The scraping noises restarted, except this time they were quieter, more distant; no longer accompanied by a sense of motion.

She had to see what was going on.

She swallowed, preparing herself for the onslaught, feeling the muscles around her eyes tighten as she forced them open. A haze of confused signals crashed in.

All she saw were muted patches of light and dark, bleeding in and out of one another. Her pupils darted left and right, refusing to centre themselves. A wave of nausea rose from her gut. Pain assaulted her temples, but she fought it down, and at last the blotches stabilized. She focused on keeping everything still, listening for the source of the sounds. They seemed to be coming from somewhere off to her left, and she turned her head towards them, noting the sticky tightness of the skin on her neck.

The epicentre throbbed. She remembered a flash, then falling.

Had she been knocked out?

She detected motion, no more than a disturbance in the leaden radiance, and looked towards it, but her vision blurred again. She couldn’t make out shapes or distances, but the movements were unmistakably human.

Someone else was in the room.

Her first instinct was to call for help, but in the time it took to summon the energy, she changed her mind. Whoever it was, they must have known she was here.

Which meant they were probably the one who attacked her.

For the moment, it was best to remain quiet, concentrate on regaining her senses: getting out of whatever danger this situation held.

She lay back, taking deeper breaths of the damp, stale air, attempting to clear her head; discover more about her surroundings. But the void above her remained unbroken. Instead, she switched focus to the fickle yellow aura fighting the shadows nearer the ground. Its glow was layered, seeming to come from several sources.

The candle light she had seen from outside.

As she struggled to pick out detail in the dull glimmer, a hissing sound preceded a number of scratchy clicks before ignition caught, and a second, purer light stirred, behind her this time, its additional brightness driving back the shadows, allowing the room to take form.

The light flickered and stabilized. For the first time, Hawkins was able to make out a square space with dirty walls stretching up into the gloom. Tiny shadows danced in unison above the crags and edges of countless interlocked stones; a frenetic, silent ballet that teased the nausea swimming in her gut, forcing her to look away.

Then she remembered …

They were at Cold Christmas.

They must be inside the tower.

Immediately, snatched events started coming back: driving here to the churchyard; her and Mike hiding in the trees.

The hunters.

Except they weren’t.

Her gaze dropped.

A few feet away, lying next to her on the uneven dirt floor, was a blurred silhouette.

Mike.