Key

I didn't sleep. The heat was stifling. The mists hang heavy at the edge of our camp. The remaining animals try to huddle close to us in the centre. I've learned to give credence to my dreams. Since I came to The Sick Land, that is. I've thought before that it affects them, makes them reflect, somehow, the course of events. It's as if the mind copes best with the strangeness here through dreams. As if what the conscious mind rejects, the subconscious tries to understand.

The meaning of my dream, the last dream I had, seems unambiguous. If I want to survive, I must get rid of Melanie. She wouldn't resist. She sits passively, not even muttering now. Perhaps her mind is gone. I know enough about The Sick Land, through my research, and through experience, to know that people out here often do things they would never do elsewhere. The place affects them. I find myself staring at the spade, the one I used to help Ivana. It would be so easy. So easy to help myself, to accept the premise of the dream.

I can't think. The heat and humidity beat down on me. And my eyes are drawn ever back to the spade. It's starting to look like a key.