In that pink haze that comes between the deepness of sleep and first stirrings of waking life, he could feel the headache approaching. Like a searing light at the end of a tunnel, he was speeding towards it with no hope of slowing down. He burst into consciousness with a jolt, hands reflexively coming up to his temples as pain started to drill behind his eyes. His mouth was full of an awful, sour taste that clung stubbornly to his teeth and tongue, turning his empty stomach. His nostrils were bombarded with a panoply of offensive scents. Bile, burned hair, gasoline. He could feel a moist surface beneath him, soft and moldy. Cushions? He was sitting, he could feel that much.

His head was resting back on something that clung to his hair and, after weighing up his options, he slowly opened his eyes.

The ceiling was stained and pitted, a veritable map of filth that sat just a little too close to his face for comfort. Shadows stretched across it, flickering and jumping as their light-source stuttered in the gloom. He lowered his head, grimacing at the cracking sound erupting from his neck as everything popped into place. From the corner of his eye he spotted a dark pool at the side of his chair, reeking of bile and a half-digested meal... At least it solved the mystery of the foul taste moldering in his mouth.

The room was small, perhaps no more than twelve square feet, his festering old chair propped against one wall. Ahead of him was an old metal door, riddled with illegible graffiti, a small window set in it letting through the barest amount of dim grey light. By it was edged the frame of a thick and heavy looking television, antenna bent into a brutal shape that summoned up thoughts of particularly frightening modern art. The screen was pierced and shattered by a dark shape, but the fragments still in place showed a steady stream of static, filling the room with snowy interference. He wasn't even sure if that should be possible...

Such thoughts were rushed out of his mind when he took a closer look at the shape slumped in front of the ruined television set. A human figure, dressed in black and on its hands and knees. The head was embedded inside the television, black scorch marks snaking their way down its pale neck. Its limbs were contorted in a horrific fashion, as though it had been struggling before settling into its final position, dying in mid spasm.

He pulled his gaze away, scrunching his eyes closed and tried to get his breathing under control. His heart fought desperately to smash its way through his chest, the pounding of blood filling his ears, his stomach contorting itself into something resembling the television antenna. What the hell was going on here? Where was he? What had happened? Why?

A tinny, warped noise from the TV brought his mind back from the precipice of panic. An advertising jingle, mangled by interference and no small amount of internal damage to the hardware. The shape of a can appeared on the few remaining shards of screen, some sort of soft drink dripping with condensation. A woman's garbled voice echoed through the speakers, sounding like she was at the bottom of a derelict well in the middle of nowhere.

"Arcana Zero. Great taste, no sugar. Unleash your potential!"

The voice died off and was swallowed up by the static, a multitude of whispered mechanical voices hissing across one another. He stared at the screen, faded back to a field of signal snow, his eyes aching as he attempted to make out shapes in the grey and white.

The smells began to become too much, the stale and putrid air settling deep in his lungs and making him groggy. He pushed himself up from the chair, trying not to think too hard about the wet noise the cushioned armrest made against his bare palms. His legs were shaky, but took his weight as he uneasily stood upright. His hair brushed against the ceiling tiles and he grimaced, making for the door as quickly as he could while giving the body and the television a wide berth.

He reached out and placed a hand on the rusted handle, curling his fingers around it. A memory burst into life within his skull, his hand locking with someone else's. A handshake in the foggy morning air. A smile beneath a mess of hair and a baseball cap. He recoiled for a moment and the memory was gone. Sparks seemed to dance across his eyes and he blinked furiously, attempting to dispel them.

When his vision returned to normal, he was staring at a single piece of graffiti in the jumble of colours that swirled across the rotted door.

"Open the door. Search for the truth."

Tentatively, he reached for the handle again. Locking his fingers around it, he pulled the door open and let in the air of the outside world.