[tr] a waking dream of life and light
Dan's been dreaming, lately, in blinding white flashes, just like the one he saw when the Island - as he'd been saying - disappeared (a theory he has since abanoned) and he doesn't know why.
They wake him up, pull him violently out of an old, lost reality and into this new one, right back into bed number forty-two in the basment (he's heard it called the psych ward, once or twice) of the Compound of the island of Tabula Rasa, Latin for blank slate, a term coined by philosopher John Locke.
(Not that one.)
And he's been left wondering, what's happening on that island that I don't know about?
He will discover (remember) what's happening on the Island and why he's been dreaming of those flashes at approximately 5:18 AM on the 18th of February.
When he wakes up he'll be trembling, his heart will be pounding, there will be tears stinging the corners of his eyes and he'll hear his own words echoing uselessly in the dark, replaying the scenes and screams from his dream over and over:
"Of course you're fine."
"Listen to me. Nothing is gonna happen to you. Nothing. I won't let it."
"I'm in love with the woman sitting next to me - "
" - Charlotte! Can you hear me? Charlotte, it's Daniel. Talk to me."
"Charlotte!
... Charlotte?"
He'll then get out of bed and get dressed without waking anyone but the dogs and will go for a walk along the beach before sunrise during which he'll try to convince himself that it was just a nightmare.
Then he'll finally find the Zodiac, the raft he came here on that he's been looking for all this time, washed up on a part of the shore he's never been to, waiting for him as the sun breaks past the horizon.
He'll discover something else waiting inside the raft when he walks up to it, and he'll know, right away, what it is.
It'll be his shirt - the exact one he was wearing the day arrived here - stained with Charlotte's blood.