[ Everything is happening both faster than the speed of light and in painstaking slow motion, all at once. Every detail is both sharp as a knife and dreamlike; vividly surreal. The hand that lunges down at him from seemingly out of nowhere and grabs hold of him — Jesse doesn't really register it, even though his survival instincts have him blindly snatching at it with clawing fingernails. Being dragged out of the water seems to happen outside of himself; it's as though he's left his own body and is observing himself from above as he's dumped on hard ground. The hand shoving off his dressing sodden gown doesn't enter his periphery — he's too limp and lifeless, too wracked by his gagging breath scraping down his throat into his burning lungs, to fight back. Someone's voice floats down to him; the words are garbled, faraway. Jesse can't respond, even if he wanted to. He gulps down a wheezing swallow, his eyes squeezed shut, and retches — and suddenly vomits with a choking splutter. ]
no subject