Chapter Text
There is no sky. There is no ground. Only the slow drift of weightless motion, like he has slipped between heartbeats and never found the next one.
He doesn’t remember falling.
He isn’t sure he could fall. Whatever holds him now doesn’t feel like water, though it moves like it. Thick. Cold. A pressure against his limbs that isn’t painful, only. . . claiming. Like a tide that has decided he belongs to it.
His breaths echo strangely in his head, as if they’re being filtered through his helmet, except. . .had he been wearing it? He can’t recall the moment everything went white, or the mission they sent him on, or the shoreline he swore he’d return to. His memory ends in warmth: a hand on his face, lips brushing his cheek, a voice promising he’d see him in a few weeks.
Weeks. Days. Hours.
He can’t feel time here.
Something curls around his ankle, soft as silk, cold as moonlit water. Not a hand. Not a creature. Just movement. Like the sea itself is breathing, shifting, thinking.
He tries to move his fingers, but they respond as though wrapped in lead. No pain. No resistance. No body. Only the sense of being suspended. Held between worlds. Like the ocean bottom has opened its jaws and swallowed the concept of gravity entirely.
A faint pulse trembles through whatever surrounds him. Not sound, sound can’t exist in this place, but vibration, a heartbeat not his own.
Thrum. . . Thrum. . . . . .Thrum.
It resonates in his ribs like a tether tightening.
He tries to call out. He isn’t sure if he has a mouth here. He isn’t sure if he still has lungs.
But the thought reaches outward anyway:
“ ████████?”
No answer. Only that slow, ancient thrum that feels familiar in a way he cannot name. The pressure deepens, not crushing, just. . . enclosing. Protective. Or possessive. Or both. It wraps around his chest gently, almost cradling.
He tries to remember the taste of fresh air, the sound of fireworks, and a person's laugh. Every memory slips like wet sand between his fingers.
Another pulse. Stronger. Closer.
The darkness ripples. And for a single moment. Less than a breath, less than blinking, he thinks he sees a shape in the black. Watching him like something ancient watches a lost piece of itself.
The world shifts again. And he sinks. Or rises. Or simply drifts into deeper silence. He can’t tell.
But he knows one thing with absolute certainty.
He is not alone down here.