Part 1: The lake

Simon finds himself wandering into the monstrosity that is the astronomic scrapyard he has wandered into, but what will he find?

Again, my feet touch cool water.
I have climbed down the link fence into the depths of this mess. I notice that the fence is drilled into rockface - is the entire beach just man-made? Just sand dumped on the top of a beach to hide what lies whithin?
As soon as one question pops into my head, another pops up. And another. Too many to even think about.
Maybe it's a paintball arena...I wonder on that thought as I stand in the shallow water- I really should have thought about where I was climbing down...I should have also thought about the amount of pain a thin metal fence would administer to my fingers. The red lines that would line my hands for hours.
I think the lack of water has addled my brain.

The water sweeps back and forth past my jeans. It comes from tunnels in the rock, covered with the same link fencing. They lead out to sea.
I walk onwards.

This is an awe inspiring place. Ever seen a scrapyard? This is scrapland. If scrapyards were newsagents, this place is the supermarket. Hell - it's the mega market. Cars crush eachother into fillings to make these giant hills. Bars and sheets of metal poke out of giant cliff faces of wreckage - cliff faces I am steering well clear of by walking the shallow river.
I am even walking on scrap, and that makes we walk all the more slow. The water is almost clear - I can see the sand beneath my feet, can feel the grains between my toes.
I can also see jagged pieces of metal hiding in the sands. The thought of something striking up into my foot unnoticed beforehand makes me think of Stingrays.
I begin to shuffle up the river. My parched mouth complains bitterly.My stomach rumbles.

Every so often, things do brush my feet. Mostly, just stones. Sometimes a piece of seaweed far from home.
Just once, a rusty piece of metal lightly brushed my little toe on my sandal foot.
It didn't cut my toe. It did make me shiver from head to toe.
I get a cut from something rusty out here, I get salt in a wound...I'm in enough trouble as it is.

Somewhere along my journey along the shallow river, I look up into the sandwich cars and the crap that pours out of their broken windows. I see among them all, a van uncrushed. Just sitting inbetween all the rest of the sandwich fillings. It's paint is rusted away. It's side door is wide open.
As I watch, something changes. I blink and look again.
This place is utterly silent. As I walk, the water swishes around me, ripples. But apart from that...nothing.
Yet I look up at that van, trapped in among the sandwich filling cars, and I wonder at first if it was a rat. Something that saw me and scarpered.
But was it bigger then that? Was the shadow bigger then a rat... bigger then a bird or something that could have it's nest up there...
I turn away from the van and continue onwards, away from that hill, away from that van. My back tingles.
The river is getting higher. It's now halfway up my hips, swishing back and fourth undoubtedly with the current from the sea. I wander onwards, very slowly. The sandy river floor is less distinguishable now - I keep imagining shards of glass, striking out of the sand...

I can't remember why I chose to wander this river anymore. But I know why I am still now.
I look back at the river behind me. I have come too far to go back. I can't even see the beach anymore. I have passed so many hills of scrap and wreckage they are blocking it from sight.
And I'm not going to climb that sodding fence.
So on I go. The river is about to turn again - the wreckage hills above me are beginning to gather closer to the river.
For a moment, I think about a rusty snapped bar, sliding out of a broken sandwich car's shattered window. Plunging downward. Into my head.
Now I can hear something.
Something rumbling. Something close by. Something crushing, destroying.
Slowly, I wander onwards. I can't be anymore cautious then I am being right now.

The river does get deeper. Much deeper.
I walk around that corner and stop to look at how the river grows wider, and seemingly deeper in front of me. In fact, the river becomes a lake in front of me.
Far across the lake, I can see where the lake becomes stream again.
That noise I heard mere moments before has died away. There is someone here - I'm sure of it.
But this time, I am less willing to call out.
I take a breath. I slide my sandal away - it would only be annoying for swimming, flopping on and off my foot, drifting away. I'm better off without it.
Letting my feet leave the sand, I drift out into the lake.
It's not far across to the other side, but I am doing breast stroke which isn't my best. I don't want to disturb the water - my legs are far below the water, and dont splash above the surface.

I hate swimming above deep waters, and this water is deep. As the river drops away, I look down beneath me and see the same kind of darkness that I saw out in the ocean. Here, the lake is shaded - the dark is close beneath me, maybe ten metres. It doesn't scare me as much as it did when I was drowning, for some reason.

It was looking to be a slow, relaxing swim across the lake. Untill, looking down into the blackness, I see a  sleek fin, caught by some of the light, sweep across the dark below me.

You can't appreciate how much quicker my heart rate just got. Or maybe my heart just stilled with the fear.
I hate deep water because most of the time, if something were to attack me, I would be helpless.
As I kick back around, I see another, large fin. And another.
With my feet firmly beneath the water, I kick as hard as I can. Breastroking as quickly as I can.
Sharks...
They can just swim straight upwards and wrap their teeth around me. Break ribs. Tear away one of my legs like spare rib...
I am nearly back to the shallow river when I decide to sod stealth and swim as fast as I can. I already know it was too late. They were gaining on me, their tails waving crazily as they gunned for my ankle -
I stood up in the river and looked back to see nothing.
The lake was still. I can see no shapes sweeping through the water towards me.

