Colours appeared. The intensely bottle-green trees, and the silver sky. Pale Dawn Relief. Not-Dead Green. Light began to emerge between things, too, between the knee-length blades of grass, the fine-toothed top of the forest. Beads of dew on the branches of the single bush next to my boulder, a well of light curving in the bottom of each drop. There was the low, woody rattle of a bird and I wanted to track it down and hug it to death.

Light between things, but no longer over there. It had gone. Faded completely, along with most of the stars.

There was something else too, newly defined by the dawn, right down at the bottom of the hill. A small, dark square. I had thought it to be a large rock but now it looked too perfectly angled. A cardboard box.

Or a house.

The last star was smothered by a mink-grey cloud. My fingers were part stone, my legs raw with cold. God, I was thirsty.

I began walking towards the half-light.

Maybe it was another bothy. There was a dull gleam – the roof of a car. No, a jeep. I stumbled down towards it, feeling a fresh wash of fear. There was something creepier about the possibility of it being inhabited than abandoned.

The darkness seemed to be peeling away from the house. It was small, single-level, with a corrugated iron roof that made me think of war shelters, and a chimney at one end. Two wooden sheds a little way off. In front was a thin river choked with rocks. It came down from the hill to the side and curved away on the flat, bending out of sight.

Pieces of plastic tubing, spiralled wire and iron bars were scattered around, alongside stacked-up bricks and an upended wheelbarrow. Something that looked like a speedboat engine was up against the back wall, with a pipe snaking from it.

Rough tyre grooves in the grass by the jeep ran up the hill, parallel to the river. I could just follow the track. It would have to lead to a road. I shut my eyes, put my face in the air. Prayers of thanks to every god ever.

By the side of the house, beer bottles were lined up and filled with rainwater, shallow at first and almost full by the last one. The walls were made of jumbled stones, some big slabs, some slim and slotted in at all angles.

Who lived here? God, maybe it was Rocky – no, he’d come from Glasgow, and had sounded as if he’d sooner jam his own gun down his own throat than hang around here. I moved a little closer, squelching. I’d ruined my boots. There was a pair of jeans draped over a plank of wood leaning next to the front door, which had green paint curling up at the bottom. Heavy curtains piled up against the two small windows, with one tiny gap. I took a peek. It was dead early still.