Takes place early Feb, 2023.
There was a voice.
Or maybe just a light.
It was bright. It made him want to cringe away.
Sleep for a few more minutes.
His body felt heavy.
He couldn’t move his arms. Could he feel his toes? Everything felt cold.
That wasn’t right.
Why was it cold?
Blearily, Enceladus opened his eyes. He blinked away the grogginess, tried to breathe in the icy air--
Icy?
It didn’t make sense. He could still feel the gentle pulse of the Core of his world. He was still on Enceladus.
Why was it cold?
He blinked again, lifted a hand to--
It knocked against the roof of the encasement he was in.
Enceladus groaned in frustration. He could remember being forced into that box. Someone did something to him to knock him out, and that was the last thing he remembered.
But why was he there in the first place?
His world had been in danger.
Enceladus opened his eyes again, blinking against the ripple of light through the glass window in the lid. It was almost like he was under--
Water!
His heart skipped, and his eyes opened wider, more frantically looking around to determine where he was. Had he been thrown into the sea? But the water there was always warm. Why was it so frigid? He felt like he was numb from it.
He tried pushing himself up, but the encasement was small. And through the window he could see that there was nothing but water above him.
Enceladus cursed and kicked at the bottom of the encasement. And he realized that the pump feeding air into the enclosure must have finally stopped. He already felt lightheaded. Which meant if he didn’t escape soon, he would just suffocate, one way or another.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs until they burned and held it for a little while before letting it out and repeating the process. He needed to make sure he could still hold his breath long enough to get out. Had to let the container fill with water first. And then he would figure out where to surface. There was a valve he could release to even out the pressure. A minute or so of preparing, and he was as ready as he thought he could be.
Except he wasn’t ready for the icy water that started filling the encasement.
He let out a yelp in surprise, and made an attempt to jerk away from it, but there was no point in trying to close the valve now. The sooner he was out, the sooner he could warm up.
His whole body was shaking. He had tears in his eyes, teeth gritted in rage as he did his best to not allow the cold to shock him into passing out again. It felt as though it lasted hours to fill the encasement, and nearly impossible for him to keep his body from shivering.
Finally, when there was enough water inside, Enceladus took one last deep breath of air that was left, and used his hands and knees to push at the lid.
It didn’t budge.
He growled, pushing harder, but still nothing. Enraged, he pressed his hands against the lid and used his strongest magic--
His magic. It felt wrong. Weaker. Did he not have his magic still?
Panic and frustration filled him, but he knew he was already running out of time. He used other magic then, but it was enough to push the lid away from him, and filled the rest of the container with water.
Enceladus pushed himself out, floating in the freezing water for a moment or two to get his bearings. He recognized the columns. Recognized the platform the container had been placed on. But there was still several feet of water above him. How could that be possible? How could the water level rise so much to completely submerge his home? Or had the whole island simply sunk? As if there was anything simple about that. How could the whole place be underwater but his people left him there?
This wasn’t right. His home had been a paradise. He was loved by his people, or so he thought. They gave him everything he wanted and he only did his duty as a Senshi in return. He didn’t have to worry about going hungry or having a place to stay. People welcomed him into their homes when he went to visit. Why would they just leave him…?
It didn’t matter. He needed to surface.
He kicked to propel himself upward towards the rippling of light. Was it night? His vision seemed like it was still bleary, because the surface looked strange. It looked solid instead of where air and water met--
It was ice.
If he hadn’t been holding his breath, Enceladus would have let out an enraged scream. He dug his fingers into the ice that blocked him from making it to the surface, but there was no telling how thick the ice was. His whole body was shaking, despite his attempt at keeping himself from panicking. But how could he not panic now when he was trapped under ice??
A voice again.
Or maybe he was just hearing his oxygen deprived mind in its dying moments.
Through the ice he could see a light. He had no idea what it was. It was calling --
And he was desperate. He could continue to try clawing at the ice, but what point would there be for that?
He was going to die if he didn’t do something. And despite the horrible feeling that he was alone on his world now, he didn’t want to die. Not until he could make whoever caused this pay.
The Chaos that had been creeping in before he was put into stasis--
The Chaos he could still feel now.
He looked around desperately, as if he expected to see a shadow of something lurking around the darkest parts of what he could see. But there was nothing. Only a feeling of absolute dread and death.
Enceladus clawed at the ice again, and squeezed his eyes shut, listening to the voice that was calling him and then--
He was gone.
