The lone survivor was shocked into awakening. Submerged in a foreign substance, he was surrounded by warmth.
That was a feeling he should have forgotten.
With the game's progression came countless accounts of people held hostage by illusions, usually unable to escape. Panting, weak-kneed, wide-eyed victims of these attacks vomited rarely intelligible ramblings for hours, if not days, on end. If they managed to endure this period of instability, they would all say something along the lines of "I was at peace."
The bard thrashed against the foreign substance, hands and feet strewn this way and that. The key to escaping an illusion is acknowledging what it is. Despite this knowledge, he was still trapped in this snug substance, awkwardly fuzzy and comforting. It was almost as if he was wrapped burrito style in his favorite blanket, a thought deepened by the smell of bacon wafting in the air. Scents like these had long since been displaced by those of the charred remains of the enemy, even in the man's dreams.
"Shawn, get your ass up, it's time for breakfast!"
"I'm coming!"
Intuitively, the man rolled out of bed, eyes half-shut. He went to scratch his head, which should have been a labyrinth of freeforms, only to feel a bonnet.
"Hurry up boy, the food's getting cold!"
"I'm! Coming!"
As he trudged towards the dining room, lifting his shirt out of habit. The lumpy happy trail his fingers should have been tracing was apparently replaced by smooth, bare skin. He paused.
"Mom, I'll be right there! I just gotta go to the bathroom!"
"I better not hear jack about how cold your plate is!"
Yelling across the house was far from peaceful. Nothing about his body felt familiar. And as the bard/man/dreamer raced to the bathroom, slamming the door shut even though he knew that was a shortcut to a whooping, he ripped his bonnet off and stared in the mirror to get confirmation of what he knew should have been impossible.
A boy about twelve years old with freshly plaited braids and clean, shortly-trimmed nails stared back.