I do not like the cold.
I liked being in the desert- during the day, I could spend time in the sun. Even during the depths of winter, so long as there were a few hours of sun I could spend some time in, I would be happy.
I could feel warm in the sun, and then I would take that memory of heat back to my apartment, and I made my way through my degree that way, living on any light I could bask in to keep the cold away.
So, it was to my consternation that in the middle of placing some books back on my bookshelf, in the dead of winter in Washington state, there was a flash of blue-purple light, I was suddenly in the middle of a snowstorm, knee-deep in snow.
I had been wearing thick reading socks (yes, these are a thing), but also a t-shirt and the sort of soft cotton pants that is really comfortable when in a nice, clean, slightly heated and, most importantly, dry. At the moment, these were not ideal, as everything was made of cotton and other synthetic fibers.
Immediate soaking occurred.
Another flash, and I almost dropped my books as a somewhat familiar metal sphere appeared. It wasn't glowing, but as I had recently replayed Infamous 1 and 2, I couldn't help but recognize the unique artifact.
It was the Ray Sphere.
Tucking the Pocket Ref and Technical Formulae (9th edition by Gieck) in my pocket and the Book 'The Way Things Work' under one arm, despite the cold and wet, I picked up the slightly warm orb, and examined it.
There were several things that looked like LED's, but only two were lit- one larger green one, and a blinking blue one, on the bottom of a stack of several unlit ones. If the green one indicted that it was on, and the blue one indicated the power level....
"Fuck..." I realized that I had once chance here, and hopefully I would be able to survive this really dumb idea. There were two plungers, one on either side of the sphere, and so, I tried to pull them.
It didn't work well, at first. I jiggled it, and after a few seconds of frustration, I rotated both plungers, revealing the glowing core for a moment, before pushing the contacts together.
The pulse of light that erupted from the sphere moved surprisingly slowly, but the wave of /heat/ that accompanied it was a glorious contrast to the cold around me- and I felt something within twist.
Great! If I'm still alive in the next few days, and not dying from radiation poisoning, then I probably have super- "REALLY?!" The sudden drenching rain was warm, but the cold swiftly returned. "Really."
I had a few seconds to look around the newly-heated area, and saw that I was in a sparsely-wooded forest. A damp, sparsely-wooded forest, with the cold coming back and the snow coming down again in thick waves-
A crack of thunder erupted above me, and I dove for the nearest tree. I had been struck by lightning once before, and had no intention of being stuck agai-
I didn't even have a chance to finish that thought before the world lit up in light again, and I /felt/ the Lightning. I felt it burning, twisting, bunching up and around me before being sucked in by that twisting feeling in my stomach. The thundercrack arrived, everything feeling slightly slowed as the last vestiges of lightning drained into my hands, and I felt the power well up within.
The echoes died away as the wind picked up, snow spiraling through the trees, but it was lit now by the crackling blue glow coming from around my hands, and, as I reached up to my face with my free hand, I felt the Sparks of electricity dancing through my now-spiky hair.
"I'm a conduit?" I could barely believe it, and, even looking at the Ray Sphere, I saw the LED's lighting up one-by-one. Dropping the orb quickly before my new power could overload it, I /pulled/ the Lightning back in, feeling something else expand out.
I could feel something... Something I could feel, could tug? Yes, tug. I /tugged/ on it, and the sphere shot back towards me, knocking me deeper into the forest.
I collided with some low branches before coming to a stop in a drift of snow, soaked to the bone and laughing maniacally. Magnetism! I don't know what my power was supposed to be, but I drained the Lightning, and now I had contained the power of that one bolt, I was able to magnetically manipulate stuff!
"Hell yesBLARG!" My shout of glee was regretted immediately as the snow in the treetops above decided now would be a good time to descend.
-
It took me a while to dig myself out, but, now with my magnetic abilities, I could get an idea of my surroundings even in this snowstorm- and the Lightning trapped within kept me warm. I didn't feel it running down, but as I remembered from the games, all three games, since I was now a Conduit I need to keep recharging my power- or upgrade it.
And would you know it- I had a a Ray Sphere right here. Activating it another time did nothing, at first- but I could feel shards of material that pushed out against my magnetic sense. No, 'out' wasn't right. Neither was the concept of pushing, but there was a feeling of strange, energetic impediment.
