"Where are we?" Damn fine question. Right now all I can hear are whistles--real loud high piercers of whistles--raucous singing, and marching. The ragged beat of boots on dry ground attacks our senses. Springing down from some sort of shelf onto what may be ground, we sidle quickly along a wall-like structure away from the noises. They fade into the distance, but not completely out of hearing.

At some point the wall ends, and we lose our balance, having been leaning on it for support this whole time. A spongy mass quivers beneath us as we pick ourselves up; it's edible, so we eat. From a direction opposite the marching comes a different noise: loud clicks at irregularly spaced intervals. It's the worst: each time a click comes, we stare at nothing, waiting for the next one to come, wondering if it won't, and when it does we're jolted by its painful aural prick.

We shake ourselves out of our trance and head off in a direction perpendicular to our previous one, hoping to avoid both noises. At some point they are precisely the same volume, and we start digging down into what has now become a very fine, cold powder, like frozen sand. We don't get more than three feet into the sand before we realize that odd sounds are coming from below--loud pops, obnoxious raspberries, obscene sucking noises--every possible kind of sound a human mouth can make short of actual speech. We can almost feel our heads distend with every noise.

We abandon our digging and climb a very tall tree nearby. We climb for days--it's a velcro tree, and we have no trouble sticking to it with our woolen clothing. Finally, we reach the top, exhausted. Attached to the highest leaf we find a card; we rip it off the leaf and open it up. It is utterly blank, but a sound chip inside plays a tinny version of "Copacabana," orchestrated for excruciating electronic beeps. The pain is like nothing we have ever experienced. We fall senseless.