Consciousness returned slowly. Lazily. Taking its sweet time.
At first, she simply had a vague awareness that she existed. That she was. All was dark and quiet. And this seemed acceptable.
Then came the cold. Little by little. Moreso on one side of her than the other, though she couldn't quite sense her body in the proper way. Her mind still hovered in the soft, velvety darkness, and wanted to remain there.
But steadily, mercilessly, the distant sensation became sharper. The pieces and forms of body parts came into focus, one by one. The dead weight of her hand, trapped beneath her hip. The odd angle of her legs, splayed awkwardly like a newborn foal. Her head felt like a stone. One side was utterly without feeling, the ear blocked and deafened.
She became aware of her own breath, laborious and ragged, struggling through frozen, aching lungs. All of her instinct drew together into one reflex, one urge; to move. The darkness was alluring, promising peace, quiet, and escape from the discomfort. But something else tugged at her mind; a sort of subtle, confusing panic. The darkness was not what it seemed. To take its hand meant never having the choice to do anything else, ever again.
The low groaning that swelled up from her chest was loud and grating inside her half-frozen skull. Her muscles were heavy and uncooperative. She squirmed weakly, barely moving a leg, fingers twitching, her cheek struggling to free itself from something sticky and cold.
It was in this sluggish, pathetic way that the woman finally extracted herself from the hard, icy earth. A swath of muddy soil held the imprint of her fallen body, and as she dragged herself into a sitting position, she could see the countless frost crystals adorning the black rim.
Blurred eyes swept over the scene. Gnarled, bare trees, brown tufts of grass, a low, grey sky, and just beyond the soles of her boots, a stream. It was frozen on either side, with a narrow channel of water still churning through its center.
She could not feel her hands at all. Lifting one to examine it, the flesh was hidden by a glove. She wanted to move her fingers and couldn't. Stubbornly, she thrust the lifeless appendage to the ground, tensing what muscles she could still feel in her am, and tried to stand.
A jagged tree stump, its upper portion still laying cockeyed upon the ground, provided the needed support as she swayed and tottered, her numb feet slipping and stumbling repeatedly. Several times she fell roughly, landing on the stump with a grunt. The blood that strove to push through stiff, freezing veins, giving life back to dormant nerves, caused a rush of nauseating pain that wracked her with violent shudders.
Her mind felt as lethargic as her body. She did not think of anything but getting to her feet and moving away from the water and the deadly embrace of the muddy bank. She did not think about who she was, or how she had gotten there. Nor of the people she had been in the company of, where they had been going, where they might be now.
There was only one thought; to find warmth. To live.
