Content Warning: This chapter describes a death by suicide in detail.

The Prologue describes Seth Wearing’s drowning in the ocean. Seth’s name is not revealed during this sequence of events. The Prologue ends with Seth’s definitive death by drowning.

Seth Wearing slowly regains consciousness after drowning. He wakes up on a summer morning, lying on a concrete pathway leading up to a house that seems vaguely familiar to him. He is confused about his surroundings and his mind is still foggy. He does not remember his name, nor much about himself.

The boy gets up and realizes that he is in a dusty, deserted neighborhood overgrown with weeds. There are no sounds of people or cars, and the houses look English. He decides to go into the house, and panics when he notices a painting of a horse from Picasso’s Guernica above the mantelpiece in the living room. The painting jogs his memory, and he realizes where he is.