C3-1 No man is an Island

He could smell it as the breeze flew over his face and his hair, the smell of the ocean covered him instead of the stale smell of blood, ash and stagnant intoxication he had gotten used to.
Hedzel opened his eyes as the sand almost halfway consumed his legs, dug in the soft and scratchy grains.
It felt nice to be gone from his captor, from that hideous place he had abided, was it all a dream? Had he been here the whole time? Were all the tubes and hospital bed reality?
This felt as real as the other, the salt water brushing his face, he wanted to stay if only a moment more if it meant being far from the room he had stayed in.
A smile crept on his face, he was happy, relieved to be in the open air, no walls, fresh air and surrounded by beauty.
It was an escape from everything he had grown accustom to, the wretched, wilted, rusted and confined space of the trap that was a constant reminder of the trappings he desperately tried to escape.
If he wasn't to know what reality was then this was the best non reality to stay in and he would stay as long as he could.
He wanted to spend his life here, this wonderful paradise that he either created or just inhabited.
What kind of life could he lead here? He was alone again, Daemon was exhausting to interact with but he was someone, was being alone better than with a tormentor who constantly ridiculed you, belittled you and kept you in pain?
He decided to get up and walk around his new home, Hedzel walked up the shore and into the jungle up and away from the beach.
As he walked the foliage got thicker, the sun disappeared in between the leaves looking like stars, the trees consuming the light as a starving man consumes the sustenance he craves.
Deeper, darker, the trees took him into themselves, Hedzel found himself wandering with little light, noises came and glow of eyes stared, voices of the jungle, haunting him, following him, whispers and strange jumbled words and phrases  he didn't understand.
Hedzel found the closest tree in an attempt to climb to find it was not bark of a tree he had latched onto but that of flesh, a petrified human forest.