Asleep in her own bed, her brain tried to tell her.
But the cold and the crushing force increased in one long narrowing rush downward after the impact, till she slowed enough to kick and the natural buoyancy of her body began to hurl her inexorably toward the surface. Salt stung her eyes and her throat; her lungs burned for air and her stomach was trying to crawl up her windpipe as she struggled with arms gone weak and legs kicking against too much water pressure.
… not going to make it, not going to make it, consciousness was going out in red bursts and gray and her lungs were clogged, needing to expel what they had taken in, in a spasm which would suck water in after it, and finish her.
Savankala! she wailed.
But nothing hastened her rise. She stroked and kicked and stroked, and her gut spasmed; she forced the last few bubbles out her nose, trying to gain time, fought with all instinct demanding to intake air where there was no air: she would faint, was going out, and her body would breathe by that instinct-
Her hand broke surface, and she grabbed at it with that hand and the other, one last desperate effort that got her face half clear and a froth of water and air sluicing down nose and throat. She coughed and spasmed and nailed, trying to spit up water and take in a clear breath while her temples ached to bursting and her gut racked itself in internal contractions. Stroke by flailing stroke she gained on life, gulped clear air and vomited, swam and gulped and choked in the toss of waves. Her sight showed her nothing but dark, abysmal dark.