Gone

The sea is gone.

Waves crashed in front of me as I fell asleep. When I woke up, there was nothing there but a crater. I walked along what had been the beach and looked down. I saw a gentle decline, followed by a steeper decline, followed by a precipitous drop. The crater is huge, and I know it's what Phillips saw all those years ago. I've been calling this place Victoria, and that's what it is.

I sat on the decline, on a patch of ground I guess must have been ten feet under water when I went to sleep, and stared at the crater. I was shaking as I looked at it, my empty stomach clenching. The mal has destroyed my mind. I'd known my sanity was going, there'd been enough clues. This is unambiguous: I can no longer trust myself to perceive the truth. I can feel my stomach eating itself, and my throat burns with thirst, but those physical discomforts are nothing compared to the turmoil in my mind. When you can no longer perceive a consistent reality, how can you continue?