But I look out into the lake, and I shivered. It was not just from the cold - in fact the water was barely cold at all.
I reach down and found my sandal - I'm lucky it hadn't moved too far.
Then I just stare out into the lake.
I am trapped. I can't go out into the lake. I just can't.
And I can't go back.
Again, the silence surrounds me. At the moment, it sounds like hopelessness. Death. My legs are beginning to numb to the water.
'BLOODY HELL!'
My curse echoes off the hills around me. I look up to the one on the left that clings to the edge of the lake. The sandwich fillings jut out of this hill - it's a little crooked, compared to the rest.
I can climb the cliff side.
I can climb the cliff side!
The sandwich car's that jut out of the hill face make a path above the lake. A unstable one. But quicker. No sharks either...

I wade over to the first of the cars that jut out of the cliff face. Climbing on the hood like a stair.
It isn't just the bonnet that creaks under my weight. The whole car sounds like it is splitting in half. For a few agonising seconds I crouch down on the bonnet, my fingers pressed down on the rust as the car shifts position, tilts, tilts...
It holds firm.
I really hope thats not going to happen with the rest of the cars. The next is a leap upward - the whole makeshift path is like a set of giant stairs which I could follow around the lake...if one of the cars didn't rip out of the cliff face, falling to it's watery oblivion and taking me with it.
I don't take too much time about making my way across each car - even as they creak and shake I am scrabbling onto the next one. I somehow climb the crushed hood of an old morris - my dad used to love this car. I am very, very lucky that the curved hood has been crushed into a flat surface - someone up there doesnt hate me as much as I thought.
At the same time, I feel a brief flicker of sadness for the thing.

The next is one of those horrible box cars that used to infest the streets not too long ago. The walking space is so narrow- mere feet between me and falling to my likely death in the water. A car hood's distance...and this car creaks all too loudly-
I leap up to the next - mercifully a Land Rover's hood - and the sandwiched box car begins to shriek as it slid out of place. My movement has loosened its place in the car hill.
With an ear-tearing wrench, it falls.
I should be moving. But I cant help but watch. In that moment I think of a world where forests are made of salt and vinegar walkers packets, and buildings are made of rusty metal.
A world where the only pure thing left is the beach, and the sea lapping gently against it...
Then the car hit's the water like concrete. I swear I get a tiny bit of water on my face as the water fountains up into the air as if someone detonated dynamite just beneath the water.

Then the sandwich car above it follows. It just tumbles loose, like a giant piece of dirt.
It tumbles down toward the box car, which is sinking slowly beneath the water. It hits its brother like a double hook. And this one is an explosion of tearing metal. I stand back from the edge and cling on to what ever I can find.
With a sharp stinging in the palms of my hands, I know I've made a mistake.
Letting go of the top of the land rover window, i find my hands covered in shards of glass. My blood running. skin stinging as if I had grabbed a nettle and squeezed.
No. Nonononono. Infection, disease. Death...
It's then I heard the roar.
I fall back as I heard it. The roar was coming from the river the opposite side to the one I had come from. And I know what it sounds like.
It was a Motor boat.

Instictively, I leap to the next car. All I'm thinking about is my hands, pirates, the lake below.
My mistake. This hood is leaning too far.
I almost bounce off the hood, and the next thing I know I'm clinging on to life. By my stinging, bleeding fingers, to the liscence plate that, for some reason, the sandwich honda still has.
And it hurts so much...my stinging fingers. My fingertips burning like the sun as the liscense plate presses into my clinging fingers, torturing me into releasing my hold...
I gasp for breath. You have no idea how scared I am right now. I've been scared ever since I saw those sodding SHARKS! I try to think about the roaring boat engine, which is growing louder, and louder. But my fingers.

Staring with wide eyes into the sandwich cars, I suddenly notice another opening. As if an entrance has been blasted into the car-face, leaving half cars as the hole went into dark. Almost as if cars had been torn out of the car hill to make the little tunnel.
Curious, I almost forget that I am increasingly desperately clinging on by my bleeding, stinging, aching fingertips.
Then I see something truely terrifying.
A man stumbles out of the tunnel. I can see him inspite of the shadow. He has a shirt that is cratered with tiny holes, ripped down the left side. His shorts are dark on one leg, and covered in flowers on the other - a moment later I know that dark leg is covered in blood.
Because, to my terror, he is pointing a shotgun at me. Long, metallic. Old fashioned. Still quite deadly.
'Get off my hill.' He croaks, and loads the shotgun with a crunch-cruch. His beard is so long. His eyes are baggy and hollowing. He is quite, quite serious. 
I don't remember anymore of him. I let go.

Sod.
I let go arkwardly as well. One hand then the other. Now I am cartwheeling through the air. First water, then the cool blue sky, then the car hill and the tunnel, then-
And then?
Then I hit the water.
My dad used to say that hitting water from height was like hitting concrete. He was right.
And thats why I cant tell you anymore about the next few seconds. Or the next few minutes.
Or even the next few hours.
Sorry about that.