Drake woke up when the tide came in.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and the wind smelled of brine, the open sea. He was lying on a beach—a parabola of white sand sloping down from a line of palms and conifer trees. An island. Wooded hills rose in the distance, climbing through metamorphic ridges and black lava flows to a smoking volcano about a mile away. It was hot and humid, the sun glaring through the clouds, the air buzzing with giant dragonflies.
He got to his feet, dripping, the surf roaring in his ears. Thousands of birds with webbed wings wheeled overhead, lighting on the trees, hopping across the beach and darting through the tide pools.
Drake stood there for a while, looking out across the ocean, the tide slapping and tugging at his legs. The water was almost transparent along the beach and he could see schools of fish streaming through the submerged coral. Fins broke the surface, the waves splashing with sudden attacks, boiling red and subsiding again. Huge swells exploded on a reef about a hundred yards away, breaking against pillars of rock, foam jetting through blow holes and shooting into the air.
Lightning flickered on the horizon, then the grass stirred behind him and a dozen animals emerged from the forest. Walking on two legs, three or four feet high, they looked like lizards with binocular eyes, long snouts and jaws full of needlelike teeth. Rubbing their foreclaws hungrily, they spread out across the beach, their heads darting back and forth, clicking and sniffing as they closed around him—cautious, blocking his escape.
Drake backed up, fell down in the surf.
"Relax," a voice said. "It isn't real."