A/N – Thank you for all your feedback. I found this chapter particularly hard to write. I hope it's OK.
Thanks for reading. Reviews are great - Ellen
Arthur had never particularly liked the sea. Even when he was little, the idea of getting your feet all gummed up with wet, sticky sand had never seemed that appealing and, now, with the fierce waves soaking every inch of him, he realised he liked the seaside even less.
It was dark. Dark and cold. His eyes, stinging with the salt of the waves, adjusted to the darkness and he found himself floating only a few feet away from what seemed to be a large, jagged rock, atop which stood a formidable looking lighthouse, its beam cutting like a razor through the heavy blanket of the night sky. He kicked his feet through the freezing water and grabbed onto the sharp edges of the lethal-looking barnacle-encrusted crag.
He pulled himself up, his muscles straining against the extra weight of his water-clogged clothes. His feet scrabbled on the uneven surface before finally catching a foothold. When he was finally upright, he glanced down at himself. Oh dear. That was another thing. Every inch of Italian, couture three-piece suit was soaked, sticking like cling-film to his shivering body – seemingly intent on freezing him even more thoroughly. He swore, his breath shaking from behind his chattering teeth.
Where the hell was he? Cobb's dream would no doubt be infested with all manner of dangerous paradoxes and murderous subconscious projections.
The little Lighthouse Island was completely surrounded by ocean. There was no hint of any mainland against the inky blackness of the horizon, no hint of any causeway within the fierce roaring of the ocean. The lighthouse was the only place to go.
As he moved forwards, his feet tripping on the uneven rock face and sliding about in their wet leather brogues, he caught a glimpse of a shape looming from behind a lumps of craggy rock. In an instant, he had removed his gun from the waistband of his trousers and had planted it firmly in the palm of his hand, aiming it sharply at the dark shape ahead of him.
The shape stumbled and tripped over the surface of the rock, getting larger with every step. Soon enough however, Arthur recognised the shape of the soaking brown corduroy jacket and the steady stream of profanity escalading out of the figure's mouth and into the night air.
"...couldn't have imagined a bloody spa, could he? Oh no. Has to be a sodding lighthouse in the middle of bloody nowhere where it's pissing down..."
"Eames!" His voice rang out, echoing off the uneven faces of the rock. Eames looked up.
"Have you seen the others yet?" He asked, running a hand through his soaking hair. "I'm bloody freezing."
"No. You're the first one I've seen. It must have been because we were last to connect."
"Yeah. I bet it's just my luck that the others ended up inside while we had to swim...bastards."
Slowly, they picked their way across the rugged terrain, always on edge, searching for any hint of a projection.
"Don't you think this is a bit weird?" Eames asked, almost falling on his face in the process. "The fact that no one's tried to kill us yet, besides the sea of course."
"Yeah..." Arthur replied, giving Eames a hand up a particularly steep rock. "I don't expect it to last though."
"No..." Eames agreed. "Though I'll be a lot happier once I know who it is that's trying to kill me."
They finally arrived at the door to the lighthouse about ten minutes later, having had to negotiate a particularly tricky and life-threatening group of rocks.
"Do we just go in?" Eames asked.
"I think so..." Arthur replied thoughtfully. "Cobb's in a dream; he won't remember yet that I've betrayed him. If we can fool him into thinking he can trust us, we can try to extract whatever it is that Mr X wants..."
"I don't like this..." Eames said, his tone uncharacteristically morbid.
"Neither do I," Arthur said, turning round to fix Eames with look that could have made even a blind man stop in his tracks. "But we have no choice."
Ariadne blinked, only to find herself blinded by quite possibly the brightest light she had ever encountered in her life. She clamped her eyes shut, covering them protectively with her arms. The image of the bright bulb remained burned into her eyelids, no matter how many times she tried to blink them away.
She could hear the sea. It was loud, fierce, exploding into her senses. She turned round. Rain hammered down against the window pane. She could see the sea now her vision had cleared. It was rough, choppy, attacking the rocks beneath her. That meant she was high up.
The light came from behind her this time. It was just as bright, although this time she knew to shut her eyes.
She was at the top of a lighthouse. The bulb was behind her and, tempting though it was, she refused to turn around to look at it, as she knew her eyes would burn again.
Where was Arthur? Where was Eames, Yusuf and Cobb?
She walked the circumference of the tower before finding a spiral staircase, almost directly beneath the bulb itself. Scrunching her eyes up, she slowly descended the first few steps, scrabbling at the banister in order to keep herself steady. When she'd descended a fair way, she braved opening her eyes a fraction, bracing herself for the brightness.
There was no need, however; she was now underneath the bulb, its glare filtered slightly by the damp floorboards overhead, only cracks of light penetrating the darkness through the gaps in the wood.
