The first thing House became aware of when he awoke the overwhelming darkness. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was awake - it distinctly felt like something was missing, but he didn't know what (besides light) was supposed to be present and wasn't - but the notion was dispelled as he realized that he was somewhere cool, drafty, and hard. Tentatively, he reached out to feel the surface under him. It was like wood, but then, not quite the same. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly felt different but, deciding it wasn't the most important issue to address, he filed away information of the surface's texture to study later. No, his most pressing concern was that he had no clue where the hell he was. He felt around in the dark for his cane, but, unable to find it, gritted his teeth and pulled himself into a sitting position.

That was when he knew what was missing. The customary pain in his leg, which had loyally followed him around for years, was conspicuously absent as he sat up. Experimentally, House flexed his leg. Nothing but the feeling of the cool wood beneath him. It occurred to him at that point that his clothes were also missing. He frowned and stood. The first few steps were awkward as he limped forward, instinctively compensating for an injury that wasn't there. But then he got the hang of it and, arms flailing about awkwardly in the darkness, he began to search for something - anything - that would help him figure out his whereabouts.

As he felt about in the dark, he groped mentally for his most recent memories, hoping for some insight. I remember the accident. I was trying to figure out what had happened, and what symptom I saw, and who had it. I overdosed and remembered it was Amber. She was mangled and sick, and we tried to figure out what was killing her. Wilson had us freeze her body for time. He paused in his line of thought as his hand connected with something hard and stiff - the wall was made from the same surface that he stood on. House followed it to the left, hoping to find where it led, and dove back into his mind. Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, he was aware of the fact that it was far easier to remember things here than it had been before.

What else happened? I remember that Wilson wanted to electrocute my brain. To see if there were any other symptoms I forgot. Chase did that, and I remembered what I had seen. Then... He scrunched up his face. Something bad had happened to him after that. Had it been a heart attack? He wasn't sure. But he knew that if anything had happened between then and now, he didn't remember it.

House struggled to piece together all the information he'd collected so far. He reached the corner of the wall and turned, following the new path. What did all of this mean? He was in a pitch dark and unfamiliar place that so far, seemed barren of anything but floor and wall. He was naked, and his infarction had disappeared. It occurred to him to check his head wound, but that too had vanished. The most recent memory he had was of what he thought might be a heart attack. He looked for a way all of these facts connected and gasped.

Am I dead? The thought struck him suddenly, and he felt a tingle of dread rise at the notion. But then he forced the idea out of his mind. He had never believed in an afterlife, and even if he was wrong about that, there was no way that this could be it. A big dark room? What kind of eternity was that?

Maybe it's Hell, he mused. Maybe I'm going to spend eternity by myself here and go insane. He considered the notion. If this really was Hell, he wouldn't be able to enjoy himself, right? Curiously, he dropped his right hand and stroked himself, shivering at the sensation. Scratch that theory.

But it definitely wasn't Heaven, either.

Which meant that either the afterlife didn't conform to Christian ideas (which he figured was the most likely answer) or he wasn't really dead. The latter was harder to swallow, mainly because there were too many things that weren't possible.

"Guess this is it." House was startled by the sound of his own voice as he spoke aloud, the words echoing softly back to him. The sound of the echo suggested that the room wasn't as large as he'd previously guessed, and he increased his pace as he followed the wall. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he suddenly felt as though he might find it.

There! He reached another corner, but this one was different from the last. There was something sticking out of it, metal and about as tall as he. House ran his hands over it frantically, trying to discern what exactly it was, and why he had a nagging feeling that it was significant. It was round, smooth, and oddly familiar. He concentrated on forming an image of the thing in his head. What he saw in his mind's eye was a hinge. A very large hinge, to be specific.

Just as he arrived as this conclusion, the wall was pulled sharply away from him, and he slammed his eyes shut as blinding light flooded the room. As he covered his face to shield himself from the light, he heard a gasp, which he was quite certain was not his own. Forcing his eyes open, House looked for the source of the sound. It was hardly a moment before the sight before him answered his question. The blood drained from his face and he felt his knees begin to shake as he stared weakly at the impossibility before him, and a dozen questions surged through his head. But of the swarm of queries that threatened to overwhelm his dizzy mind, only one hardly coherent question managed to tumble out of his lips.

"What the hell?"