At Dusk

Cocooned

Even with her eyes wide open Laura was by no means certain that she was awake. 

As her eyesight adjusted to the lighting, she noticed that she was in a spherical room completely unfamiliar to her. 

Most of her body was numb, but she soon discovered that she could move her fingers, though not without a tingling sensation. When she tried to turn her head sideways to get a glimpse of where she was, a wave of nausea threatened to take over. How on Earth did she get there? 

Her memories were scattered in a haze of oblivion. Time passed. Hours. Maybe days. 

After what felt like an eternity, she lifted her head and had a look around. She was lying on a firm bed in the middle of a room poorly lit by a weak bluish light that sprang from the floor. The ceiling was dome-shaped.

She was dressed in a long-sleeved terracotta-colored bodysuit. Another mystery. 

At first, she had thought her surroundings to be plain white, but then large patterns started to become visible in the spherical wall that cocooned around her bed. Circular and parallel lines seemed to have been carved in like a tattoo on human skin. These geometrical shapes had a tranquilizing effect, even in their oddness.

She struggled with her own bodyweight when she felt she could sit. Her perspective changed then. The room had no furniture whatsoever, and the bed she had been lying on didn't seem to be connected to any ground. 

Instinctively, she took a clumsy step forward and fell to the floor. It didn't hurt, however, for gravity seemed to operate at only a fraction of its natural pull. And she was right. There was no actual bed but a thin metallic sheet suspended in the middle of the room as if spellbound. What's more, it was only visible at all from certain angles.

With a little bit of effort, she was able to stand up. Another wave of nausea had to be controlled before she could trust and open her eyes again. 

From her new perspective, the room changed again. It was indeed shaped like a cocoon, but there were no walls as such. The patterns she had identified earlier were the silhouettes of oval-shaped entrances that mimicked the circumference of the dome above. Only narrow pillars standing between these entrances touched the ground. 

If she positioned herself horizontally again, the room appeared as it had before, a perfectly sealed environment. Only from above, one could see all entrances that guarded the metallic sheet she had mistaken for a bed.  

Perhaps she was trapped in some kind of 3D simulation, possibly wearing VR glasses without realizing it. She touched her face but found nothing out of the ordinary. The place just seemed to have been built like a multi-perspectivistic puzzle. 

By sticking her head through one of the entrances, she looked outside. Her cocoon was connected to numerous other bays, though she couldn't see if they had occupants or not.

Did I die and got sent to some sort of limbo? Or maybe I've fallen into a hole and ended up in wonderland like Alice?

Whatever the case, she had been caught by a surreal trap. Unfortunately, however, nobody came. There was no March Hare and no Mad Hatter. 

Laura. She remembered a voice beckoning as she walked about the room, feeling the texture of her enclosure with the tip of her fingers. 

The lights. The empty highway. Something had picked her up and carried her there. 

The sudden flashes of memories caused her heartbeat to speed up and her breathing to become erratic. 

Who? Why? 

The questions exploded in her head. Whoever brought her there had to be somewhere near, had to offer some explanation for that bizarre kidnapping. She poked her head again through one of the entrances and screamed. "Is there anyone there? Does anybody hear me?"

There was no answer, only a faint echo ricocheting here and there. 

The screaming, even though it had been brief, left her tired and out of breath. She stumbled and found the support of the bed, holding on to it firmly despite the fact that it fluctuated in the middle of the room. She fought to regain her balance. 

Soon enough, a buzzing sound filled the room, as if a swarm of bees had found their way in. She looked around as well as she could, still feeling dizzy from her previous efforts, but there was nothing there besides herself and the bed. But then, by one of the entrances, she saw the outline of a child. 

No, not a child. A small and almost translucent being that seemed to hold its little hand out in her direction, as if inviting her to step forward and greet him. She closed her eyes and opened them again to make sure she was not suffering from illusions. 

The being was still there, by the entrance. Waiting for her to take the first step.

She was cautious and kept holding on to the edge of the bed as she stepped closer to her visitor. Close enough now that she was only a few steps away from him. Like the room itself, the being seemed to be more or less solid depending on how you looked at it. The angle and the light changed not its outline, but the contents of its little body, with details from its insides becoming more visible than others. Its little heart fluttered like bird wings.

And there were others. Now she could see them. In almost all of the entrances, she could see little bodies made out of almost nothing materializing to greet her. Could these bizarre, fragile-looking creatures really be her kidnappers?

She started feeling faint again. Her grip on the bed seemed to grow distant as her field of vision diminished. This time, she did feel her body hit the floor. But all went black before she could utter a word of complaint. 

When she came to, she was alone again. In bed, again. This time, however, it didn't take long for her to be back on her feet. No translucent beings were there to make her question her sanity. She made sure to look from all angles. Good.

There was, however, a growing desire to leave her room.  Her cocoon, as comfortable as it was with the low lights and floating bed, didn't offer her much in terms of protection. The beings had broken in easily, she would perhaps be safer outside than she had ever been inside.   

She was anxious about meeting them again, their figures being so disturbing after all, even though small and delicate. Something about their large eyes. But the anxiety wasn't enough to keep her tucked in. She had to find out where she was and what had happened to her. She had to find an escape route or find a way to wake up from that strange spell she had fallen under. 

She would get no answers by lingering. With that firm resolution, she picked one of the entrances and then walked out.