"I feel the water reach the corners of my eyes, and I close them. Goodbye, sunlight. In a minute the mud is pressing cool against my eyelids. Images of sun and branches continue to move through my mind.

"I feel myself slipping down and down, mud flowing up round me, oozing between my toes, stroking me. I'm going down willingly, giving myself to the old tribes' Great Swamp Beast, sliding down its throat to its unknown stomach to be transformed in ways I can't imagine.

"I can still smell the world. The peaty smell of the swamp over all, but through that the smell of leaf mold, sap from a broken twig, somebody's droppings - squirrel probably. Lemmings aren't canines, but we're good with the nose.

"The edge of the swamp rises up my muzzle. My snout's a shrinking island. I see it clearly in imagination, a silver-gray hill with a dark sea rising round it. And now only the peak of the hill... The Beast's lips are closing on me. The mud pushes my whiskers up. I take a slow peaceful breath, smelling the world. Another breath... The tip of my nose above the mud, warm in the sun. I take my last sniff, my last breath. And feel the swamp close over me.

"I am gone and going down, going beyond. Goodnight world, goodbye old life, hello future."

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Part 7
Part 9