The Sandman

50

There’s a hiss from the loudspeakers and certain sounds are emphasised, like the rustle of paper, while others are barely audible. At times Reidar’s sobbing can be heard, such as when his son talks about Felicia’s space-capsule fantasy.

As they listen, Nathan Pollock makes notes and Magdalena Ronander types non-stop on her laptop.

‘You say it’s impossible to escape,’ they hear Joona say seriously. ‘Yet that’s precisely what you did.’

‘It is impossible, it wasn’t like that,’ Mikael Kohler-Frost replies quickly.

‘How was it, then?’

‘The Sandman blew his dust over us and when I woke up I realised I wasn’t in the capsule any more,’ Mikael says. ‘It was completely dark, but I could hear that the room was different, and could tell that Felicia wasn’t there. I felt my way forward until I came to a door with a handle... and I opened it and found myself in a corridor... I don’t think I was aware that I was escaping, I just knew I had to keep moving forward... I came to a locked door and thought I’d ended up in a trap, because obviously I realised that the Sandman might come back any second... I panicked and broke the glass with my hand, and reached through to unlock it... I ran through a storeroom full of boxes and bags of cement... and then I saw that the wall to the right was nothing more than a plastic sheet stapled in place... I was having trouble breathing, and I could feel my fingers bleeding as I tried to pull the plastic down. I knew I’d hurt myself on the glass, but I didn’t care, I just carried on across a big concrete floor... the room wasn’t finished, and I kept going until I found myself walking on snow... the sky wasn’t completely dark by then... I ran past a digger with a blue star on it and carried on into the forest, and started to realise that I was free. I ran through trees and undergrowth and got covered in snow, I never looked back, just kept on going, across a field and up into a clump of trees, and suddenly I couldn’t go any further. A broken branch had jabbed straight into my thigh, I was completely stuck, I couldn’t move. Blood was running down into the snow and it hurt badly. I tried to pull free, but I was stuck fast... I thought I might be able to break the branch, but I was too weak, I just couldn’t do it. So I stood there. I was sure I could hear the Sandman’s porcelain fingers clicking. When I turned to look behind me I slipped and the branch came out. I don’t know if I passed out... I was much slower now, but I got to my feet and carried on up a slope, I was stumbling and kept thinking I couldn’t go any further, then I was crawling, and I found myself on a railway track. I’ve no idea how long I walked, I was freezing, but I kept going, occasionally I could see houses in the distance but I was so exhausted that I stuck to the tracks... It was snowing more and more, but it was like I was walking in a trance, it never occurred to me to stop, I just wanted to get further away...’