She found herself at the very top of a winding staircase, descending into the darkness. She wondered if there even was a bottom. Carefully, minding her footing on the slippery metal steps, she started to climb down. After all, there was only one way to go.
She hoped she'd find Arthur or Eames first. They were more likely to know what they were doing then Yusuf, and Cobb would be dangerous to deal with on her own; who knew what was going on through his mind right now. She wouldn't know what to say to him.
But then, as if someone had overheard her frantic thinking, Cobb's sandy head appeared around the axel of the staircase, coming in the opposite direction. Ariadne remained frozen, like a deer in headlights, on the stairs.
He looked up and saw her, his blue eyes flashing with incomprehension.
"Ariadne?" He asked, his voice echoing in the dark.
"Cobb?" She replied, deciding to play the innocent.
"Why are you here?" He asked, looking her up and down.
"We're on a job, remember?" Ariadne lied, thinking quickly on her feet. Cobb looked at her blankly. "Oh no," she sighed. "Yusuf must have made the calculations wrong with your sedative; you've forgotten everything." She climbed down the remaining steps between them, until she was standing next to him. "We need to find Arthur," she said, this time telling the truth. "He'll know what to do."
Cobb nodded, still confused.
They climbed further down together, their feet rapping on the slippery metal, echoing into the darkness. They found Yusuf on the way, crouched against the banister, clutching another PASIV.
"I woke up with it in my hands," he said, "I think we're supposed to use it."
Together, they continued to climb down, their footsteps now accompanied by the clanging of the metal of the case against the metal of the stairs.
Suddenly, the sound of creaking wood echoed through the dark lighthouse and, peering over the edge of the banister, Ariadne could just make out the vague shape of two silhouettes standing in the doorway.
"Arthur?" She called. "Eames? Is that you?"
"Yeah!" Arthur's reply echoed back, as if there were several Arthurs all around her. "We'll start climbing up to you!"
Arthur and Eames started to climb. Ariadne could hear their footsteps clanging on the damp metal. And yet, after several minutes, they hadn't appeared yet.
"Hello?" She called, hanging over the banister again. "Where are you?"
"We're coming." Eames this time.
"We'll meet you." Grabbing Cobb by the sleeve of his jacket and beckoning for Yusuf to follow her, Ariadne started to climb down.
Five minutes later, they hadn't met yet.
"It's a paradox..." Arthur murmured. "It's a trap."
"STOP!" Eames yelled. The footsteps above them ceased.
"What?" Ariadne's head appeared over the edge of the banister again.
"It's a paradox. Look." Bending down, Arthur unlaced his shoe and dropped it over the edge of the staircase. It crashed with a clang onto the level below where he and Eames were standing. Arthur continued to walk up the staircase, only to appear a couple of seconds later from below where Eames still stood. Arthur held up the shoe he'd dropped less than a minute earlier. "It's the Penrose Steps," He said, putting his shoe back on. "We can't get to you and you can't get to us."
"I'll have to build a new staircase," Ariadne replied. "Hang on."
As they all looked on in wonder, a new staircase began to form, jutting out from where Cobb, Ariadne and Yusuf were standing, missing a layer, before falling to rest just in front of Arthur and Eames.
Exchanging a look of bewilderment, Arthur and Eames started to climb the new staircase.
This time, it only took a minute.
"What happened to you?" Cobb asked, taking in Arthur and Eames' soaked attire.
"We fancied a swim." Eames replied, sending Cobb a withering look. "The thing I don't get," he said, glancing around at the mouldy, damp walls of the lighthouse. "Is why no one's tried to kill us yet."
Of course, that was when all hell broke loose.
Thunder burst its way through all of Arthur's senses, shaking the staircase from the brackets holding it to the walls. They all crashed into one another, as the staircase shook and a stretch of lightning forked through the hole in the roof.
"The storm!" Arthur yelled. "That's his subconscious! You can't kill a storm!"
Roof tiles were frantically being dragged off by the wind, leaving more and more of the tower exposed to the elements. The bulb had fallen from the very top of the building and now lay smashed below them. More of the wall was ripped apart and, as it crumbled down the edge of the rock, they could see what was causing all the disruption. Less than ten metres away, a huge tornado was spiralling up into the chaotic dark sky, spinning dangerously, causing destruction everywhere it veered.
"We have to get down!" Arthur yelled. "We need to find shelter!"
It was as these words left his mouth, snatched away by the wind, that the banister against which he had been leaning fell away and, as helpless as a leaf snagged by the Autumn breeze, Arthur fell with it.
His arms pedalled, his legs clawing at the air. Two fatal falls in one day, he thought stupidly as Ariadne's screams were ripped away from her throat. That had to be some sort of record.
Arthur hit the concrete floor at the bottom of the swinging staircase with an awful crunch, his body battered and broken like a spineless rag doll.