This isn't Hasmal Circle. This isn't the Blackmarsh, either-- Nothing is real but each breath stinging in a throat made hoarse as if by screaming (but he hasn't been; he remembers--) and the crushing certainty of ruin.

All the rest impinges on someone else: Smells of smoke and fire, wet dog, burned fur, the stench of swamp (the feel of blood and worse on his fingertips); distant shouting, mabari growling, bone snapping flesh parting heartbeat racing (they'll come back and this time there's no driving them from the dark behind eyes no longer there)--

"Hey," and someone breaks through the fog of derealization to touch him, draw close. It makes him start in awful shock and go for his spirit blade--but it's pinned between them, slowing his response until memory can work.

Melys, this is Melys; Melys who came with him to haunted Sundermount, who's eaten spiders, who knows how corrosive pity is. She wasn't there three years ago.

She's here now, anchoring the present in flesh and bone pressed against his side.

(Melys, who's afraid of magic.)

Myr shudders and clutches at her, man to lifeline. "Here," he husks--here, not lost. He's remembered where he is.