Chapter Text
What's a Soulmate?
“You know when you’re drowning you don’t actually inhale until right before you black out.”
“The instinct to not let any water in is so strong that you won’t open your mouth until you feel like your head is exploding.”
“Then when you finally do let it in that’s when it stops hurting.”
“So. . . if you’re drowning. . .”
“. . . and you’re trying to keep you’re mouth closed until that. . . very. . . last. . . moment.”
“What if you choose to not open your mouth?”
“To not let the water in.”
“You do anyway it’s a reflex.”
“But. . . if you hold off until that reflex kicks in. . . you have more time, right?”
“Not much time.”
“But more time to fight your way to the surface,”
“more time to be rescued.”
- Stiles Stilinski
Prologue: The Fall
Everything blurred before Sam’s eyes. A paint-stoke of blue and orange against an endless backdrop of black. The wind whistled past his ears, snaking through his hair before Sam registered his fall.
Quorra’s scream struck like thunder to a sky that knew neither day nor night. Of course, there is no night without the moon.
A few rapid blinks brought his surroundings back into perspective but it was truly an effort in futility. There was nothing but a featureless sky above, a sky that loomed over, threatening to swallowing him whole. Sam reached out, fingers tracing imaginary lines before his eyes. The pain was coming and he knew it. The unique kind that results from something fragile hitting water as solid as concrete.
Sam squinted against the tears forming behind his eyes. He didn’t want to die here. What about Marv? What about Alan? The man who had raised him. The one person who knew him and believed him before anything did, or when no one else would. To leave Alan never knowing what happened, always left questioning, just like his father had. The guilt bred like a parasite and burrowed so deep, Sam was sure he would be out-right sick. Yet, it did so little to lessen the impact.
Indigo water swirled in way only digital liquid could as it raced to pull Sam under. The vast expanse of sea was the same below as above. Cold and murky and painfully quiet. Sam stayed unmoving as small, black cubes danced around his body, bumping into his limbs and gracefully drifting away. Pain ebbed from his joints, radiating up his spine and pounding in his head – it seemed to catch fire everywhere. The shock dousing his system was all too ready to be swept away by agony.
Pressure compressed Sam’s chest as he floated further down. He choked, watching in mild fascination at the pockets of air run back up to the surface. His next few moments were torture. Sam fought to follow, thrashing against invisible restraints and the fresh, fire-touched pain every movement sparked. He was close. He had to be. The trickle of sea that slipped past his lips tasted foul and unclean. Not salty but metallic, or perhaps, it was a mixture of corrupted virus-riddled code and his own blood.
Shimmering walls of water and soundless beauty did very little to stop Sam’s heart struggle like a bird trapped in the claws of a predictor. He needed to breath now. Blood pounded behind his eyes threatening enough pressure to explode.
It was the icy water that stole the heat from each part of exposed skin, each line on the circuitry of his suit, that sent shivers down Sam’s spine. It swirled like an after-thought of disorientation. He was heading to the surface, right?
The pain whited his vision out first. It’s the panic that faded into numbness next. The clumsy dance of limbs slowly grinded to a halt and Sam hung lifeless in the water just like before. Except this time, there’s no air. A trickle down his throat became sharp and painful, he dreaded to imagine a lungful.
A dark sea somehow managed to seem darker behind heavy eyelids. The cracking of broken code echoed in the distance and Sam dreamed the hand which grabbed the back of his collar. The arm which wrapped around his torso seemed more like a wish than reality.
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