In any case, my body steaming from the snowfall and internal lighting, I decided to walk out and find these shards. The first one was a sword, corroded, rusted and covered in snow, but it was glowing to my eyes as I got closer.
Touching it was like touching a live wire- everything seemed to jump, and I felt a surge of energy /stretch/ the power within. Then it just sat there, a spark just separated from everything else.
Mentally grabbing the spark gave me the impression of... Not being lost as such, but needing direction. Or perhaps purpose. It was strange. Still, considering the skill tree that the Infamous games had, I knew that I could use this... I just wasn't sure how.
Putting that thought aside, I, still carrying the Ray Sphere and two books, wandered out into the snow hunting the other Blast Shards.
Some time later (I wasn't sure of how long, as the sun had not become visible and the snow was unceasing), I had found all the shards I could sense. There had been seven in total- not a particularly large number, but hopefully enough for an upgrade at some point in the near future.
I had also found a LOT of buried metal. Shards of the stuff we're all over the place- not just ferrous metals either. There was quite a bit of copper arrowheads, some brass weapon fragments (most corroded by time and the elements into scrap), and even a little bit of gold that looked like it had been a ring once upon a time.
The shards of iron and steel on the other hand looked twisted and warped, as if something had been heated and then snap-cooled. But, with my magnetic grasp, I soon had a small swarm of the things around me. It wasn't hard keeping them moving- my power felt where they were, and if I could feel it, I could move it... Even just a little for the non-ferrous items.
But that was enough for me, and as I walked through the forest, covered in snow, my whirling shield gave me a distinct feeling of safety. Especially because I kept pulling up more and more items as I walked.
Iron and steel arrowheads were more common now, and even a small knife in good condition joined the swarm of whirling metal. Copper I put in my pocket, as I could see a use for the parts (if my understanding of physics meant anything). The tiny piece of gold I kept as well, and felt my pants being weighed down after a few... Kilometers? I think?
I kept walking, following the increasing amount of iron as my swarm continued growing- although the fragment size was decreasing, as I wouldn't keep the rust in orbit. That had been adhering to my feet, giving my legs and pants a thick, vibrating coat of iron oxide, allowing me to pass easier through the snow as it lifted me off the ground slightly.
Either way, it made the distances pass easier, even if it felt like I wasn't tiring. Although everything got dark quickly, I kept following the iron trail. With my eyes closed, I had a radius of maybe fifty meters all around where I could /feel/ everything. The snow made things below it fuzzy, but the ground made it worse.
Magnetic metals stood out beyond everything else to this sense, so I collected every piece I could feel even as the forest thinned out to reveal a massive wall of... Is that ice?
Opening my eyes, I looked up at the titanic wall before me, and I finally knew where I was.
"I'm in Westeros." I muttered, even as I pulled the swarm of shards back from the ice. "Oh SHIT I'm in Westeros."
Looking down the wall one way, and down the wall the other way with as many senses as I could use in the dark storm, I couldn't see any sign of lanterns, or torches. "Damn, I wish I remembered more about this universe..."
I still didn't like the cold- and I liked it even less when I knew there were Ice Zombies somewhere out there. All sorts of nope was in that.
Captain's log, day 2.
It has been more than 36 hours since I have seen another human soul. On the plus side, I have superpowers. On the downside, as I don't know exactly where I am, I am totally lost.
On the upside, I found a stream and small pond near the big-ass wall that had fish, and I like sashimi. On the downside, the fish tastes horrid here.
End log."
After clearing the (rather disgusting-tasting) fish guts off in the stream, I considered what I had learned in the (probably) day I had been here.
Fact one: I am in Westeros. This is not so good.
Fact two: I am a Conduit. Probably an Electrical Conduit judging from the fact that I soaked up that lightning bolt like a sponge, could control it, and now am manipulating magnetic fields in my sleep... But why did I get burned by the Lightning at first?
Eh. I'll think about it later.
Fact three: I hate the cold.
Fact four: I may be a bit overweight, and that meant I wouldn't need to eat the shitty fish for a while.
Conclusion: I should probably get the fuck out of here- at least, over the wall.
Absently pulling more rust from the earth around me as I walked, I continued trudging along the wall for maybe a mile before I remembered an interest tidbit from the games... Conduits, so long as they had power, had infinite stamina.
