There was a scoff at the comment about brain damage, the first real, immediate reaction to their presence. Chris was slowly coming back to himself, back to Cole. This was real, but it wasn't current. That was the important part. He had to fight to return to the present, to right himself for both their sakes'.

"Turner," Chris said after a moment. That was a memory. Memory inside of a memory helping to pull him out of his mind. Something about that seemed just circular enough to work. "Cole Turner. You're... an instructor. We're drifting."

He was mostly repeating what had been said, but vocalizing it for himself was helping. The house was breaking down around them now, losing its solidity and fading into the background. It wasn't quite like awakening but there was the same kind of slow-returning lucidity to it.