And it wasn’t clean water, either. Things, terrible things floated around him lazily, bumping into him and continuing down the dark place. He tried to figure out where he was, and realized it must be a sewer. The dark place was curved underneath his back. It was cold like concrete and the air was thick with moisture. Was he in a sewer?

Then the smell hit him. Decades of drainage and rotted things, smells of the past floating around him like ghostly remains of forgotten souls. It wasn’t an overbearing smell, but the more he smelled it the more he wanted to leave. So, he decided to leave.

He placed his hands next to him on the cold concrete, worn with age. It was slick, and his hand slipped, but he tried again and got a firm hold. He lifted himself up, slowly at first, letting his feet and back adjust. After slowly getting his feet on the curved ground, a few inches underwater, he was finally able to stand. Just as thoughts of victory arose, his head slammed into the low ceiling. There was a great flash, but it did nothing to light up the dark tunnel. His head began to swim, and just when he thought he’d fall back down into the dirty water his head cleared and he kept his balance. He remained standing, however hunched over due to the low, concrete ceiling.

He peered into the darkness, but saw nothing. Behind him the same. It was so dark he saw white dots everywhere, swimming around in front of his eyes. Since one way was as good as the other, he decided he would head the way he was facing. He drudged off, hunched over, painfully traveling down a low, dark, wet tunnel in the ground of some unknown place.

He had been walking for hours, and had passed a dozen or more crossways. He decided to continue straight rather than get lost and find his way back to where he had woken up. Not that he would know if he did, it was too dark to see anything. He had tripped a few times, stumbling over debris and falling into the water. Once he landed on a small animal, a rat he supposed, and it had squealed at him. This was a miserable place that he was traveling through. The ceiling was much higher now. It was well above his head, possibly twenty feet above. The ground here was strange as well. It was no longer wet, but it was uneven and hard to walk on. It felt like he was walking on wooden planks or some such thing.

He stopped. He realized that he didn’t even know who he was. No name. No address. No family. He couldn’t even visualize his own face. He held out his hands, but he couldn’t even see them in this accursed darkness. After a few minutes he decided to move on and worry about it later.

He saw something ahead that he never remembered seeing his entire life.

Light.

All he had ever known was this tunnel. Light was something new to him.

Suddenly, something stirred in his throat, a kind of tickly feeling. Then:

“L-light.” He croaked. He was in shock. Until now he had only heard the dripping of water, rats scurrying, bugs crawling noisily above him. Now he had spoken. He decided to say nothing more in case it hurt his throat. He continued toward the far-away light. He felt his eyes stinging with tears of joy as he moved faster and faster. He stumbled a few times, but continued on in spite of the darkness and the strange ground. Closer to the light, closer, closer. It was getting bigger and he began to remember things about himself, about light, about things other than dark tunnels and rats and terrible things floating in the water. Running now, heart beating, remembering, running, light, running faster, closer, closer.

Just then he realized why the light was getting closer so quickly. It was a train.