I started running. Let me just make something clear- I am not a runner. I have always preferred heavy weights with lots of reps rather than cardio (with the exception of swimming), and my build showed it. I loved walking, but now, I needed to cover significant distances.
And now I could.
It felt like I was a comet, trailing a tail of iron in my wake as I ran through the snow, breathing hard yet not being excessively exhausted like I had always been before. It was exhilarating, and even though I was hungry, I felt like I could do this all day.
The cloud of fragments around me flexed as I ran, the field and my awareness bending into more of an oblong than perfect sphere, and then I felt something on the wall to my left. Something living was maybe a hundred meters above me.
No iron that I could feel was there, but one... No, three, things were moving around above me on a ridge partway up the wall. Two of them were attacking a third, and while the third creature was small, it moved much, much faster than the first two.
After looking back around the wall where I had been running, I shrugged. No reason to keep doing this- going south will allow me to run into warmer weather eventually and I would probably find people... Assuming this was Westeros.
Gathering my shards to myself, I focused, and managed to sink some of the shards slightly into the ice with a thrust of my hand. Then, straining, I slowly lifted myself off the ground- before the shard I was bracing off of slid out of the crevice I had anchored it in.
"Okay," I muttered, "that's not going to work." I pulled myself out of the snow I had fallen into, and brought the swarm closer to me. Ideally, I could try to climb the wall- but, looking at my somewhat thin arms, I didn't think that was an option.
Still, best to try it!
I made it two handholds before I slipped again, this time landing on my back in the floofy snow with an "OOF!"
After pulling myself out of the newly-formed crater, I brushed the snow off of, well, everything, and glared at the wall. "Fine. Fuck being subtle, time to brute-force this shit." Gathering all the shards of metal to myself, I began to shape them.
Not bend each piece, per say, but rather, by pulling a little bit of the electricity out of my core, I could 'tell' the shard where it had to be relative other parts. The power cycled back, but between each piece there was a little crackling noise, like the sound of rice crispies or similar cereals.
Then they melted, and I had to hop out of the way as a flash of lightning and surge of power changed the metal from a solid, to liquid, moving in all directions away from my ankles.
The detonation was loud, and the figures above me stopped fighting- for a few seconds, before starting again. This time, the tiny figure, outlined by my... What is it, a magnetic sense? Sure, call it that. My magnetic sense outlined a small figure which fell into a drift of snow several meters away.
I walked over to the hole, the cloud of shards spiraling behind me, and I stopped when I heard a buzzing noise come from the hole- and I jumped back when I saw a spider, roughly just small enough that I should be able to pick it up with a hand, jump out of the rather deeper snow. It looked around, stared at me with two, massive, forward-facing eyes, and and then turned back to the hole, it's abdomen visibly blurring as it made a rhythmic buzzing noise.
A noise that could only be described as a pained gurgle-buzz came out of the deeper hole, and as I stepped closer, making sure to move slowly, I noticed that there were little bits of blood around the hole, as well as... Was that a piece of shell?
Looking into the hole in the dim snowfall wasn't very clear, but there was a larger spider than the first. It looked up at me with several shiny eyes, and I could see that one of the two largest ones were cracked. It was a jumping spider the size of a mug, and it was, well, cute.
The smaller one (which was probably the male if these were spiders) was scampering around fast as a small dog, and was alternating between standing over the larger spider, cleaning the larger spider with its pedipalps, staring at me then raising its abdomen to begin vibrating it to make a disturbing buzzing-shriek noise, and running around the crater in the snow, staring out at the snowstorm.
It had a brown, mottled carapace, but it was covered in white fuzz- no, feathers? They looked like feathers. It's limbs faded to a grey-brown, but with little white-tipped feet that gave it a distinctly cute appearance as the pedipalps kept wiping snow off of its eyes. It's abdomen had these flaps that folded over the sides, hiding a glowing display of striped bioluminescence that flashed every time it tried to scare me away.
The larger one, probably female, was built along the same lines but without any glowing bits, a bit darker-colored, much larger, and with a more bulbous abdomen. A bulbous abdomen that looked like it had been bitten by something, and was oozing blood- well, I could identify blood, but the other colors I was not certain of.
Her legs were moving weakly, trying to stand, and her pedipalps were grasping weakly like she was trying to reach over her head. It looked sad, and I could almost feel the fear and sadness of her
Well, time to test my powers again. Letting some of the lighting leak out, I put my hand on the animal and tried to.... What? I wanted it to heal, but as I had only ever seen this happen in the game, I had no clue how this worked.
