(#1) Roommates by Day, Enemies by Night

Chapter 38

This time, I was pushing against gravity, weak, and using only my hands. I was trapped. Stuck under the ice, I couldn't get out.

I pushed and I pushed, but every time I did, I felt a bit more of my strength disappearing, and the fight was an uphill battle.

I felt the ice cracking, but the cracks were spider-web thin, and it meant that much progress wasn't going to be made. I used the last bit of my strength to push one more time, but nothing happened.

At this point, I didn't even have enough strength to be able to keep myself suspended upright in the water. I'm sure you're all wondering how I managed to breathe for so long. Well, my lungs were adapted to this, due to my increased physical endurance, so I could make it five minutes without breathing, if I took a large enough breath, which I had done just before i smacked the ice.

But I could feel the oxygen ebbing away slowly. Black spots danced across my eyelids, and appeared the the edges of my vision. What could I do?

What an anticlimactic way to die. Drowning. Not the epic spectacle I imagined myself dying in. An explosion, or a gang-style decapitation would have been better.

Dying was something that crossed my mind everyday. I had always wanted to know how I was going to kick the bucket, so to speak. Would it be epic, anticlimactic? Would I die doing something I loved, die remembered? Would I die at the hands of my mortal enemy, die saving people?

Would my family miss me, was anything going to be the same after I died? Life continues on, even in the wake of losing someone close to you. It doesn't matter who you are, where you, how old you are. You will lose someone in the course of your lifetime. It doesn't matter how you lose them, or even if they die. To be honest, they don't even have to be the one to die. If you die, don't you also lose someone? Don't you have a loss to contend with? The los of never knowing some people, losing your friends and family?

I drifted through the water. At this point, the chill of the water wasn't having much of an effect on me. In fact, I felt pretty warm. Not good. That was the beginning of hypothermia. If I didn't get out of here soon, I would die, and if I got out of here even five minutes later, I could be cold enough to die or to need to go to a hospital.

Just then, the ice above me cracked, then exploded outward. The water propelled, including the water surrounding me. I was lifted up into the air and dropped, but caught by someone.

I couldn't even cough, I was that cold. I curled into the body, for the warmth engulfing me was too great to resist, no matter who it.

Gentle hands wrapped me in a blanket and set me down on the back of the river, and I shuddered, burying myself deep within the folds of the material. When I was warm enough to open my eyes, the brightness of the sun startled me. It hadn;t penetrated the ice very well, so the water underneath was pretty dark.

I took in a shaky breath, and immediately started hacking up cold water. I coughed and placed a hand on my heart, trying to force out whatever remaining water I felt in my lungs. When I felt warm enough to sit up, I did just that, and finally looked at the person who had saved me.

Of course, I saw Warrior. Great. So now Warrior was meeting me. As me and not my alter-ego. Thank god for disguises.

"Are you warm enough?" He placed a hand on my back, and the warmth radiating from his palm only felt better as my body slowly warmed up.

I nodded. "Feeling a bit better." I croaked out, leaning my head on my knees. I pulled the blanket further around me to try and gain some warmth.

Noticing my discomfort, Warrior lit his hands on fire and generated a fireball, holding it in his hands for me to warm mine over. I shot him a slightly suspicious look, before holding my hands over the fire. It was all I could to not to sigh at how good that felt. The fire brushed my fingertips, but mine were so cold I didn't even notice. When I felt the slight pain that comes with being burnt, I jerked my hands up, thankful that they had warmed up enough.