This is not my bed. Wait, I'm sitting in some lounge. Wasn't I supposed to be sleeping, or...where am I? I AM NOT HOME. I DIDN'T PUT MYSELF HERE. Oh no, oh my goodness what's happening!? I can't see the back of this chair and suddenly, everything is snakes until I see it, so I leap up from my seat. It's not a club or hospital. If anything it looks closer to a movie set with the way these unusual chairs ring the walls. Every wall, even around corners.
I know this isn't a lobby, but what if I'm wrong? I need a goal, so I'm going to look for the front desk. Anything to compel me into action instead of fear. So I walk through that first entrance I saw, into a room shaped like a pumpkin, bulging walls and all, with shining metal adornments all around. I can't help but notice it's actually very pretty, even in the pandemonium of my mind. The pandemonium...I stop and think. Relax if you can, and breathe. What was the last thing you were doing? I was...walking home, I think. Late night games at my friend's house, but she lives pretty close. It was nothing unusual, I've done it before. So when -- and why -- was I taken here?
My fear is a beast at bay, dormant but coloring the room in its presence. With its slumber, my curiosity is brave enough to come out, and so I begin to circulate the rooms. There is no front desk, because this is no place. It's a dream of yawning metal structures and elegant, legless tables suspended from the ceiling. False scrawlings, or a dialect whose markings look like a fantasy novel, whatever they are, litter most rooms. I arrive at another wonder: a room of windows and compartments, where each one is cubbied away from the others and the windows soar from floor to ceiling. I've begun to disillusion, but this sight is too much. Each one offers the same view of obscene blackness.
And the room is long, much too long for blankets and party tricks. That's a REAL darkness, or I must be drugged. But come on, I know the difference. This is lucid, yes, but far too lucid for that.
A sudden form appears before me at the end of those long cubbies. I see a gray figure with an ethereal, sickly skin, and I SHRIEK. Theirs join mine and I must do something! Something, but what? I run. Run away from this sight. I know this is not a human. I KNOW THIS IS NOT REAL. Not real, not real, but it follows me through each strange, alien room. Aliens in space and I, on a ship communing with the stars. Surely, a nightmare. And I do not want its prophecy.
Danger is springing ever closer. This room is a collection of triangles and the next, I failed to look at properly. The familiar rooms are easier to navigate. Yes, that’s it. I’m slipping away. THERE THEY ARE but no, they’re...sleeping. I slow down. I need to make sure they’re really asleep. Would I even know what that looks like?
A small noise from behind causes me to pivot. There is another- no, this is the one that followed me. The sleeping one is a different being. And now we’re face-to-face, and it’s trying to communicate. I think. I can’t help but throw my hand into the air at this sight. Nothing will wake me, so I might as well. I’m reminded of a story I read young, and something about it stuck out to me. It was about a lion ruling its land. A sickness fell down, choking the crops, which killed his prey. But the lion was prideful and when his pride fled, he thought nothing of it. And on one clear night, he ventured to drink at a pool, wherein moonlight revealed chaos and reflected not his face. But again he ignored it. This alien figure might be just that. A messenger, some gateway to a freedom from danger I don’t yet recognize. I see enough signs, so I face the creature, draw a deep shaking breath, and wave.
The alien looks at me quizzically, but it looks relieved, perhaps that I seem calm. It waves back. Does it know that gesture, or is it mimicry? HELLO, I say. A complex of rapid suction and clicking chimes back at me. HELLO, it says.
You are8# hard t@ talk t02
No: ne&d tO talk out loud. I am in you$ mind@
You are not the one we want.
It means that we were going to meet someone else. But while we have you here, can we-
No. While we have you here, can we apologize with an Earth favorite?
Yes, good. Tea it is. And maybe, can we ask a few questions in the meantime? We’d love to know if you agree with the other human.
I hope you liked this story. This is the first one I'm posting on Tumblr, but I greatly enjoy writing and don't often post, so do let me know if you read and like it!
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