Okay, the magnetic field effect seemed to work on visualization (the mass of items formed fractals in the air around me all the time because I liked fractals and could easily visualize them, not to even mention the higher-dimensional shapes). I focused on the feeling of... Being not injured? Feeling healthy? That feeling of well-ness.
I grabbed it, and shoved it into my power. Worst case, this would fry the nightmare-sized spider, and best case, it would heal.... Or would that be the other way around?
I felt my power respond, the trickle I let out forming into a flood as my control retracted from the veil of metal to light up the snow. Bright blue light surged out of my hands, concentrating and flowing into the spider, which jerked in reaction, before she tried to escape. Already I felt the exoskeleton twitched under my hands, as the spider thought to get away for a couple seconds, but then she stopped.
In the blue glow, I saw her exoskeleton begin to ripple, the damaged organs within changing shape as a deformation on her side audibly 'popped' into a new, more healthy-looking orientation. The brown-black carapace smoothed over and then sprouted the white feather-like structures (okay, feathers. Feathers on a spider are WEIRD)....
Then my power retracted again.
The metal that had fallen was pulled back into shape as the Lightning within coiled around itself once more, and the massive dousing of rust-dust the male spider had been buried by as it tried to protect the female formed the clothes around me again. I felt... Rejuvenated, and from the fact that the female spider jumped out of the crater to look at me told me she did as well.
A deep thrumming began, and the male spider scampered over, flashing his abdomen a few times and lifting several legs off the ground as he approached the female. Once he was in range, she lifted him up and placed him on her back- a very strange move, but then again, these spiders were the size of small dogs.
Both arachnids looked at me over the lip of the crater, and, in a move that startled me, one of them began chirping.
I literally had no idea how to respond to that. Maybe a minute later, the female rubbed its eyes with its pedipalps, and then slowly began to walk over to me.
I wasn't the only one confused either- the male was turning in circles on the back of the female, and buzzing in brief spurts repeatedly, but faster and faster as he was carried over until it was a single humming noise in the background.
Then she chirped again. I could actually see her do so- her back didn't vibrate. Rather, tufts of the feathers along her abdomen appeared to fluff up in a sudden gust originating from some hidden spot along her sides.
Then, slowly, she reached out with her pedipalps, and grabbed one of my unmoving fingers. I could feel the four-jointed claws under the feathery covering, and they felt both warm and zygodactyl, like the feet of an owl- but armored.
Still, she was being gentle, so when she began to move backwards, I took a step.
Partially out of curiosity, and partially because I didn't want her to attack if I moved too fast. I like jumping spiders, but this one looked like she outweighed Oreo, the smaller of my parent's dogs, and the male, who looked like he was trying to puff himself up (which looks ridiculous in a spider by the by), was looking more and more ancy judging by the fluctuations in the buzzing.
A few steps later, she released my finger, and turned away from me, only to stop a few meters later to look at me again. It was exactly like when one of our dogs was asking someone to follow them, and even done by such a large spider, it was endearing.
With nothing better to do, and trying to ignore the nagging (and depressing) realization that I would never see my parents or siblings again, I followed the spiders back to... The Wall.
And they went straight up, being, well, spiders.
...
"What, am I supposed to follow the spiders?" I muttered, as I pulled on my shards and used handfuls of them to find grip points on the ice. "I saw.... How that movie... Ends..."
I made my way slowly up the wall, swearing as I did so. This was stressing my internal power significantly, and I could feel the lightning dimming. Not much, but it was noticeable.
About halfway up, the spiders crawled into a crevice in the nice that had been layered with silk, and came out with what could only be an egg sack. One that had been mauled and somewhat eaten by the looks of things.
Both spiders made a high keening noise as they used their pedipalps to pull the sack of eggs apart, the smaller male extracting the crushed remains of the eggs delicately from the silk binding, and placing them in the top of the female's head as she lifted each one up to to the smaller spider. After some time, as I felt my lightning dim more and more with every minute I hung suspended by magnetic field lines, the spiders pulled one intact egg out of the nest- but it was glowing slightly blue, and the female spider actually made a tiny screaming noise as her front legs grasped at the scratched egg.
