Since he'd arrived on the island Lysander had been doing his best to ignore everything, telling himself over and over that this was nothing, that the island was some artificial science fiction creation and that he'd simply been kidnapped and would soon be brought home. It was just that in the end there was only so long you could tell yourself that before it started to fray at the edges, his certainty eroded day on day by the very mundanity of the island itself. There was nothing glamorous about this place, and somehow that made it more believable, every cracked bit of plaster or hastily patched room seeming testament to something people couldn't or wouldn't simply make up to keep people somewhere.

And then there was the fact that there had always been the shadows. His mother had seen them too, calling them their 'bête noire" and telling him that he shouldn't ever speak to people about them and that they couldn't reach him if he didn't acknowledge that they were there. She hadn't really been afraid of anything, and even the skulking things on the edge of vision hadn't seemed to rattle her. He had a feeling if any of them had ever tried to attack her she would simply have scolded them and gone back to whatever she was doing. After too long practicing the violin he'd have strange dreams of her playing the long lilting songs and shadowy figures dancing to the music.

This place provided an answer for it all at least, though he couldn't understand if it recruited people who saw monsters why they hadn't recruited his mother also.

The thing that bothered him most of all was that if he accepted that this place was real - that it wasn't a simulation or an illusion - then he would in turn also need to accept the voice in his head that he'd been so adamantly ignoring using the same intense focus he'd used all through his childhood to ignore the shadows. It was a huge and terrifying thought.

<> the small voice said in his thoughts.

he thought back sullenly in return, some of the first words he'd said to whatever it was in weeks. It sounded like a little girl, and sometimes when he saw it in his head that was how he glimpsed it, but he knew in the way you knew mouldy food was bad that something wasn't right about it. It wore the shape of a little girl over the top of what seemed to be a shape part equine part toxic pollution. It was a concept he couldn't articulate but he could feel it. It felt like what he'd imagine a demon would feel like, and he didn't like it at all.

<> she said. <>
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