Dole slipped out from under the covers of his duvet, brushing the delicate skin of his wife and tracing a finger along a tuft of hair.

  Out of bed, he tip-toed the creaky flooring to the cupboard and dressed himself in tighty-whities and a plain brown shirt. His wife didn't much like those underwear, but he reckoned they were alright. Thirty-minutes later, a great breakfast spread was laid to the table along with cutlery and plating.

  His wife chose that moment to descend the steps, dressed loosely in pajamas patterned by dogs and kittens. David smiled. Her auburn hair fell lightly around petite shoulders, soft and silky, framing a heart-shaped face. "I made us some lovely brekkie for Christmas, hon--" His words cut abruptly as he vanished from where he was seated at the table in a woosh and pop of air the threw the arrangement of food into dis-array.

  "Dole?"

  ?--?--?--?

  The hill grass swayed in a gentle wind, rolling as if waves of a green sea. Sun shone on the green-swept hills, alighting on nothing but so for miles on end, except one thing - one man.He staggered through the stalks, feet tripping on naught but air, face devoid of all life and gaunt as a corpse. Crusted and cracked lips parted every so often to let out a breathless word, but the windsswaddled the language into their embrace and carried it to the distance so as to make it silent.

  The days passed slow and harried, the suns' wrath beating his skin to a leathery visage of what it once was; healthy, life-full. Soon, he collapsed to bear his bony knees against the ground, staring skyborn. Finally, the winds allowed a word to escape their grasp.

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  "Why?" His voice was a bare whisper, audible to none but himself and the bugs dwelling within the grass at his knees.

  On a bright and vivid morning, where the sun shined on him and his mood was sky-high, he had appeared here, his only possession the clothes on his back. Bereft of a means to navigate, food and water, he wandered and aimless zombie hardly sleeping.

  But he did not know why such a thing happened, and why to him.

  He only wished he could perhaps find a way out before death, for he feared his soul may be trapped within the endless expanse of rolling grass hills and that it may never join with his wife.

  The taught and weathered skin of his face contorted to near-snapping in abject confusion, his mind ailed by dehydration and starvation.His thoughts swam through an ocean of thick mud to come to the fore.

  'What... is this. This... blue panel? System?'

  Then, he spied the word 'NAVIGATION', and a tear of hope trailed gaunt cheeks, the last tear he could give.A piece of parchment appeared before his eyes, pale and translucent blue, in the center of which a crimson dot sat. And one more to the right.