1923

Clay wakes in the cave and tries to remember his dream.  He’d been on a sailboat with his brother.  Richard had slipped and grabbed his arm.

The baby stirs.  He wraps the blanket tighter.  The blanket just appeared.  As did the food and the milk.  Someone left these things outside.  He guesses it was the film crew.

They’re all gone now.  How long?  He doesn’t know that.  What does he know?  That he’s sick.

That he’s dying?

Yes, Richard had slipped but somehow it was him that ended up in the water.  Somehow it was Clay.  He sank and he sank.  But he didn’t drown.

Instead, he saw a whole city down there.  A city of beautiful new buildings and streets made entirely of little specks of gold.  An architectural wonder.  But in the windows and on the boulevard were dead men.  Sitting behind desks and riding in cars – all of them corpses.

He’s sick alright, but somehow he thinks that taking the baby was Richard’s idea.

“Shall we kill a man?”

“Let us kill a baby.”

Are there men outside the cave?  Can they see him?  Is this real?

It is.  The pain as they beat him makes that clear.

They leave with the baby.  They leave him alone to despair and to die.

The Story So Far