The sight of her, and the male, frantically trying to clean the glowing egg was soul-crushing. A few seconds of this, and the male stopped moving, extending his fangs out and making motions to bite the egg- but the female smacked him with one of her legs as she scuttled over to me, and held out the still-glowing egg.
Behind her, the male spider made little buzzing noises as he pulled himself out of the hole.
Moving slowly, and straining my power to push lightning into my hands while holding myself along the wall and braced shards, I reached out to the egg, and touched it with a finger.
The egg was small, maybe the size of a grape, and the glow made the insides indistinct. But when I touched it, I felt cold- incredibly cold where the other spider had been warm, but muffled under their feathers, the cold pushed out like a living thing. A frozen heartbeat pulsed along my arm, and my power fought it.
I had wondered why, in the books and tv show Game of Thrones, that there were no ice-spiders. In a flash of realization, I concluded that this must be why- they were willing to kill young that were touched with the blue glow that the White Walkers were depicted with.
In any case, I shoved more and more power down my arm, sinking it into the egg as I fought off the blue light. Initially, it was easier than healing the cracked carapace of the female spider, the cold letting my power flow along the same lines it was using, but once it was gone, the egg looked almost charred. I had to heal all the damage I had caused, and that made me go from hungry straight to 'how many days since I last ate?'
Looking down as my power fluctuated, I actually saw myself become thinner and thinner as my body tried to supply everything my power needed to heal the egg. Still, it wasn't long before my power cycled back, and I felt nauseated when it did so.
I had dumped more than a third of my power to heal that egg, and I was feeling the drain. I couldn't feel more that maybe a hundred meters away with my magnetic sense, and I was dropping shards. Not many, but slowly, maybe one a second or so.
Pulling my hand away quickly as the spiders cooed at the now-warm and ostentatiously not-glowing egg, I looked up and began, desperately, to drag myself up the Wall.
Because fuck living near ice-zombies.
Several seconds of frenzied climbing later, I felt my core beginning to drain faster than before. Either something was sapping me, of I didn't have enough efficiency in using my powers.
Probably the second one to be honest.
I shot over the top of the wall, and saw... Nothing. It was fucking cold, and still snowing. Said snow restricted visibility to maybe ten meters, so.... I missed the other edge.
In my defense, I had no idea how thick the wall was, as my magnetic sense range had been falling since I began my ascent, and the drain of moving my body by leveraging magnetic fields is more than a little difficult. So I overshot the top, and thanks to a gust of wind while in the air, I plummeted more than three hundred meters to the ground.
There is a video I once watched on 'what to do if your parachute fails'.
A bit over three hundred meters (at least- I really overshot) is not enough to hit terminal velocity, and I didn't have a parachute. Still, I don't like heights, so, in the slim chance I would survive, I pulled the metal around me and tried to spread it out-
My power failed. The lightning disappeared, all used up, and everything dulled slightly as my magnetic sense vanished into the background. Fuck.
As the Ray Sphere, which I had been carrying with my power drifted past me, I couldn't help by say it: *"Fuck...."*
Ignoring the not-so-small part of me that wanted to gibber in terror, I remembered the video. First things first- slow my descend.
I spread my arms and legs into an X formation, keeping myself flat on my stomach as the wind rushed past me. I did not need to worry about orienting myself, as I knew exactly where the ground was.
I was heading towards it.
No backup chute- and I hissed as the metal and dust I collected over the last few days shot past me, my speed having been slightly lower than theirs. Now I was wearing a T-shirt, pj pants, and reading fluffy socks, all of which with rust sticking to the outside even in this wind.
It was damned cold.
I peered through the snow, and tried to resolve shapes in the dark blizzard. I would aim for trees, swamps, or snow. Probably snow. NOT WATER- even with the powers of a conduit I would splatter.
The ground suddenly snapped into focus as I saw some trees, and yes! There's a hill! I aimed for the side of hill, leaning to orient, and I started spinning rapidly... Uncontrollably.
I had never done the skydiving thing before.
Ground's coming up fast- shitshitSHITSHIT *"SHIT!"*
*IMPACT*
-
Few farmed in the Gift.
This was not because the soil was bad. Nor because there was a lack of space- it was one of the largest fertile areas in Westeros. Even in the Winter, it was warmer than anywhere beyond the wall (according to the Night's Watch anyway), and had thick forests, grassy plains, and many streams, lakes, and ponds for fish.
