TRY TO SEE IF THE COAST IS CLEAR
Stepping back from the grate with a pounding heart, you shake your head yet again. No way I’m
going to try to squeeze myself in there. There’s no knowing if I’ll ever be able to get out again.
Turning about, you make your way as quietly and quicky as possible to the door, hesitating before
the sleek, featureless surface for a long moment before approaching it closely and attempting to
press your unfamiliar ear against the cold metal.
It takes a while for you to get the angle right, but when you do, you hear only the strange whirring
ambiance of the space outside. Silence. You breathe a long sigh of relief, and look down to the side
of the door where a small panel is attached, not at all unlike the one that had opened it from the
outside when you had run in.
Gently, you tap onto it, and step back to let it rise up into the ceiling. After another momentary
delay, a crack of light appears down by your feet, and the pane begins to ascend, revealing the
corridor outside - empty, just as you’d hoped.
However, as you extend your leg, and make your first step into the space outside, your heart shoots
out of your chest as a long, black arm extends from the wall just beside the door, and catches your
shoulder in a firm, unrelenting grip.
You squirm and jerk back with all of your might, trying to pull back through the doorway, and a
strained squeak of sheer terror comes out of your mouth.
Your resistance comes to no avail, however, as the hand soon pulls you around roughly, and forces
you to face the body it belongs to. Skin pale where it showed about the neck, dressed in plain black
jumpsuit, your captor is tall, slim, and shows no outward signs of gender. Despite being something
that could possibly be seen as resembling human, in another way it is the least human thing you
have ever seen. There is a strange way in which it holds itself that gives no question to the fact that
it is not something of this planet... if you even are on a planet any longer.
"Why do you hide? We wish you no harm."
Your jaw drops, and you gape, suddenly too surprised to be scared as it lets go for your shoulder
and walks back slowly and judgementally to look you up and down. It seems almost fascinated by
your appearance in some morbid, perplexed way - a curiosity that you share with frightened
urgency. What do I look like? What has happened to me? You can't remember a single thing as to
how you got here. The last thing you recall was putting on the costume, and then absolutely
nothing.
"Come, child." The thing speaks once more, and gestures forward toward the corridor leading on
behind you, and in front of itself, where you had been running through to arrive where you are now.
“And do be obedient.” It reached down to the region of it's midsection, and produced a sleek black
length of tapered metal with a handle that looked something like a pistol - failing to even meet you
in the eye as it began moving forward at a brisk pace.
Gulping the lump in your throat, you turn and began to pace after through the featureless passage,
not daring to speak a word, and not daring to lag a step behind – the device at the figure's hip a
constant reminder of the danger you have found yourself in. From behind, the strange thing's
movements seemed even less human than it's appearance had first made it seem – long, loping, and
almost entirely identical between each stride. But, if your hands were any tell, you weren't exactly
entirely human yourself anymore.
On and on both of you make, passing only a few doors to either side – smaller than the one through
which the thing had come - until the passage terminated into a larger archway. The door here slid
open with the same noise as the first had, and beyond was revealed a small, well lit room of the
same materials as the corridor, where a white and steel circle table took up centre place, and arrayed
about it were the only other pieces of furniture in the room – a set of two chairs formed from some
unidentifiable black metal.
“This is where you'll be staying.” The creature stepped inside, and gestured once more for you to do
the same. You follow, and tilt your head to the side to see a side of the room that you hadn't seen
before. At first, you think it to be simply a wall made out of black, but then you notice tiny
pinpoints of light sparkling back out at you from the mass of oblivion, and you soon realise what
you're looking at. That must mean... Your jaw drops slightly. We're in space.
The creature seems hardly interested by your hesitancy and surprise, however, and spins on its heel
to make back toward the door, giving you little time more to ponder on your surroundings. “You
needn't remain here long. I will return, and we shall begin.”
Before you can speak or move, the door is sliding closed, leaving you blinking and struggling still
to stay upright in the centre of the room, staring after. Once alone completely, however, and when
the echoing footsteps of the thing disappeared into the distance behind the metal, your eyes wander
back to the window, and you approach – taken out of even your fear and confusion by the depthless
sea of black presented before you, truly beautiful in a vaguely terrifying way.
The closer you get, however, the more clear the shifting fragments of your reflection start to show
in the glass, and it isn't long before your mind forgets about the space beyond, and freezes once
more at what it sees. Your body is clad in a black tracksuit, but the parts outside it – much to your
shock – appear more like an animal than human. Long chiselled features, fur extending from your
blurrily visible cheeks, everything.
Beginning to panic, you begin reaching to touch parts of your body, half in disbelief that your
reflection would follow. However, logic followed suite, and the imagine of yourself kept suit -
meeting you with the same undeniable results as your own hand – coming into contact with fur,
muzzle, and tall, soft ears no matter where they reach. You feel a deep, heavy sensation settling in
your stomach, and you stagger back half-voluntarily, watching as a long, white-tipped tail sways
behind you with the abrupt motion. What have I become?
Your panicked eyes glance to the door through which you had come through, then to the black
window and the space beyond. You must decide what to do, and now. Any minute now, the man – or
whatever it was – could return, and if when he had said 'we' had been implying what you thought it
had been, he wouldn't be alone this time. Attempting to leave such a seamless, sealed space isn't
going to be easy, but if it was worth trying is entirely up to you
Written by Doppelfoxx on 10 August 2022
The end (for now)