and agony, he saw chaos above, filtered through near impenetrable haze. The rapidly waving surface held incredible amounts of falling stone, bodies, and flaming patches of fuel.
Thrashing toward that chaos, trying to steer himself toward an open space, he swam up with all his strength, but the deadly surface only seemed to recede.
He found himself swimming in an endless tunnel, all underwater, but it seemed there was air - though he still held his breath out of paranoia. In the distance, a small aperture glimmered, approaching rapidly, an incomprehensible portal into an endless expanse of green void… he continued to kick and claw upward, refusing to acknowledge reality sifting away around his awareness.
No!, he repeated furiously, though that mental voice he'd always considered his true self seemed to fade with each insistence, growing quieter as his body continued to thrash some unknown direction, eventually faltering and slowing, floating in darkness, peace finally numbing a lifetime of pain…