He came out of the darkness in a rush; lights appearing - above, below, to the side - sweeping past him in streaky blurs. He was flying - fast - racing across fields and hedgerows a few feet above the grass. No wind in his hair, no sound, no car beneath him, no plane. Nothing between him and the ground except the blur of speed.

What was happening? Where…

A building appeared. A white speck ballooning in size. He was flying straight towards it. Turn! Stop! Pull up!

He couldn’t! The walls, the concrete, growing and beckoning. Impact imminent. He tried to raise his hands to protect his face. But he had no hands.

Panic. Time-stretching, gut-wrenching terror. A flash of white as he hit the wall then…

He passed straight through, into a corridor, a room, another corridor. Still flying, disorientated by the speed, the blurs, the impossibility. He was flying a few inches above the floor tiles, zigzagging along corridors, a tumbling eyeball with no limbs, no body, no…

A sound! Far off and muted but the first sound he’d heard since what seemed like forever. A voice, strange and elongated, slowed down and slurred. And light, suddenly all around him, bright and dazzling. He was falling, falling and then…

"Now, Peter, tell me what you see."

A room crystallised around him, needle sharp in its clarity: stark white walls, concrete floor, no door that he could see. A solitary light shone from a featureless ceiling. A face stared back at him, questioning. A face haloed in light. A man he’d never seen before.

"It's Christmas," said the stranger, his voice soft and emotionless, his accent unexpectedly English. "You're four years old, sitting beneath a Christmas tree, opening presents. What do you see?"

"What do I see?"

Was the man crazy? And who the hell was Peter? He tried to move but felt the immediate tug of restraints. Straps? He was strapped to a chair. His arms and legs bound. His head too. He could hardly move.

"What's the matter, Peter? What can you see?"

He strained at his ties, pulling, arching his body, pushing with his feet against the bare concrete floor.

"What have you done to me? Why am I tied up like this?"

"It's for your own safety, Peter. You know that."

"I am not Peter! What’s the matter with you?" He spat the words out. Disbelief and anger. "My name's John, John Bruce. Don’t you recognise me?"

His interrogator didn’t reply. He just watched - impassive, unconcerned - looking down at a clipboard every few seconds to jot down a note.

"Who's in charge around here? I want to see someone in authority. Now!"

He was shouting, desperation welling up inside. What were they doing to him? He was John Bruce. The astronaut. The first man chosen to fly to the stars. His last real memory, strapped inside the Pegasus, waiting for the countdown to stop, for the dimension shift engine to engage and send him hurtling into the unknown, spiralling into the higher dimensions. And then? What had happened to him after that? Dim recollections of an all-encompassing blackness, timeless drifting, that weird flight along fields and floor tiles and now here; strapped into another chair. But where? He’d never seen this room before in his life.

And who the hell was Peter?

"It's all right, Peter. Calm down."

"I am not Peter! How many times do I have to tell you? I'm John Bruce, the astronaut."

He was very close to losing control; arms, head and legs straining against the ties. Like a four-year-old denied a treat, caught in the throes of a temper tantrum, he thrashed and screamed.

"It's OK, John. I'll get the nurse to untie you. You can watch HV if you like. Everything's going to be fine. We'll talk again tomorrow."

* * *