Chapter 4

Neil opened his eyes. The light poured in. He quickly shut them again, wincing in pain. He opened them again slowly, waiting as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. He looked around.

“Where am I?” he thought. He was surrounded by trees on all sides. He recognized it as being a forest, which he had read about. But something was missing…

“Wait… there’s something over there…”

He carefully picked his way over to the place that had just caught his attention. He did not know why he had been drawn to that particular spot, but he followed his instinctive thoughts anyway. When he approached it, he stood riveted to the forest floor. There it was. The gate.

“The gate! Am I inside… or out?” He could not tell, for the gate was solid and therefore was impossible to see through. But then he remembered.

“The Trogs! I killed a Trog! I was running, and then a shot was fired, and then I fell…”

His eyes widened with fear. He remembered being on his deathbed.

“Mother was crying… she wouldn’t speak to my father for some reason. He had a gun in his hand… mother took it and threw it in the fire… but then… they were suddenly happy again, and they were laughing…”

He suddenly remembered what had happened next, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

“They left… and then, through the window… I saw it… a Trog, no three Trogs… they were looking in at me, and then…”

He stopped. He remembered nothing after that. He looked around in fear.

“Am I… dead?”

He then realized what was missing from this forest. Sound. There was nothing to be heard at all. He listened closely for anything, but could not hear any evidence that life was present in the forest.

“Hello!” he yelled. Surprisingly, he found that no sound came from his mouth. He screamed as loud as his voice allowed. Still nothing more than a sore throat was produced.

“This is what it’s like, then,” he thought. “So, is this heaven… or…”

He did not finish the statement, because just then, he saw something move in the underbrush. He stared in that direction, not believing what he had just seen. It was a Trog.

He backed away slowly, away from the gate and the Trog. He then turned around, and began to run. He could feel his pulse pounding in his head, but could not hear it. He realized that his life was not complete without sound.

“I wouldn’t know, though. I’m not even alive,” he thought.

But as he ran, for some reason, the idea came into his head that he perhaps was not dead at all. This, he reasoned, was his hope speaking up, a trait that characterized humanity. But then he realized that if it were indeed hope, then he would have to be alive.

“This is starting to confuse me,” he thought. “I wish there was someone to explain what’s going on to me.”

Then, he tripped, blacking out. As he lay on the ground, unconscious, a voice entered his head.

“There is still hope.”

Neil then awoke. He suddenly understood. He was not dead, for he still had hope, just as he thought.

“But why is there no sound?”

And then, another memory came to him. It was when he was running. Before he had fallen, he had felt a sharp sting in the back of his head.

He reached back and felt his head. A throb of pain surged through his body. He realized what had happened, and understood the unbearable silence.

He was deaf.