Young hemlocks and stone pines glistened with rime ice like bodies emerging from water.

He drew in his breath and blew it out again with the gasp of the wearied emerging from water.

He wakes like a swimmer emerging from water, his head rearing up off the pillow, his mouth sucking hard at the air.

But this is high enough that the block rears out of the streets and stone and brick like something enormous emerging from water.

Hands of flesh and blood pulled at her, tugging her back through many layers of sleep that she felt like a diver emerging from water.