Gerald woke up. His back was stiff, his head pounding, and he was laying on something soft with something hard under it, like a snow-covered sidewalk, except that it wasn't cold. He could feel more than see the dim light on his closed eyelids. He was afraid to open his eyes, as he was fairly sure he was hung over and he didn't want to know where or why.

What could he tell without opening his eyes? Well, he could feel his clothes still on him, so at least he wasn't naked somewhere. There wasn't any kind of a breeze, so maybe he was indoors. The air smelled strange, like machinery or electronics mixed with dust. He could make no sense of it all. There was nothing for it, he was going to have to open his eyes.

Bracing himself for the pain of light, he opened his eyes. He could see nothing and felt no pain. Had he really opened his eyes? Yes, definitely, his eyes were open. He turned his head a bit. Ok, there was a corner. He was just looking at a totally smooth, purplish-gray surface. He followed the edge of the ceiling for a while, looking for a corner.

There wasn't one.

He sat up a little and looked around some more. He seemed to be in a cylindrical room that was all the same shade of purplish gray. The floor was covered with a greenish-blue dust, two or three inches deep. He brushed some of it aside and saw that the floor was the same material as the walls and ceiling.

Well, he wasn't in pain, so he must not be hung over. He glanced at his watch. It read 9:30 am. Crap! He was late for work. How could he get out of here?

As he stood up, he heard a shuffling sound behind him, accompanied by a small wine. He turned around slowly, so as not to scare the cat he expected to see.

It wasn't a cat.

It looked like a girl. She (if it was a she) was slumped in the corner, terrified, so that all he could see was her cream-colored jumpsuit and long black hair. He assumed it was a girl from the hair.

"Are you okay?" he said. She shuddered at the sound of his voice, but made no other actions.

He decided that his work could wait, this girl was obviously in trouble. He would help her first.

As calmly as he could, he spoke again. "Shhh, it's all right, I'm not going to hurt you." Well, that was something, she didn't shudder that time. What else should he say? "Can you tell me your name? No? How about where you live?" She wasn't answering... maybe she didn't even speak the same language. He continued to speak soothingly, no longer paying any attention to the words he spoke. Slowly, like he was trying to get a wild animal to come close, he moved closer, talking calmly about how he would help her.

When he was within arms reach, he whispered, "I'm going to help you up now. Then we can get you home, ok?" He reached out to help her up, but she recoiled from his touch, throwing her long, black hair between her and the wall.

"Come on, now, I won't hurt you." Softly, he touched her back again. This time she didn't recoil as badly and he didn't lose contact. "There we go, you see? I'm not going to hurt you, I'm here to help." He continued chanting calm cliches as he slid his hand to the far side of her back. "Can I help you up? Come on now, stand up."

He helped her to stand up. She helped back, seemingly comforted by his calm words. She was about eight inches shorter than him, which would make her about five-foot four. She still seemed afraid, as she was hiding her face behind a wall of silky, black hair.

How that he had her cooperating, where was he going to take her? He glanced around for a door. When he didn't see one, he turned around and looked over the other side of the room.

There was no door.

He turned around in a full circle, watching the walls. He kept thinking that he hadn't turned around all the way yet, because he hadn't found the door. There had to be a door. How else could he have gotten in?

After he'd turned around about eleven or twelve times, it finally sunk in. There was no door. There wasn't a window, not an air vent, absolutely nothing on the smooth walls.

"I don't want to startle you," he said quietly to the girl, "but I don't think there's a way out of here." He looked down on her in an attempt to indicate that he would protect her.

"GAAH!" He shrieked and jumped back away from her, pushing her into the wall in the process. He stumbled backwards and fell, landing in a flash of light in his eyes and pain in his back.

He'd seen wrong, that's what it was. That's what it had to be. In his shock at being trapped, he'd envisioned something that wasn't there, he'd imagined the hideous image superimposed where her face should have been.

Still breathing hard from his shock, he closed his eyes and sat up. Then, slowly, he opened them. She was huddled in the corner again, shuddering in fear. Of course she was. He'd thrown her against the wall! What a beast he must be in her eyes, to act so kind just before he hurt her! And all for a stupid image in his mind. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, my girl, I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you okay? I'm sorry."

Slowly, he got up. Reciting apologies, he walked over to her and knelt down. Just a foot or two away now, he could hear that she was not just shuddering, she was sobbing. Out of fear or pain, he couldn't know, but either way, it was his fault and she wasn't likely to trust him again any time soon.

"Come on, now, I won't hurt you." That sounded like a lie even to him. After all, hadn't he just hurt her a few moments ago? "Please don't cry, I'm so sorry." He reached out to gently push some of her hair out of the way so he could see her face.

She turned like lightning, her hair flying into the air, to snap at his fingers and he saw her face very clearly.

She... it wasn't human.

He threw himself across the room, pounding on the wall and screaming for help. He pounded on the purplish-gray wall and screamed until his fists were bruised and bleeding, and his voice was gone. Then he slumped against the wall, exhausted and terrified. He clenched his eyes shut to block out the image, but he could still see the face, the mockery of human form with it's slanted, cat-slashed eyes and fine, yellow fur against her pitch black hair.

It was something out of a movie. It wasn't real, it was some kind of practical joke, some publicity stunt or something. It couldn't possibly be what he thought, it had to be something else. Something else had to make sense, because what he saw couldn't.

He looked at his hands, bruised and bleeding and hurting horridly. He was too afraid to cry from the pain, too much in shock. He knew what he'd seen. He'd seen it twice now and could no longer deceive himself. He watched the blood drip into the blue-green sand, which absorbed the moisture, leaving little brown rocks of his blood.

He was shaking hard.

His whole body shuddered, stuck in a permanent state of fear, just staring at his hands and how they shook and how the blood fell from them. No thoughts passed through his mind. Nothing but fear.

A hand touched his back. He called out, wincing away against the wall.

The hand came again, softly. It was calming. There was a light, gently pulsing, gently calming him. The hand moved along his back toward his side, as if to help him up.

It was too much the same. It had to be the girl.

He shrieked and scrambled on all fours, despite the pain of the sand on his broken hands, a few feet away. He crouched and shuddered. He stared at his hands as the blood slowed and, finally, stopped. The sand under him was a solid brown mass by now, but he couldn't move away. He just crouched over his blood rock and shivered for hours until, ages later it seemed, he fell asleep.