Everything hurt. Nothing hurt. His head pounded. But he couldn't feel the rest of his body. What happened? Why was he moving so fast?

Finbarr blinked his eyes open, only to see darkness. He didn't know where he was, only that his head swam with dizziness. His thoughts moved sluggishly, as if he had been swallowed by a mud pit and could only move at a snail's pace to try to free himself.

He blinked again, realizing that he wasn't moving fast, but rather, he was shivering uncontrollably. He attempted to lift his arm, but his body felt so weak that he couldn't manage the feat. It should have alarmed him. It should have horrified him. Something in the back of his mind told him something wasn't right, but he couldn't hold onto the thought long enough to make sense of it.

His body continued to shiver, and he couldn't tell the difference between the darkness of his vision and the darkness of unconsciousness. His head swam ceaselessly, bringing him in and out of awareness. But the shivering never stopped. It consumed him. From his shivering feet to his trembling arms to his rattling teeth.

Why couldn't he get up?

A heavy weight laid on his chest, crushing him and making it difficult to draw in icy breath into his frozen lungs. He felt like he was suffocating from the inside out.

At last, he managed to lift his hand to his chest, only to find something large and furry and wet lying on top of him. He, too, was shivering uncontrollably.

Grady.

The dog barked, sounding completely exhausted as if he had been doing it for a long time already. He barked again, but this time, it was quieter.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his words didn't obey him. His body didn't obey him. His mind didn't obey him. The darkness consumed him so soundly, engulfing him in the jaws of its depths. It dragged him under. It drowned him. And before he could stop it from swallowing him whole, the darkness pulled him into unconsciousness once more.