On that thought, she decided to get up and explore her surroundings.
She discovered the limitations the moment she stood up—or tried. She slammed her head into the top/ceiling hard enough it rang like her head was a bell clapper.
And then she hit the floor again as her knees gave out.
It took her a few moments of self examination to determine whether or not she’d broken her head or her neck, but that was top priority before she considered what she’d discovered about the ‘room’ she’d found herself in.
She decided it wasn’t a room at all. She wasn’t much over five feet tall and she couldn’t stand up in it. Surely a room would have a higher ceiling than that?
And there was no light.
The cabin she’d occupied with Nye hadn’t had any windows and they were in space so she supposed there wouldn’t be light even if there were windows, but it should have artificial light, surely?
She felt her way along the platform she’d fallen off of and found a wall on either end. She was pretty sure it was a wall, anyway. When she’d felt it and run her hand end to end along the ‘ceiling’ she was certain of her limitations.
It was more like a box than a room.
Chill bumps chased up and down her spine, but she dismissed the creeps. It wasn’t a coffin, unless it had been made for a giant.
Well it was way big for any of the ‘giants’ she knew except not nearly long enough or tall enough because it wasn’t long enough or tall enough for her. She verified that by climbing onto the platform again and trying to stretch out.
It felt like it was made of metal, but she supposed it could be something like plastic even though it had seemed to have a metallic ring when she’d bonked her head on the top.
Maybe something like a crate for animals?
That was disturbing, but these were aliens, not humans, and they sounded like they had low esteem for the people she’d traveled with and she would be lumped with them ….
She had to pee.
“Oh god!”
She wished she hadn’t acknowledged it because she immediately felt more pressure on her bladder and she knew there was no bathroom accessible to her.
She got off the platform and thoroughly examined the box she had found herself in anyway—just to be sure.
Not even a fucking pot, she fumed, tempted to just pee on the floor to spite them except she had a bad feeling she wouldn’t be spiting them.
Because everything she’d felt was solid and that meant the puddle would stay for her to slip down on and wallow in.
She climbed onto the platform again and tried to stretch out as much as she could, trying to direct her mind to something positive.
She came up empty.
She hadn’t found so much as a crack she could get her fingernails in to so she wasn’t going anywhere until the bastards that had taken her were ready.
She didn’t want to think about what she was going to be forced to do in the corner if they didn’t come for her before much longer.
And she couldn’t bear to think what might be happening to Nye.
She couldn’t formulate escape plans.
Or revenge.
She struggled to think of something, anything else.
Her brother came to mind.
He was never going to know what had become of her.
Of course, that was true from the moment she’d decided to go with Nye if they were taking him.
And here she sat in a damned box!
So much for thinking about her brother as a distraction!
Apparently all roads led to Nye.
Before she could think of anything else to distract herself, she heard an ominous hissing noise. She hadn’t figured out what it was when the smell tickled her nostrils and she realized she was being gassed.
Terror fell over her like an icy shroud, but she didn’t have time to really panic. Almost the moment she realized she was enveloped in gas, darkness cloaked her, sucked her down into oblivion.
Chapter Eight
The experience was so much like a nightmare that Emma was convinced at least part of the time that that was what it was—not real at all, just a figment of the dark side of her imagination.
A puff of fresh—or at least fresher than she’d had—air roused her from the deep pit to semi-conscious a matter of seconds, or maybe minutes or hours before something hard clamped around one of her ankles. Her limp body slamming into the floor as she was dragged off of the platform sent a wave of pain and consternation through her that aroused the desire to come fully awake, but she couldn’t fight off the miasma cocooning her.
She was lifted by that ankle a few minutes later and left to dangle as the thing carrying her headed across a vast cavern of a room and then a wide corridor. She knew this much because artificial lights flickered to life as she was pulled from the box she’d been in, momentarily blinding her even though it was feeble lighting at best, leaving as much in shadow as it illuminated.
She thought she might have blacked out for a period of time because when awareness surfaced again she found herself lying on what seemed like a gurney with a blinding light above her.
Doctor’s office?
What was she doing in a …?
She broke the thought off as something horrible moved to the side of the gurney.
It was almost bug-like, except it was at least as tall as she was, with huge black pits for eyes that took up most of the face, two holes where a nose should have been and a tiny slit where the mouth should be.
It looked like a silly putty figure, stretched abnormally, so skinny it looked like a hard wind would blow it away, with arms longer than normal—for humans—and creepy long fingers.
Three of them.
She inhaled a shocked breath, but she couldn’t scream as the thing reached for her face and
