My eyes fluttered open, sleep receding. Light greeted me and a flat blue expanse, like a domed ceiling of a cathedral that was very far away. Within it, puffy white clouds inched across the sky as though blown by a strong wind. I could see four of them; they were the same shape but different sizes. Grass blanketed me like velvet, a substance that seemed made, not grown.

  With a sharp inhale, I sat up, noticing my clothing. Instead of a stained blouse, I wore a beige sports bra and beige men’s boxer briefs. The fly had been sewn shut. I was barefoot, my hair tied back at my nape.

  This wasn’t good. I was in underwear. Was this to make probing easier or what?

  Softly rolling hills of green stretched away from me, interrupted by various sizes and types of trees, though I couldn’t identify any of them. Brown trails cut through the landscape. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see the horizon, not with the foliage in the way.

  A buttercream-yellow sun tracked across the sky, moving much too fast for this to be Earth and not bright enough to burn my eyes. Like everything else, it looked constructed, a flat color in a perfect circle meant to mimic what I was used to.

  That was disconcerting.

  All of this was disconcerting. What the hell was this place, some sort of zoo exhibit and I was the attraction? Or maybe a hunting arena, and I was the game.

  Freaking Harold. He’d tried to warn me. “Watch the skies,” he’d said. “They live amongst us. People are getting abducted.”

  I hadn’t believed him, and now look, I’d had to go and prove him right.

  At least he’d post about me on his interwebs. That was something.

  I took a deep breath and pushed up to standing. There was no point in staying here. I needed to find out what sort of fix I was in and see about getting out. I also needed to look around for possible food and shelter. I’d apparently landed in a survival situation.

  Luckily, I’d watched enough survival shows to know what to look for.

  Too bad I’d never practiced any of those things.

  Still, how hard could it be? I’d seen Mykel Hawke on TV start a fire with sticks loads of times. Granted, he was a trained survival expert and he still struggled, but I had beginner’s luck on my side. Besides, maybe I wouldn’t need it. The weather in this papier-maché world was sublime, neither too hot nor too cold. Despite the grasses shivering and the bushes shaking like they were hooked up to a vibrator, and the trees haphazardly swaying, there was no wind. No air movement at all.

  How about a lean-to? Easy. Some of the trees were plenty big for a windbreak. Massive, actually, as wide as an ancient redwood. I could then find some long, sturdy branches, some palm fronds, maybe…

  Creating a list in my head, I walked straight ahead. The real danger here would be going in circles. I had zero sense of direction. None at all. Every single direction seemed like north, and if I turned around, I lost all semblance of which way I’d just been heading.

  “Oh God, this is a nightmare,” I murmured to myself, looking first one way and then the other before glancing behind. That spacecraft hadn’t made much noise. There was no telling if there was sound suppression in this place. I didn’t want anyone sneaking up on me.

  Now making a list of fire-starting elements to keep my mind occupied and away from spiraling into panic, I surveyed the various trees to take note of the differences. I took in the trails and headed to one. If I studied the topography and noticed the landmark details, maybe I wouldn’t get hopelessly lost and spend my days walking in the shape of infinity.

  I followed the trail to the tree line, a little wooded area where the light dimmed under the canopy. A rustle caught my notice.

  I abruptly stopped, ready to turn and run should the situation call for it. I’d always heard you were supposed to stand your ground with wild animals, get loud and put out your hands to seem bigger, but that was for mountain lions or maybe small bears. I didn’t know what sorts of things existed in this place. My best bet would be to run and hide. There was no shame in that game.

  A lanky man of about fifty burst out through the trees, his movements panicked and chaotic.

  “Help!” he bleated when he saw me. “Oh, please, help!”

  “Why?” I put out my hands and braced for takeoff. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s after me!” he shouted, running straight at me.

  “Well, don’t bring it this way!” I dodged to the side. “What is it?”

  “A monster.” He veered for me again. “It’s a monster!”

