He hadn't slept well - old nightmares, familiar themes. People dying, people just not being there anymore. He snapped awake the instant Mike jerked and cursed, and now he was staring, still lying down, at a tree that was dead and rotting where it stood. Everything was spoiled here, he thought. It was the smell. Faintly acidic, moldy - conjuring up sense memories of ruined woodlands that were rotting in their own soil. You found that everywhere, here.

Here. He already knew where he was.

"Neil," he said, almost in the same instant that he registered the continued presence of the other man beside him, "Oh, shit, thank god I -"

Too much. Too much. The girls, Peter, the Compound, the rest of the Island - where had everyone gone? With active effort, he stopped himself and swallowed, looking at Mike.

"Tell me what I'm thinking is wrong," he said quietly. No hope, really, but why bother? That had stopped existing here a long, long time ago.