The city groans under the duress of the immense pressure from above as water rushes in, sweeping him and the smoking wreckage into its unrelenting pull. The cresting white-tipped waves suck him away, spinning helplessly in the undertow, silver streams of bubbles flurrying from parted lips as he screams.

It held him down. It held him down beneath the water, choking him, and he thrashed and clawed at it and it wouldn't let him go. It held him until he was tired enough to go shuddering and limp, tired enough to die, and then, and then it released him, let him haul himself out of the laughably shallow stretch of muddy water, sopping and gasping and wanting nothing more than to have had been held down just a little bit longer.

The temptation to cede to that old instinct is still guttering and there and beyond his capacity to ignore, but it's the presence of the other poor bastard caught in this alongside him that forces him to push forward, both hands scything through the water as he tries to break the surface.

He never learned to swim. He never even learned to tread water.

With an almighty crash of water, Tim slams into the ashen remains of what used to be the building's rafters. He glimpses something sodden just beneath, but he can't breathe and he needs to kick out, lashing out desperately to breach the surface and gulp down a relieved gasp of air and breathe.