SOMEONE WAS SOBBING in the distance. The sound had been the first thing to enter Brita’s consciousness as she fought her way back to awareness. Brita’s mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton. She licked her painfully dry lips and tried to drag her eyes open.
They wouldn’t open. She struggled for a few minutes and then gave up.
Instead she focused on figuring out where she was.
She was lying on her side, with her hands pulled painfully behind her. Her face was pressed into something hard, cold, and gritty.
In the distance water rushed and thundered.
The place where she lay was cold, damp, and smelled of rotting vegetation and fear.
As Brita struggled to sit up, the sobbing stopped. “Are you all right?”
The voice was familiar. Brita managed to push herself upright after a lot of
