The good arm still had enough fear in it to obey, but the mangled one did not. One hand let go, coming up in front of the skull to protect him; the ruined hand somehow kept its grip. Cole braced himself as the body he was in rotated on the single grasp of that bloody, pulped hand. He watched as the invisible thread flew past, seeming to miss everything.
But then, he started falling away. He fell into the sinking embrace of open air even though one arm remained fastened to the rail—remained there, frozen in the shape of a claw.
Cole stared at it from within the head, watched it slide away from the body along a neat line of red separation.
My body, Cole thought.
This is me.
That arm, still grasping the railing, he finally understood it to be a part of him. He came to the realization moments after it was no longer true.
His good arm waved in the wisps of snow, but he focused on the other one. He watched the dismembered limb as he fell away from it, watched it remain up high, dripping blood through the whizzing white. The arm became smaller, a tiny piece of meat stuck to the side of the ship, as he fell away, down to the snowy drifts below.
Air roared past his ears. Accelerating. Stomach rising with the speed. He landed with a pained crunch, a thump of lifeless heft. His body smashed through the hard, frozen exterior of the snow and drove down, deep down into the soft wetness.
The cold seeped into his bones immediately. Cole lifted his head. He pushed up with one arm to get his face out of the moisture, away from the tight hole he’d created. He wiggled back and forth, yelling at the pain and horror of it all, the frustration of not being able to move, of being wrapped in the freezing embrace.
His right arm came free. He looked down at it, saw how the limb ended in the middle of his bicep. Blood arced out in spurts, melting red canyons into the wall of white before him.
Cole fought to free his other hand from the clutches of the packed snow. He yelled and yanked it free, grabbed a handful of snow and pushed it against the wound. The raw, exposed nerves burned with pain beyond compare. He could hear himself screaming, could feel the white world around him growing dark. He struggled against the dying sensation, kicked at the brutality of it all, shook with rage at the approaching blackness squeezing in around him . . .
Cole collapsed forward. His eyes rolled up behind his lids, and his face fell into the cold and wet.