13
Tracy woke slowly. Confused and disorientated at first, it took a few moments for the realisation of her predicament to surface. When it did, she lifted herself from the thin, barely adequate mattress, rested on one elbow, and grimaced at the stab of pain that bit sharply in her lower back. Cautiously, she rose to a sitting position, turned and stretched her shoulders to ease the aches instigated by an uncomfortable night. As she stared into the gloom that enveloped the room like a heavy fog, the reality of where she was, and how she got there, slowly rose to the forefront of her consciousness.
In the near distance, in the corner opposite where she sat, a faint, orange glow from the lantern she had brought from the adjacent room the previous evening emitted a weak circle of light in f