  “Go another way, bro. Don’t—”

  A creature like an enormous stone toad hopped out of a bush behind a large tree. It had cracked, mossy skin, bony spikes and ridges along its back, and two rows of teeth in its gaping mouth. I didn’t notice anything beyond that because I was already running.

  I took off across a field as fast as I could run, my breath coming in short spurts. As I ran, I scanned the ground ahead—even and flat—then chanced a look over my shoulder. If it was gaining on me, I would have to turn and fight, though what with, I wasn’t sure. The thing was nearly waist high. A good kick wasn’t going to do a lot of good, especially if it latched on to my leg in the process.

  Loud screaming interrupted the quiet setting. Nothing ran behind me. Once again, I was alone in the field.

  Breathing heavily, though not nearly as winded as I should’ve been after my panicked sprint, I slowed to a stop and looked back. The screaming died away, but not abruptly. It wasn’t a death-rattle sort of situation. Hopefully that meant the guy had gotten away.

  “Don’t go that way,” I murmured with a curt nod. “Note taken.”

  This time I set off across the field. There wasn’t much room to get lost when you could visually see the whole area. Even so, I worked on memorizing the trees, trails, and foliage. On the other side, the tree blind wasn’t so severe. Pockets of grass were interspersed with the bushes and trunks, creating little pockets of visibility.

  Treading cautiously, trying to look everywhere at once while also listening for any little thing, I stuck to the grass area. That last trail had led me straight into danger. Maybe the grass was the better way to go. There was no telling if mental warfare was afoot. Best to try everything.

  A bush shivered, that strange sort of vibrating thing they did, but then fell still. In a moment, it shivered again, movement meant to trick the eye into glancing its way.

  I’ve got your number, you filthy animal, I thought, inching my way past a tree trunk. The surface was smooth, with little flakes of brown sliding down the surface.

  Odd.

  A trail cut in front of me. No one was on it.

  Continuing on, I increased my pace a little. A glance back said I was still moving in a straight line. The field was behind me. Must remember that.

  Fat lot of good that would do me if something spun me around.

  The next trunk looked the same as the last. And the next after that. They were all about the same size and shape, with bushes in between, and grass. Nothing noteworthy stood out. My desire to catalogue landmarks ended here. Not good.

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  A rustling noise caught my attention. Once again, I braced, in flight mode. There were no heroes among cowards and no smart dead men.

  That didn’t make sense, but I didn’t care. It would have to do.

  A woman who appeared to be in her forties wandered around a tree. She was bent and wary, and she held a wooden sword at the ready. She wore the same outfit I did, and she was also equally without shoes and had her hair tied back.

  It belatedly occurred to me that the guy I’d seen had been wearing the same thing, including the sports bra. We were all dressed the same.

  She noticed me way too slowly and startled. Her wooden sword swung my way, held in a white-knuckled grip by a shaking hand.

  “Stay back,” she demanded, jutting the sword out a little.

  I put my hands up. “Whoa, hey. I’m not going to hurt you. I mean…you’re the one with the sword, right? What is this place, do you know? Where are we?”

  “I took this, it’s mine!” She shook the sword at me. “It’s mine!”

  I raised my hands a little higher. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, I get it. No problem. I think I’ll stick with running away in shame.” That sword would not help against one of those toad things. I wonder if she’d seen one. “What—”

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  “I think we’ve established that I’m not the dangerous one right now. Only one of us is armed. Do you know where—”

  She cried out in panic or frustration or fear—I couldn’t tell which—and threw the sword at me. She turned and sprinted away through the trees. I tried to get out of the way, but the sword thwapped me in the arm and fell to the ground.

  I stared after her in dismay as I bent to pick up the sword.

  “Well…that’s a choice, I guess,” I said into the following silence.

  The mock weapon had a round pommel at the end of a carved grip with little grooves. The guard was just big enough for my hand and the “blade” ended in a dulled point. I’d be able to beat something with it, but unless the creature was small and fragile, this thing wouldn’t do much good.

