He’s sitting at the bottom of his shower. It’s so cold, he’s been sitting here for hours. He wouldn’t be surprised if he got sick or worse. He can’t move. He’s paralyzed from the water.

The thing is: The electricity in his veins isn’t the only thing that messes him up. Some things just make him freeze up, unable to move a muscle. The shower is one of those things now. His old showerhead broke so he had to buy a new one. He, unfortunately, didn’t test it out before getting into the shower, so when he turned it on he was caught off guard.

It was like he was caught in a storm of needles. He froze and started shaking. He couldn’t move on his own accord. It just felt so wrong, nothing should ever feel like this. So he stood in the torture for what felt like hours, unable to move out of the way.

Eventually, his legs gave out and he had to force his body to move so he could sit before he spilt blood. So here he is, sitting in his shower unable to move. The water has long since turned from almost scalding to ice cold. The cold water feels worse, has him imagining icicles instead of needles. It makes him tremble more, which in turn makes the feeling worse.

He tried moving around earlier and that minimized the effects, but he just can’t move fast enough to help unless he wants to go to the ER. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the water won in the end. He feels so cold, he’s hoping he gets out of this unscathed. It’s unlikely.

He wishes that he had the energy arcing across his skin instead of the piercing needles, he’s never wished that before. It’s just that this is so unbearable and he at least knows how to manage the energy. As he thinks, he almost convinces himself that slipping instead of sitting down would have been better. He might have knocked himself out and wouldn’t have had to sit here. He could be unconscious right now instead of feeling every drop of water on his skin.

If the cold hadn’t sapped his energy, he would no doubt be jerking away from every droplet. It would have looked like he was having a seizure. He’s glad to say that he doesn’t have enough energy for that, and also that he’s never had a seizure. That would just add a whole new layer of suffering.

He thinks he might have to try to fight his body soon. His fingers feel oddly numb, and his shivers have toned down by a lot. He’s no doctor but he’s pretty sure that’s really bad. How cold can a person get before they are in danger? He’s pretty sure he’s approaching that limit.

But he doesn’t know how to stop it. His thoughts are already going a bit foggy. His body is hardly responding to him. How is he supposed to fix this?

If he makes a racket someone must come to check up on him. But that’s not true. Litha is underground, they wouldn’t hear no matter how much racket he made. And Abigail is kind of far away to hear unless she came over to visit. But would she stay if he didn’t answer the door? He is known for taking long showers.

But it’s his only chance or he could die here. Hypothermia can be deadly if it’s bad enough. He has a sneaking suspicion that this qualifies as bad enough. He just needs to make noise.

He looks around without moving his head, he can only see a couple of his bath things. He can knock them over, but that won’t be loud enough. He has to look for something else. He forces his head to move and it takes a lot of energy.

There! Right next to the shower curtain! He has some decorative bottles on the shelf. He’s pretty sure that they’re glass. He just needs to knock them off and they should shatter. But how is he gonna knock them over?

The shelf isn’t secured to the ground, it’s just poles in a shelf shape. He can knock it over. Hitting it will hurt too much, and probably won’t be worth it. He can get more force by throwing one of his soaps.

He doesn’t know if he has enough strength to pull this off but he hopes he can. He doesn’t even know if anyone will hear. They have to. He can’t let himself think otherwise.

It hurts to grab the soap, but he manages. His grip isn’t the best but at least it’s still in his hand. Angling his body towards the shelf is harder, but at least the pain tells him that his limbs still have circulation.

The throw isn’t the strongest, but it’s enough. The shelf tips forward, spilling everything on it. There are two loud crashes, the glass shattering, and the shelf clattering on the ground.

This is it. It’s all he can do. He feels more exhausted than he did earlier, and he doesn’t think he can stay awake for longer. He forces his eyes open when they start to slip closed. He can’t remember why but he knows he has to stay awake.

Everything is little more than a blur. His thoughts are frozen over, and he is so very cold. He barely registers the loud footsteps outside the bathroom and similarly, he can’t recognize the door slamming open, nor the horrified gasp after.

What he does register, is the pain, the agony, that comes when he is moved. His skin stopped being assaulted by something that wouldn’t give up, but right after that, it was replaced by the all-consuming agony that was his body being moved. It stretched his skin that couldn’t take it. It could be compared to having duct tape that’s been on skin for hours being ripped off, except it’s all of his skin.

He doesn’t register it at all, not like the footsteps or the door slamming, but Abigail is whispering to him. She is horrified and trying to comfort him. He was unresponsive until she picked him up. He isn’t making a sound, she doesn’t think he can, but he looks like he’s in so much pain.

By now he can’t keep fighting to stay awake. He lets his eyes slip closed. He isn’t aware of anything that’s happening after. Abigail never tells him what happened after he passed out, doesn’t tell him how she managed to keep him alive.

The only thing he knows after he passed out is that he ended up in Abigail’s house. She was snuggling with him on the bed when he woke up. He opened his eyes blearily and the only thing he saw was her face. She had been crying, there were still tears on her face. It was warm, there were blankets wrapped around them both.

The heat caused him to fall asleep again. He woke up later and didn’t ask questions. He didn’t want to know how close he had come to dying.