The Disappearance of Cow Creek

Glass

I woke to a hot wind on my neck. I lay there for a moment, brain kicking into gear, and then my eyes fluttered open.
There was a hand in front of me. To be more specific, a hand resting on the ground in front of my face, attached to an arm which was draped over my neck and behind me. A hand which could only belong to one person, who was not sleeping across the cave from me like I has last seen him before I slept.
What the fuck is this dude's issue?
I took a deep breath, braced myself, and did a violent barrel roll away from Douglas, moving a couple feet away from him and flipping myself over to face him, rather than staying in a position where I could so easily be choked out. He woke with a start.
"Aspen."
"Douglas what the fu-" I cut myself off, decided not to even speak, as I trotted as well as one can while hunched under a short roof, out of the cave.
Douglas scrambled out after me.
"Aspen, relax! What are you so worried about?"

I whipped around in the grassy area to face him.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because you crawled all the way across the fucking cave to spoon me without even thinking to ask first?"
My voice went up an octave as I grew more upset.
"We don't even have clothes! You had NO right to do that and shouldn't have even if we did have them, but even worse, you gave no regard for the current situation, and when I wake up you're practically rubbing your crotch on my ass! What the hell Douglas!?!"

"Hey, chillout."
He leaned forward to try to touch my arm, but I slapped his hand down.
"-Don't touch me." I seethed at him.
"Aspen, relax. You're way too uptight. It was cold."
"NOT. COOL. Douglas."
I turned and started walking away from him, down the path next to the glass.
"Aspen wait!"
I started running and could hear his footsteps behind me.
"Aspen!"
The pool. Without thinking, turned and high-tailed it down the trail to the deep pool of water. Douglas' hand brushed my arm behind me.
"Aspen stop!"
I rounded the bend in the trail, looked behind me to see Douglas' eyes narrowing, and dove into the black water.
Sploosh.
Cold pressed into my skin, ears, and wide-open eyes. I let myself glide downwards a number of feet, then turned to look back at the surface. Douglas was at the edge, staring at me. I floated up and surfaced.
"What do you want?"
I treaded water, staring at him. Studying him.
"You're too uptight. I was cold. I didn't think you'd be so mad about it. I haven't gotten to interact with another human in a long time, cut me some slack if I'm rough around the edges."
"Really? You're still making excuses? Just apologize and leave."

"What do I have to be sorry for? You're the one who's so uptight."
"Leave." My voice was like ice.
Douglas turned and started walking into the brush.
"I'm gonna go get breakfast."
I floated there, deeply appreciating the water, cold and tannin-filled as it was, for the refuge it provided. Only I could be in it. I had no plan to change that either. I exhaled a long breath and sank into the water. The lights in the tall, tall ceiling of the cage were at full brightness, warmth, and much like the sun.
It's day. When will the aliens come?
I remembered what Douglas said about aliens coming every day and peering through the glass.
I swam over the edge of the pool and heaved myself up the steep, smooth rock bank. I wrung my terribly-cut hair out, then shook it like a dog. I started walking back, squeegeeing water off my skin with my hands as I went.
I had no interest in seeing Douglas, and little interest in eating, so I decided to do a bit of exploring. I had not looked at much above the cave, where the land sloped far up against the wall, with grass and trees growing out of it. I began climbing the steep embankment, until I reached the wall. It was solid, and looked a lot like concrete. Near to one corner, a pine tree grew. I climbed up into its branches, my hands, feet, stomach, knees, and elbows sticky with the sap after just a few limbs. Hand over hand, I reached the point where the branches were too small and climbing was too tedious to be worth trying to keep going, so I looked out to get a view of everything. There wasn't much to see, just trees, the pool, the grassy patches, and a couple trails, but the bird's eye view have me a better idea of how everything was laid out. I then realized how close to the ceiling I was, with the combined height of the tree and the hill.
I wonder about the lights...
the lights, which were what composed the entire ceiling, were set up in rows of panels, like a foam school ceiling. I looked carefully at them, and then clambered higher into the tree, hoping that that scratches and sap would be worth the answer to a new question.
I was practically in the very top of the tree, and felt terribly unbalanced and precarious. I'd had sapling trees break off under me before, and the top branches of this pine tree were considerably similar in size and flexibility. Except I was much, much higher up now. I looked up and examined the ceiling, which was only a few feet away. I reached up to try and see if the panels could move.
"Ah!"
They were hot. Very hot, like a stovetop. That would never work.
Are they heated from being turned on?
Nothing left to do in the tree, and quickly growing too warm from the heat emanating from the ceiling, I slowly made my way back down the tree and to the ground. When I hit the grass on the slope, I tripped over my own feet and tumbled down to the lower ground level in front of the cave. Douglas was standing there, holding a pile of something wrapped up in a large maple leaf.
I quickly got up and brushed myself off.
"What were you doing in a tree?"
"Uh, just exploring. You'll never guess what I found! The uh, the..."
"What?"
"...the trees are really big! And strong, and it seems unusual."
Douglas looked at me, clearly puzzled by my anticlimactic announcement.
I had quickly decided not to tell him about the lighted ceiling panels possibly being movable (if only they weren't so hot). Not yet anyways.
"What's that?"
Douglas handed me the leaf.
"Breakfast."
I opened it to find a large pile of what could best be described as scrambled eggs, but brown and strange smelling.
"This? It looks disgusting."
"Oh, don't be so whiny. It's actually fine."
I huffed, and then picked up a piece of the stuff as Douglas walked behind me, towards the cave. It was kinda like wet dog food.
Gross.
I smelled the thing, and it wasn't awful. It smelled like an overcooked combination of lima beans, onion, cow, and some mystery ingredients.
Gotta eat something.
I popped the piece into my mouth, and chewed. It was as mediocre as it smelled. The texture was exactly like dense, gross scrambled egg and the taste was the same as the smell, but stronger. I managed to eat two-thirds of the stuff before I had to quit and hand the rest to Douglas.
"I'm going to the water."
I informed him and then left, walking down the trail. Wow, this whole situation sucks.
I rounded the corner and the first thing that caught my eye was the aliens. Lots of them. On the other side of the glass, peering into the enclosure, milling about, talking to each other, and who knows what else. I stopped dead in my tracks. They had all come so fast. Slowly and timidly, I made my way over to the pool, unnerved by the audience I now had. I wanted to swim though. It's like being on the other side of a zoo exhibit.
On earth I had often thought of how fun it could be to frolic around in a "habitat" and swim around behind glass, but now that I was actually doing it, it wasn't fun. I crouched at the pool's edge and leaned forward, slipping headfirst into the water like a seal. I dove to the bottom of the pool. Eyes open, I could see through the blurred shapes that the aliens were watching me still - in fact, even more intently. As lovely as the water was, calm and silent, I hated being on display. I was never one for being observed in everything I did, it made me feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. I pushed upwards off the bottom of the pool and surfaced, then surged out of the water, up the bank, and ran quickly into the trees where I couldn't be seen.
I need to leave. Don't know how, or when, or where but this is not working for me.