  Still, it was a weapon. Sometimes we needed a prop to help us feel tough.

  Onward I trudged through the trees. The path wound between two…cedars, maybe, or some made-up thing that looked like a cedar, before veering away left. I avoided the trail, slipped through the trees, and saw light ahead.

  Slowing, so as not to get mesmerized by alien disco lights again, I snuck toward one of the smooth trunks.

  A field stretched out in front of me with a couple of the landmarks I’d memorized.

  “Monkey balls,” I said under my breath, sighing as I stepped into the same field I’d started in. “How the hell did that happen?”

  I glanced behind me into the trees before looking out at the field again.

  I swore I’d been going straight the whole time. I’d veered and had to wind around a tree or two, but it wasn’t like I’d turned around. How the hell had I managed to completely double back?

  Annoyed and wondering if maybe someone else had landed in this field and could help me figure out where I was supposed to be going, I looked around. Shouting caught my ear. Two figures stood on the other side of the field near another tree blind.

  I started toward them. I didn’t know why they were shouting, but I had a sword. Maybe they’d chill out once they saw I was packing heavy.

  Huffing a laugh—if you couldn’t make fun of yourself, you were in trouble—I picked up the pace. As I walked, I scanned the area for anyone else. Empty. People must’ve dropped here in batches. Or had been placed here in batches?

  Where was here?

  The figures came in better focus as I drew near. My heart picked up pace.

  An older woman, probably in her mid-sixties, yelled at a younger woman around my age. The younger woman had dark brown, curly hair pulled back at her nape, curvy hips, a filled-out sports bra, and a face I’d seen just last night.

  “Oh my god, Kym!” I broke into a jog and then a run. “Kym!”

  She turned toward me. It was her. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “Kym!” I shouted again, gratitude and terror choking me in equal measure.

  The same emotions crossed Kym’s face, followed by relief. “Quinn!”

  We ran toward one another. The older woman yelled something, then screamed. I skidded to a halt, sword raised in alarm.

  The older woman hurried away.

  Kym barreled into me, hugging me tightly. “Oh my God, what the hell is going on?”

  I pulled away, looking in the direction of the woman again. “Do I look weird or something?”

  Kym scanned me. “No? Why? Quinn, what the hell is this place? What—” She closed her eyes and held out her hands. “Must not panic. We are working on mindfulness. We are working on calmness. We are working on not freaking out and sinking down into a crouch and rocking while singing ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).’”

  “I just met a woman in the woods back”—I turned and pointed—“there that was afraid of me even though she had a sword. It was wooden, but still. See?” I held it up, drawing her somewhat dazed notice to it. “Then she threw the sword at me and ran away. Now that woman, who has no problem yelling at you, just ran away screaming. What’s the deal? Do I have dirt and blood on my face or something? Do I still look like me?”

  Kym’s eyes focused, but I could see the simmering panic in their depths. Even so, her lips tweaked into a crooked smile. “Trust you not to be scared out of your mind right now.”

  “I skipped freaking out and went right into survival mode, I think. I’m not sure I can get a fire going, but I will do my best to erect a lean-to. What are you doing here? Where is here?”

  “I…” Kym dropped her hands in despair. “I don’t know. I saw a freaking…plane…thing in the air. A UFO, if we want to put a name on it.” She looked at me with a delirious, comical expression.

  “U-ap, the kids are calling it,” I said.

  She let out a breath. “I saw a thing hovering in the air. Just hovering there, minding its own business, and that reminded me of our conversation.”

  “Freaking Harold.”

  “Yeah, freaking Harold! He has a big ‘I told you so’ in store for us. And then I knew it had noticed me. It hadn’t moved, but…”

  “I know. I felt the same thing. Margie said the same thing. But they didn’t take Margie. She got a picture and then sauntered on her way. Probably the haircut.”

