(no subject)

[frankensteinian]

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr
WHERE: Somewhere along the river
WHEN: May 19
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Near drowning

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Now that the weather is taking a turn for the warmer, Erik is spending more time outside. He's not just spending more time working outside. More of the limited free time he has is also being spent outside. Maybe it's because of his decade spent in an underground prison. He hadn't even gotten the one hour per day of fresh air given to even the most maximum security of prisoners. All he'd gotten was a pentagon-shaped cell to pace from wall to wall. Now he's got all the freedom he wants to wander, to breathe. And with the recent change in scenery, there's a lot more room to do that wandering in.

Along with the increase in temperature comes an increase in water temperature, which means no more freezing while bathing, or even going near water of any kind. He's all for that.

He's got a little extra time today, so decided that he could spend a little more time in the river than he has lately. It can't be all work all the time, right? In the interest of modesty, he's still wearing his scrub pants, but the rest of his clothes are piled neatly on the shoreline. He starts with some long strokes, which really is about all he knows how to do, not having a lot of opportunities to learn in his younger years, or a lot of need to as an adult. He stays close to the shore, since he's not really swimming anyway.

There's no warning when it happens. On land, walking or sitting or sleeping, the leg cramp would be little more than an inconvenience. In the water, it's different. It's unexpected, and it distracts him. He ducks his head under the water, bent in half to grab his toes to stretch the cramp out. But he's under water and it doesn't work like he hoped it would. Before he realizes what's happening, he has a mouthful of water instead of air. He can't get back up to the surface; he doesn't know where the surface is. Breathing isn't working.

Then there's a strange sensation on his neck and a sudden rush of oxygen to his brain. A few strokes and he's breaking the surface, back to the air and the light. Back to life. He pulls himself up onto the shore, coughing and sputtering, trying to catch his breath. He reaches up to neck, the spot where he felt the strange sensation. Where he feels something else strange.

Are those gills?