But that strength was gone and now he knew it had been the strength of brain, the strength of will rather than of mere bone and muscle that had let him do it.
He struggled to his hands and knees and crept. He stopped and rested and then crept a few feet more and his head hung limp between his shoulders, drooling blood and mucus and slobbered stomach slime that left a trail across the floor.
He found the door of the engine room and by slow degrees pulled himself upward to the latch.
His fingers found the latch and pulled it down, but they had no strength and they slipped off the metal and he fell into a huddled pile of sheer defeat against the hard coldness of the door.
He waited for a long time and then he tried again and this time the latch clicked open even as his fingers slipped again, and as he fell, he fell across the threshold.
Finally, after so long a wait that he thought he could never do it, he got on hands and knees again and crept forward by slow inches.
XXX
Asher Sutton awoke to darkness.
To darkness and an unknowing.
To unknowing and a slow, exploding wonder.