The rain doesn’t let up. I manage to find a denser patch where the rain isn’t quite so severe and I lay my head against the bark of a tree and I sense the passage of time but nothing specific about it. But after a moment or minute or a hour, through the static: the sound of water. Ocean. Waves. Oh God, maybe I walked straight towards the island’s perimeter, and if I can get myself to the edge then I can at least get my bearings, stick to the edges and find my way round – but I don’t know where the waves are calling from.

The tree.

There’s a cluster of branches towards the bottom of the trunk and I haul myself up with the last ounce of strength I have, my arms wobbling against the strain and quivering in the cold. One cluster. Pull myself to my feet and then there’s another. I look above me – there’s probably another fifteen feet, and beyond that, perceptible through the tessellated branches, is the sky, and God, I wish – I wish I could see stars, wouldn’t that be something. Then a little higher, there they are. I can see the stars now, poking through the shapes made by the trees, and I’m human again.

Suddenly there’s a blinding flash of light. A deafening boom.

Below me, a snap.

Then the fall.

I land on my right arm and scream.

The pain is repulsive, shoots up hard and fast around my jaw and makes my eyes water. Atoms split. My body and I reach a new understanding – if I survive this, I will be indebted to it and never complain about anything again.

I run my fingers up and down my arm, find the tender spot where there’s a convexity that wasn’t there before, and prod it experimentally; the pain itself seems to cry out. Truth seems awfully small from down here. I throw up on to the forest floor.

There’s another crack. The tree in front of me. The leaves shudder, heavy with rain.

A terrible groan.

I try to hurry away, jerk to my left, but there’s no friction and my feet are sliding against the forest bed and the tree falls.

For a hellish moment I think my foot is stuck, but I’m able to dig my white-hot heel into the softness of the ground, dig and yank, and the tree doesn’t fall on me but the branches claw and dig into the soft skin of my cheeks, and now I’m certain my ankle’s trashed too, but I attempt to stand and it supports my weight.