The final lucidity trial completed.  [ VEIL ] feels the familiar frigid water of the sensory deprivation chamber return as he descends from his dream state.  Eyes still cemented shut, he allows the water to wake him fully before pulling the eye mask off.  A bleak sky has replaced the pitch blackness of the SD chamber -- it stares down at [ VEIL ], the cold grey firmament answering his confusion with apathy.  [ VEIL ] stops floating and stands in the knee-deep water, icy beads of water rolling off of his cloak to reunite with the collective below.  Monitoring leads still cling to his skin, but now hang limply beneath his cloak, severed cleanly from the ECG machine they were feeding information to.

It is eerily still here; no noise, no life.  [ VEIL ] wades through the impossibly blue water, towards a jagged, black beach.  Each step gnaws at his nerves -- the biting cold sinking frozen fangs into his calves.  The sound of his movement through the water is jarring, and seems to send shockwaves through the emptiness around him as he moves, as if the ripples in the water were echoed in the stillness he shattered in waking.

YOU ESCAPED.

A thought enters his mind in a voice unknown to him as he pushes through the water.  His body is wracked by a sudden shiver, even as he seems to acclimates to the cold.  He can feel the voice in his head twist its incorporeal mouth into a grin.

YOU FINALLY MADE IT OUT.  ALL OF THAT TIME IN LUCIDITY, LEARNING HOW TO ESCAPE, AND HERE YOU ARE.

The voice echoes, over and over: YOU ESCAPED.  [ VEIL ] pulls himself onto the black rocks, out of the water.  He grips his head, squeezing his eyes shut, and the voice breaks its loop.  The world drops into silence again.  [ VEIL ] feels the voice in his head drop its smile.  He feels a twinge of shared pain.

THE WORLD THAT BROKE YOUR MIND ALSO TAUGHT YOU TO HIDE INSIDE IT.  SO YOU DID -- AND YOU ESCAPED.  BUT AT WHAT COST?

Silence, again.

YOU FORGOT HOW TO WAKE UP, DIDN'T YOU?