  “What?”

  “Margie cut her own hair, and it’s bad. Like, real bad.”

  Kym ran her hand down her face. “The thing had these, like…twinkle lights. I swear, I just stared at it for a while. Just freaking stared.”

  “I did, too.” I told her about the deer-in-the-headlights association.

  She nodded. “We probably look like idiots when we do that. I snapped out of it and ran.”

  “Margie didn’t run.” I chewed my nail. Despite my bad habit of chewing them down to the nub, they were all “normal” length again. I got to start all over again. Joy. “Maybe if we didn’t run, they wouldn’t have bothered with us?”

  “But then how do you explain the people getting plucked out of their living rooms? Assuming that is true?”

  I gave her a poignant stare. “We can now assume everything Harold has told us is true. I don’t care how far-fetched, we will listen to Harold.”

  She spat out a laugh. “If only Harold had more information on what happens after people get abducted. Are we in underwear to be probed or something?”

  I laughed, having had the same thought, then sobered. It was still a good question. “Come on. Let’s not be easy pickin’s.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We need to look around and see if we can figure anything out about this place. All we have are questions. We need to look for answers.”

  “Okay, well.” She was breathing heavily and clearly fighting panic. She gestured behind her at the tree line. “I went that way first. There isn’t much space before a sort of optical illusion wall. It looks like the woods keep going, but there’s a strange, invisible barrier. I followed it for a while, but it never let up. No doors or cracks or anything. The surface was entirely smooth.”

  I nodded, peering through the trees. “Then this place isn’t natural. Someone—or something—must’ve built it. It’s an enclosure of sorts, which explains the flat colors and look-alike natural scene made from”—I studied the ground and the velvet-feeling grass—“stuff.”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction I’d come.

  “Come on.” I let her go as she started walking with me. “Remember in that bar brawl in Arizona when you threw cue balls at anyone coming at me from the sides or behind?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got good aim. Your brothers were adamant I didn’t throw like a girl. I was guarding your back.”

  “I hate that saying. It’s how someone looks when they don’t know how to throw. It’s not dependent on anatomy. I’ve seen plenty of non-sporty boys throw just like that. To this day!”

  “I know. You always had me prove it, remember? That’s how I got such great aim. I had to prove you right and hit naysayers in the face with whatever I was throwing.”

  “They deserved it.”

  “They brought it on themselves, deserving or not! Anyway, yes, I remember. What is your point? Find something to throw?”

  “Yes, but also, guard my six.”

  “Your six, huh? We’re going army?”

  “It sounds cool. You pay attention to what’s behind us. I’ll heft my useless sword and look menacing. I seem to be good at that. What was that woman yelling at you about, anyway?”

  “Oh, she was screaming at me that she did everything her grandson told her to. She stayed inside after dark, she watched for suspicious activity overhead, and she wore a tinfoil hat.”

  I glanced back at her. “A hat, really?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I have a feeling the grandson was yanking her chain and she didn’t know it. Little twerp. She woke up to the rumbling, everything went white, and here she is. It isn’t because we ran. They must’ve sought her out. Us out, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know why they chose us—”

  Hearing the panic in her voice, I stopped and gave her a tight hug. “It’s okay. We’ve got this.” I pulled back and grabbed her cheeks roughly. “We have got this, okay? We’ve been through some crazy stuff. We can make it through an alien abduction. Just another story, right?”

  A tear slipped out of her eye. “Okay.”

  “Courage, Kym. We survived my brothers. We can handle this.”

  She nodded in small jerks. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” I took my hands away. “Turn the fear into fuel for violence. If you see a monster… That’s a bad example. If you see a monster, run. But if you see… Just buck up. Stay mean.” We made it closer to the tree line I’d come from. “It now occurs to me why I’m freaking people out here.” I shrugged. “It got me a sword, at least. Silver lining.”

  “Wait…monsters?” Kym said in a small voice.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  Famous last words.