[ A man wakes to cold water and the knowledge that he has lost everything.
Things are... hazy, for a while. He tries to move his hand and discovers that he does not have a hand, he has a tentacle, which isn't right. When he panics and tries to flex his fingers, he finds that he does have fingers, but only now that he's come to expect them. When he tries to find his feet, he finds that he does have feet. The man locates his bare and scarred chest, the pockmarked column of his throat, the unfamiliar prickle of stubble on his chin. None of this is right. It's all a step to the left of who he thinks he ought to be, and he...
Who is he? For a moment this is viscerally and terribly familiar; for a moment he thinks of the music they play at merry-go-rounds. This is wrong the way that had been wrong.
Then he looks at the sky, the watery oceanside grey of it, and that too is familiar. He is on a beach. He knows beaches; he grew up in— in Bournemouth.
Jonathan Sims sits up, naked and scarred and so very confused, and cannot understand why he is so shaken to see the sky. He could cry with relief at that familiar watery grey. It means that something about the world is fundamentally right, that the sky is where it ought to be. ]
It worked. [ He says it and doesn't even know why, staring at the sky like a lunatic. He knows that he— he's lost something. His arms shouldn't be empty; his hand keeps closing on empty air, as though there should be something to hold. ]
arrival. cw: nudity, confusion, vague 200 spoilers
Things are... hazy, for a while. He tries to move his hand and discovers that he does not have a hand, he has a tentacle, which isn't right. When he panics and tries to flex his fingers, he finds that he does have fingers, but only now that he's come to expect them. When he tries to find his feet, he finds that he does have feet. The man locates his bare and scarred chest, the pockmarked column of his throat, the unfamiliar prickle of stubble on his chin. None of this is right. It's all a step to the left of who he thinks he ought to be, and he...
Who is he? For a moment this is viscerally and terribly familiar; for a moment he thinks of the music they play at merry-go-rounds. This is wrong the way that had been wrong.
Then he looks at the sky, the watery oceanside grey of it, and that too is familiar. He is on a beach. He knows beaches; he grew up in— in Bournemouth.
Jonathan Sims sits up, naked and scarred and so very confused, and cannot understand why he is so shaken to see the sky. He could cry with relief at that familiar watery grey. It means that something about the world is fundamentally right, that the sky is where it ought to be. ]
It worked. [ He says it and doesn't even know why, staring at the sky like a lunatic. He knows that he— he's lost something. His arms shouldn't be empty; his hand keeps closing on empty air, as though there should be something to hold. ]