[Rainbowfox Ari]

Swimming out of darkness, and back into the light wasn't as pleasant as it might have seemed. Deep in the confines of the darkness, he felt calm and at peace. Nothing ached, nothing felt too bad... but when there was something that reached down and tried to pluck him out - pain came flooding back. Pain all over. His chest was on fire, his stomach doubly-so, and his lungs felt as though they were filled with shards of glass.

Regardless, he did phase back into consciousness - mercifully as he was on the ground, and not slung over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He didn't know where he was, nor who his rescuer was... The last thing he remembered was his father calling for him to swim for his life - and he had. But he didn't think he'd made it very far before he was just too tired to continue.

There was a nagging in the back of his head. Something he should remember, but the world was a bit sideways at the moment, and his head was too full of cotton to think. Not to mention his entire body felt weighted down. When he did make a motion, it was with extreme effort, and just a couple of fingers. His eyelids were as-of-yet too heavy to open.

Conscious and awake, but unable to see for the time being, he used his ears to listen, trying to gather just where he was, where that woman had gone, and what was going on around him. Each passing moment brought more clarity which... he REALLY wished it hadn't. He wasn't a bad medic himself [abuse from Hell made that an easy thing to pick up] so he knew at least which areas he was injured in. There was something wrong in his chest - a cracked rib or two. Some bleeding deeper inside where it felt like a nightmare had kicked him. And he recognized enough of the symptoms to realize he was in shock already - the freezing cold - to - scorching hot, shivering and sweating in turns, the thirst, the rapid and hard heartbeat he could hear with his eyes closed... But was that his or his rescuer's? ... Yeah, and disjointed thoughts. He had to pull it together.

Opening his eyes took a lot more effort than he had thought it would take, and that was about all he could do for the moment. He was injured, in shock, possibly sick under all that from whatever was in his system, and... where was he? He wasn't in Hell, that was for sure. And from the sounds, he wasn't in the river, or even near it.

He tested his mouth a bit, opening and closing it a few times before he tried using it to actually form something coherent, like speech. And when he did, it sounded off - cracked and dry and rusty. Probably from the whole near-drowning thing, and the damage he could feel in his throat when he allowed sound to come out of it.

"... Wh...where.... am I?"