They were not afraid of the wildling raids either- the people here were hardy, and everyone was taught to fight from a young age. While the villagers would often go south during the longer Winter years, those who remained would fight raiders and bandits... Not so often, they might become bandits themselves, but none of the lords were particularly tolerant of such activities.
The lack of people was primarily because of the stones.
Most of the earth here was staggered with large rocks, meaning any farming that was done needed the stones removed from any plots they set up here. Therefore, farms did appear, and while they had large harvests, it was always difficult to get the stones out between each of the years.
Most of the time this was done during the Spring, when the villagers returned, but young William Thatcher wanted to help expand his family's house a bit. He wanted to add a new hearth to the many-times expanded dwelling, and so went out when the snowfall stopped to go to a segment of next-year's field and remove as many rocks as he could during the brief reprieve.
As he walked through the snow, he looked towards the Wall, the ever-present structure visible on the northern horizon, and saw that some of the trees along it had been removed. Or trimmed.
His curiosity roused, he whistled, and the family dog, Shaggy Dog, bounded through the knee-deep snow with a happy bark before coming to a stop, stumbling at the last second into a drift, face-first. His tail didn't stop wagging, but the barking was just a bit muffled.
After digging out the faithful companion, Will and his dog walked the mile over to the hill where the trees approached the wall. There, he saw that the trees had not fallen over- rather, it looked like a bolt of lightning had struck them, just without any charring, blasting the trunk and branches in the way to pieces.
Following the trail of destruction with his eyes, whatever caused this looked (judging from the massive deformation in one tree) like it had bounced several times, before rolling down the hill away from the wall. Despite the breeze, and snowfall, the path was obvious- and there were two objects that had landed.
Will was not a tracker, but as he looked around at the impact site, he saw lots of metal shards- and he quickly followed the path of the smaller object. It had been buried in the snow, but the metal sphere had been visible- the glowing blue and green spots on it lit up the overcast day as he approached, reflecting with a cold glow off the snow -covered plants.
He refused to touch it, and Shaggy Dog wouldn't approach the thing. It didn't radiate wrongness, or anything strange like that, but it was so... So OTHER, that he quietly asked the Old Gods to protect him.
The other crater, and it was a deep crater, had a the remains of a man in it. Arms and legs were broken, at least, and he was dressed in some outlandish material that was ripped and torn- probably from falling from... Where? The wall?
Will didn't think much about it, but his dog whined as he approached the crater for a better look. The man, more like a boy really, had a book partially under the body- and had very little blood around himself, having left a rather red trail in the forest.
Then the body coughed, and it spit out some blood as flickers of lightning sparked in its throat.
Will's nerve broke, and he ran home- his family needed to know about this.
-
I have no idea how long I sat there in the snow- but I kept myself as awake as I could. SUMMON THE WILL TO LIVE BY THINKING ABOUT AL ROKER!... Whoever the fuck that was. That video was brilliant at the time.
It hurt to breathe.... It hurt to think! I was in shock
But if I passed out, I would probably die. I wasn't certain if my power, depleted as it was, would keep me alive without anything to use- Wait! The blast shards I had collected! I could still feel them!
With each wheezing breath getting weaker, I mentally grabbed at the seven shards, and dove to feel the location of my power.
It felt... Burnt out. Two days of walking without any significant rest, in the cold, holding a not-insignificant amount of metal in the air through magnetic fluxes, then healing the spider, healing the egg as my own power held me in the air, suspended by slivers of metal that I had jammed into the Wall... Oh, and then I climbed so fast as my core depleted that I managed to OVERSHOOT THE DAMN TOP OF THE WALL!
Yeah, I overdid it.
Still, I could feel that my core wanted the shards. Really wanted them for... Something.
I needed my core to regenerate the power, or, at least, let me regenerate from nearly dying- and as I tried to focus on that, everything began to get fuzzy.
Fuck no! I am not going to die in the damned snow, after overshooting the wall!
I shoved the seven shards as deep as I could, and my core responded, swelling in ways that I cannot adequately explain.
A spark flared, and everything /popped/ into perspective as my power flexed. It would grow slowly, but my power would heal itself, and then me- once I was not in immediate danger from the ruptured organs.
I let myself drift, still awake but feeling the pain swell and crest as my power fixed me just enough not to die. I coughed a few times, probably splitting out blood considering how wet the coughs sounded, before a spike of pain forced me to pass out.