They led us through. At the time I knew why. Something had happened outside.
We were in a round cart following a track. Me, my partner, our cat, and the one who brought us here.
I saw into a room we passed. From our window in the cart through to theirs. The people inside looked sullen.
We passed another. It contained men and women in lab coats, like scientists from a film. They moved through the lab slowly. Micro-pipettes laid upon metal tables.
Now was our stop. We entered the room. We did not exchange words with our guide as the door closed behind us.
The room was much like a hospital room but with this eerie coziness. Bright, neat, warm. Uncanny.
A well-made bed was to the right. Our cat and my partner laid upon it.
Ahead was a window and below it a metal table. Three micro-pipettes laid upright in a holster but they were not micro-pipettes they were some sort of syringe.
I looked out the window. Outside was impossibly calm.
I looked upon a bay bordered by tall grass, hazy brown. Late winter. Water near and still. Pristine.
I gazed upon this scene and could not think why we were here. Then it changed. The water.
It bulged, distorted. A bulbous wave. A presence so wrong I could not look away. It fell upon our window and revealed within it an abomination I had not evolved to comprehend. People. Dozens or hundreds or thousands it was impossible to tell because they were not in the water they were of it.
They stared soundlessly and soulessly. Directionless. They were here to absorb me.
In a moment I was at the bed. I held my love closely. She held our cat. She asked me what was at the window. I held her.
It’s not for us to see it’s not for us it’s not for us it’s not for us
I held her.
We were here to escape. I wanted to hold this moment this bed this room with my love. But I knew what we were here for. I could only hold on so long before
I woke up.