough, oxygen not spreading through his body. He was suffocating ever so slowly, even as he continued to breath.There was no flash of life behind his eyes. No memories coming back to him. His brain focused on doing what it needed to, and none of that involved talking. He didn't acknowledge when he was leaned against a tree, nor when she spoke to him. He didn't comment on her departure, nor her return.
The only movement he made at all was when she curled up against him. He shifted slightly, pressing in closer, his body still doing it's pained shiver. He was cold - far colder than he was supposed to be, his eyes half closed.
Minute by minute, Ophion began to warm up. As he did, he pressed closer and closer, the parts of his brain that had shut off beginning to reawaken. The shivering continued, but at the very least so did his improvement - he was becoming warmer bit by bit, curled up against her in the shelter.