Smoke trailed above him as he dragged on his cigarette. Large vents in the wall he propped himself against allowed the sounds of the factory to belch into the sky. Inside, silicon chips churned out at hundreds a minute, filling the air with a choking, plastic smog.
The length of the cigarette paper denoted the end of his break. He sucked the last of the tobacco into his lungs, holding back a cough as the filter began to burn. With a flick of his thumb and forefinger, he sent the butt careening to the rain soaked concrete.
He pushed himself off the brickwork and turned to the staff entrance, yet as he did so he felt as if the world had become a thick molasses. His feet were heavy as he dragged them to the doorway. A hand cast out for the brass handle, the last breath of smoke trailed from his mouth in a thin yet constant wisp. His palm made contact with the cold, freezing handle and he used all of his strength to turn it.
He was sprinting, panting, retching for air. Bewilderment took hold of him and his legs suddenly forgot their purpose. Buckling beneath him, they sent his body into the hard tarmac path. His hands skidded along as they reached out instinctively, breaking his fall.
He rolled and screamed, clutching his hands to his chest. So cold. So much pain.
He brought them up to his face, studying the damage. Flakes of useless skin jutted out at every angle at the end of deep grooves. He might as well have put a grater to them. But the blood surprised him. Apart from that which seeped from his new wounds there was more. It covered his hands, his arms, his chest. It was dry.
It's not my blood.
This was not the first time he had woken with blood on his hands.
In the late eighties it was the hope of a local borough council to build a perfect community in the South-East of England. The people who would live there would be meek, happy, social individuals who would share casseroles with one another.
This never happened. Instead, the people of South Hethel hid behind SUVs, satellite dishes and microwavable dinners.
It was true that South Hethel was a wonderful place to live, but like most towns in England today, the people were not interested in one another. They feared their neighbours, and avoided even the slightest show of recognition that these other people even existed. When a child waved at a stranger, his parent was always quick to put his little hand down and shuffle him away. Crime was low and the schools won awards. The town had its good and bad points.
South Hethel and its pristine, expensive houses sat before the Marsh; fourteen miles of unconquered water, grass and mud. It was a haven for animals and plant life, and through it ran a white gravel path, like a scar on nature's bosom.
For Joshua Stone, the town failed to interest him. He had too many ideas and too few friends to find comfort in that suburban maze. Instead, he preferred to act out his fantasies within the Marsh. There he could be anything, and no one would tell him that he was a fool, or to grow up. No, the Marsh protected him from the outside world, the world where nothing happened.
On this day he was a rally car driver. Gravel clanked against the frame work of his bike, and a huge white cloud bellowed behind him. He pumped the pedals with all of his energy, making himself pant with exhaustion. He still made the effort to produce the sounds of the engine as it screamed through the gears.
He was half way through the race as he tackled a series of tight bends and catapulted into a straight. His engine began to clank and splutter, and eventually died altogether. Joshua allowed the bike to coast to a stop and let it fall to the ground.
From his backpack he produced a wrench and a set of allan keys. He set about working on the car, making the sounds of other cars rushing passed him.
Joshua had been working for five minutes when he had to stop and drink from his bottle. The sun was baking, reflecting up at him from the gravel.
'I'll have to get moving soon,' he said to himself. He took another swig of his water and a white flash popped in the corner of his eye.
He started, dribbling some of the water down his front. 'Shit,' he cursed and rubbed at the wet patch. He looked back up in the direction the flash had come from. He waited.
There it came again, weaker. A reflection from some polished object. It sat on a mound of grass some way off in the fen-lands, on a little tiny island amongst a sea of mud. A number of similar islands bridged the gap between himself and what ever
it was out there.
It took Joshua a moment to think of what he should do. Either he could ride on and continue playing his game, or he could find out what was sparkling. Curiosity, as they say, always kills the cat.
He hopped to the first island, a distance no more than a large bound. His trainers quickly sank into the wet mud, caking them. He hopped like this for twenty yards when the inevitable happened.
He missed an island and landed in the mud. Instantly, he was up to his knees, but he was quick and reached out for the long grass of the island he had been aiming for. His right leg came out easily, but the left was held too fast by the mud.
'Come on!' he screamed and yanked again, pulling at the grass. His ankle popped and his leg came free. He cried out in agony as he landed in a pile upon the grass. Joshua's hands did their best to comfort his sprained ankle, but the pain was still excruciating.
After a few minutes, he wiped at his eyes. The initial pain had subsided, but he knew that it would be a very long trip home. And then he remembered what he had come all this way for.
He cast about and saw it, the next island over, gleaming like a wonderful jewel in the high summer sun. Luckily the island was but a footstep away from the one he had landed on.
With a painful leap he collapsed onto it, nearly landing right on the very thing he had gone through so much to find. He picked it up and turned it in his hands.
It was a knife. Its blade was perfectly polished so that it could even have been a shard of a mirror. The handle was pure silver and had been crafted into the head of a serpent. Black jewels were set in the snake's eyes, yet their darkness seemed unnatural, as though they sucked the light into their nothingness.
Between the serpents eyes was a single rune and as he turned the knife to take a closer look at it, the rune began to glow.
A golden light pulsed from it. Looking at it made his stomach lurch, and his head pulsed with pain. His hands knew instantly that what ever this thing was, no good could come of it. He tried to drop it, but his fingers were locked to the metal.
The light was growing, outdoing the sun's luminescence. A low pulse buzzed through the air, rippling the water. With a sudden explosion of golden, sickening, terrible light water rushed into the air and began to spin about him, about the light.
He closed his eyes and felt himself turning in the air, being dragged somewhere else. The noise was unbearable, as if a jumbo jet were passing over his head. 'Help!' he tried to scream, but there was no air; only noise and the golden light.
Then it was gone.
He opened his eyes and that sickening golden light filled them, yet this time it flowed from multiple runes etched into a black stone that towered over him.
Whipping his head about him, Joshua saw that he sat in a circle of stone surrounded by these large monoliths, and standing between them were hooded creatures with beaks that protruded beneath their hoods and talons that should have been hands. They clucked and squawked a horrendous rhythm that would turn Joshua insane if it did not stop soon.
He reacted naturally and tried to run, but he fell as soon as he got to his feet. His ankle couldn't take the weight. The creatures dove at him, holding him with their talons, pinning him to the ground. Joshua could do nothing but scream as they clucked and snapped their beaks at him.
Before him, the air warbled and the darkness of this other world's night seemed to take on another shade of black, like the abyss he had seen in the eyes of the serpent.
Forming in the air was another hooded being. It towered above him, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet. Its long black cloak undulated in the air and inside its hood was a terrible darkness. With a burst of flame the being's eyes ignited and burned white hot. They looked into Joshua and he felt a coldness take hold of his very being.
He could do nothing, the beaked monstrosities held him pinned to the ground, one of them sent a long trail of saliva into his lap, but Joshua could not feel this. All he could sense was the specter's malice.
From beyond the circle of stone came another of the hooded creatures and bowed over one outstretched leg toward the specter.
'O Servant of Tretchery, most cunning of all the Deceivers, what is to be done with the human child?' Its voice was rough, alien; it failed to form some of the words fully as though its tongue struggled to do battle with such a form of language.
Whispers filled the air and then a thunderous voice ripped through the circle of stone, cutting through Joshua's mind. 'Take it to the Guyren. The fires must not dim!'
Joshua could only cry as he was carried away towards a bloodshot tower of smoke in the distance.
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