This time he knew he was dead. The cool, damp quiet felt different, comforting and closed in. In the distance, he heard water dripping, dripping. It was the most beautiful sound, like music, the endless slow song of droplets hitting a body of blessed wetness.
He lay on his back, that much he was sure of, hands stretched out at his sides. The cloth beneath his fingertips felt rough, but something had give beneath that. He would have stayed there forever if the endless dripping hadn't made him so very thirsty.
Aiden opened his eyes. There was a ceiling above him. It danced and swayed in the near distance, as though alive. Not a cold, uncaring blanket of stars but neither white-painted boards nor pitted tile. It rose in an arc above him, carved stone pocketed with shadow, dull, deep gray wh
