Simon awoke.

He lay partly submerged, in a half-weightless state. His legs floated, but his shoulders pressed into soft, but distinctly solid ground. He blinked, and waited for the black to clear, but his vision remained staunchly dark.

Confused, vague and disturbing memories howling at the edge of his mind. He sat up, and felt liquid flow around him, the splashing waves made from his movement echoing out into the black distance. He licked his wet hand and tasted fresh water, the first he'd known in days. He dropped his head to the unseen surface and drank like an animal until he gasped for air.

For the first time in weeks, he could think: the sucking quagmire of fugue had vanished. His thoughts formed clear and sharp in his mind. The last thing he remembered, when the violently switching flashbacks faded and he found himself being pulled through the dirt, the stench of sweat and cheap aftershave from his captors as they hauled him towards the open coffin. He'd seen the rotting corpse of Vernon before him, the sweet, fetid stench of death permeating the fog of the drugs, and he'd tried to scream, but couldn't. A sudden shove and he fell, landing on rancid flesh squirming with maggots. He'd retched by reflex, and the pain of his bruised muscles spasming had made his vision blur and darken before the lid came down and then, it went black.

He closed his eyes again, and pushed the horror away, breathing hard to keep the memory from rising up again. He heard the distant echo of Robas' laughter and then it passed.

Flashbacks and… dreams? Visions? He rubbed his temples. The images were already blurry, fading out of memory, merging together in a hopeless storm that made no sense to his exhausted brain. He pressed his fist into his forehead, his head throbbing.

As his eyes adjusted, he realised that he was underground, at the shores of a vast lake lit by dim, verdant phosphorescence that mimicked the sickly green of night-vision enhancement. The water stretched out into inky black distance with no far shore visible.

He stood up, his feet pressing into the wet sand beneath the water. The pain was gone, but his body felt stiff and unnatural. He could see more light now, beyond the rise of the beach there was a faint, silvery glow, illuminating the sand. He felt something hard under his foot, too regular to a be a rock and saw that he'd trodden on carriage clock. He squinted in the darkness. A few feet away he saw a thick band of gold poking through the sand and beyond that a dark shape that when he came closer, resolved into a large animal pelt, gone hard and leathery in the dry air.

For a few minutes, he considered whether he was hallucinating again, but marvelling at the rough, powdery grains of sand as he rubbed his fingers together, the cool air of the cavern on his naked skin he knew that this was no dream. From further up the beach he could see a grey, anaemic light filling the air, pulsing softly, illuminating the sands, the strewn objects around him.

He started walking.