The water was frigid and cold and raged around him like a hurricane. He couldn't tell which way was up or down, and he struggled to remember how he had gotten where he was, wherever he was. His lungs burned. Kicking and struggling against the current, he searched for the surface, his screaming lungs desperate for air, air! The water roared like a lion in his ears, guttural and loud, drowning out any other sound except the frantic pounds of his heartbeat reminding him that, against all odds, he was still alive. He tumbled, weightless, carried by the invisible current to unknown places. The freezing water numbed him, choked him, weakened him as he lethargically fought against its powerful arms. He just wanted air.

He was running out of time, yet time seemed irrelevant. It did not measure how long he tumbled and drifted, how long it had been since his last breath, how long it had been since he had opened his eyes. It was as if time no longer existed. The water surging around him would be his death.

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Or would it? Suddenly, he was flying, soaring, staring down at the world as if he were god himself, close enough to touch the ground and yet distant enough to see it all. Set apart. Disconnected. On and on he flew, through the wind and the life-giving air, through the clouds and over worlds he had never known existed. Afar off, a voice called to him, shouted his name. There was a brilliant flash of light and words whispered in his ears too quickly to be deciphered. Down below, a battle raged upon the earth; the smoke from the fire reached his nostrils, instilling in him a powerful grief he had never experienced before. The fires reached for him, snatched him out of the sky and dragged him down, down, where the flames raged and ruled and evil lived in abundance.

Once again, he could not breathe. He was being suffocated, tossed about by the flames, by fire, by death and destruction, talons reaching for him, purple flames consuming him.

Everything around Todd faded to black.