The world slowly came into focus, and immediately Reins noticed two things: the right side of his head felt like it had been hit with something large and heavy (which is exactly what had happened) and it was too dark to see anything clearly. For that matter, where were his glasses? He groped around blindly, hoping to find them by chance. His hand lighted on something. Slowly he moved his fingers along its surface. It was a knife. He decided it might be useful in any case, and pocketed it.

Carefully, slowly, he stood up. He kept a hand above his head in case there was a low ceiling. There seemed not to be. He stood up straight. The whole place was still dark. Muttering something rude to himself, he decided that, since he had no idea where he might be, he would have an equal chance of finding help no matter which way he went. The dull pain in his head was subsiding, to his relief.

He paused a moment to see what else he could tell about this place. There was a distant sound of...movement and speech, that was it. There was a occasional clink of heating vents and water ducts, and other small unspeakables moving around. Beyond that, it was silent. He smelled a musty odour, something like that of wood that should have rotted long ago. That was a smell to raise his caution; he remembered well his hospital stays, most of them after trying to clean his attic. He crouched down and put his hand to the floor. It was wooden. Although his eyes had begun to adjust, he still couldn’t see anything much without his glasses.

Moving to the sounds of speech was his best bet, he decided. It seemed to be to his right, so off he went. The boards creaked horribly under his feet. He kept on.

There suddenly came over him that terrible, indescribable, feeling when, while walking in the dark, you suddenly feel you are about to hit into something. He adjusted his course to the left, and promptly walked into another something. If the world hadn’t already been black, it would have become so. He slumped down, and now there was a pain on the other side of his head.

He came to hearing the sounds of worried voices. He opened his eyes half way, and muttered another obscenity. He could make out people peering over him in a worried manner. Something must be wrong with someone, he thought.

"Can I help?" he asked, in a parched voice.

"You just lie down now. Help is coming." The voice was pleasant and unplaceable. He drifted back out of consciousness.

He awoke later with his senses much sharper and a taste of blood in his mouth. Four people dressed all in black were leaning over him, and one person dressed as if he were a nineteenth century gentleman. They were all sitting around him with looks on their faces that said they knew they should be doing something, but had no idea what.

"Where am I?" Reins demanded.

It was the gentleman who replied. "You’re back stage at the Dunhampton Theatre. Will found you back here with this lump on your head. You better take it easy, it’s a nasty knock."

"Thank you." he muttered, and let them buzz around him. He had given up for now on whatever he had come here for. He wasn’t even sure he could remember what it had been.