Emily's Awesome Adventure 3

  Her mind is filled with the surreal, the impossible, like walking into a bad B-movie out of a horror movie. One day she fleeing for her life from things glaring at her in shadows and taunted by abominations against the very concept of a loving God, the next just as she is about to snap...there is a jarring shift in tone. A mad woman wielding a gun, other people...other people...in this place, one man, killed, and killed again given the evidence of her own demise and resurrection. Machine guns and grenades, followed by mutant zombie creatures, not unlike some games and movies she had played; so very different than the things that had menaced her the day before; perhaps not as different as she would think.

   It flashes over and over again, the snake, the squirrels, the shieking sound she so feared, she has finally seen it...and it had seen her. Swooped up like a rabbit by a hawk, to be carried off even God knows not where. Although she is not hooked by its talons which she can so plainly see even as her face is smooshed up against its scaley yet soft bosom. Hands like hooks, feet sporting three large clawed toes and a hook where an ankle should be, with its long tail trailing behind, a little red tuft on the end like some mockery. She grimaces remembering the televisions, the image of the half digested mass that was her unconcious body, the snake monster impaling its claws in what was her just to move her into a car, licking its claws clean. No doubt it wanted her awake, alive, for that...and intended to come back. She remembers the shriek and the snake on the metal box before; these two had fought over her...two predators fighting over a piece of meat.

  The wind is fierce, they are moving impossibly quick, she can't even turn her face to see where they are going as the air cuts into her eyes. She can see however that this thing is not flapping her wings, these wings are more like shadows in the shape of demon wings, but...they change as they slow down, the shadows become flesh and it flaps them as it rights its self and lands on a ledge, the balcony of some penthouse apartment as Emily turns to see. The creature effortlessly holds her with one arm as it parts some curtains and opens the glass door. It stands there upon its clawed toes and makes an odd, *clicking* sound, followed by an eagle like *shriek*, a few sniffs of the air, and then it walks inside fully and closes the curtains behind it.

  With a burst of adrenaline Emily screams and stuggles, and is dropped on the floor. She flees as far away as she can go...which is not far, in this lavish apartment...trashed..but lavish. The creature, this horned, dark haired dragon-woman creature just stands there with its azure eyes and blue lips like something beneath a mask upon a mask watching her. There are all sorts of furnature, far too heavy for Emily to lift stacked up in front of the front door. The kitchen is a mess, the fridge is missing its door, the cabinet doors have been ripped off and smashed, the toaster...reminds her of a styrofoam cup crushed in someone's hand. She pauses and...stops herself from looking back at the creature, she knows it was its hand that did this.

  She is left to walk about, something is wrong, she does not hear footsteps, nor breathing, or any indication she is anything but alone, making her jump when she turns and looks at the creature standing there looking directly at her. It stands impossibly still, still as a statue, its arms stiff at its sides, tail could be part of the carpet for how limp it is. Only its head moves, this dark thing with glowing eyes, as the light fades it is like a giant demonic shadow watching her. Those eyes seem like they alone could seer through her flesh. She turns and sees a den, a computer on a desk beside some chairs, a tv and VCR and piles of VHS tapes and DVDs, some propped up as if they were decorations.

  She turns and the creature is gone, she looks around frantically, trying to focus even on the spot where it had been standing, thinking perhaps it closed its eyes and became hard to see in the dim light. A stirring of the tapes and she finds the beast, moving about on all fours like a cat on the prowl it has come up right behind her, only alerting her to its location by touching those stacks of tapes. It makes a *purr* noise and in a flash it has grabbed her up again. Emily would try to resist, but something isn't right. It is not bitng, or clawing, or crushing her. This embrace is like a hug, and it is rubbing its cheek on her head *purring*. It holds its wings, with incredible flexibility like a cape around them both, its hook like thumb claws just by her throat, pressing her back against the creature's ample bosom.

  The beast carries her through the trashed apartment and into a room, here there are all manner of cushions, pillows, stuffed toys (the kind found in claw machines, stores, and even...pet stores), along with sheets and blankets. The creature *yawns* and falls onto the pile while holding Emily. It hurts, but not alot, not enough to even really complain about. It hugs her, and spoons her. It *yawns* again, and rests it cheek on her head, closes its eyes...and goes to sleep. Emily is left dumbfounded. In this dark room she too starts to drift to sleep.

   *****

   Emily is shaken awake, finding herself lying ontop of the creature, with only one arm around her. It has rolled onto its back in its sleep, its wings splayed across the room like two great sheets. Its wing twitches and it lets go of Emily, affording her the oppertuntity to slip off of he beast. She freezes up, crouched by its legs and thigh as its clawed arm scratches its wing and then gropes around...for her..the wing like a giant hand starts to fondle around as the creature's sleeping brow furles, its scoops up a long body pillow from the pile and flings it, just missing Emily, onto its self. It smiles as it hugs the body pillow. Emily ducks out of the way of its right wing foldeing over like a blanket, the monster sucking on its own wing thumb claw as the other wing also folds over. Emily on hands and knees slowly backs away, narrowly avoiding the swishing tail. For as still as it was before, it most certainly isn't while asleep. As she stands up in the doorway looking back at it, there is something cute...innocent even about this monster. She is almost tempted to curl back up with it, perhaps seeking a safety in this nightmarish place...she shakes her head and imagines...that this thing could be the thing that fought off the snake, perhaps even flipped a living train off its track; it could snap her in half by accident most likely.

   She slowly parts the curtain, in place of a door that according to the state of the frame it ripped off its hinges. She is reminded of the cryptid warnings about doors...surely though this thing wouldn't be bothered by the same things she would have to worry about. As she turns her back and creeps across creaky floor boards that seem louder than when the creature walked on them earlier, she does not see that the creature's azure glowing eyes are slightly open.

   ******

   The den is dark, the living room, the door to the balcony is closed. Something feels ominous about the blocked off entranceway giving Emily the impulse to give it a wide birth as she passes it.

  "Well," she thinks to herself, "I escaped the bedroom...so now what?"

  She walks over to the balcony and peers through the curtains, jumping at her own reflextion. Hand on her heart, she had expected some "jack in the box" monster to pop out and scare her. She undoes the very noisy latch and pries the door open, despte apperances it apparently was keeping out the sound of the city, which she now seems to be on the far edge of, that tallest building up on the hill she had seen from the hospital...which she knows as she can see the entire city, including the hospital from here. There are far more lights out there than she expected, but not nearly as much as a city should have, giving much of it under the full moon light an errie ghostly apperance. The hospital is completly lit up however, and she can make out a factory and a farm house some distance out of town, both with lights on, the factory though only the airtraffic lights. She hears screams, inhuman cries, and gunfire in the city and quickly closes the balcony.

   "What was I going to do...." she whispers to herself, "jump" she *sighs* and closes the curtains. A sudden breeze behind her makes her freeze up. Turning around there is nothing there, but her spine is tingling, and she has this horrible feeling of being watched. She looks directly at the curtain to the creature's nest...it looks exactly how she left it.

  She looks around and thinks, "has to be...something..."

  She eyes the computer, "No way...no fucking way that would work..."

  She goes over, realizes the monitor is just turned off, there are giant headphones hooked up to the speaker, and turns it on. It lights up the room brighter than she realized before monitors could and nearly freaks out staring directly at the curtain. Before she turns back and accesses the internet.

  "No way..." she says, "No fucking way....why would the aliens...this can't be right..."

  She can access Youtube, Deviantart, Google, Yahoo, the whole internet is there. She goes onto her facebook account and says she is fine, but doesn't know where she is...she is flabberghasted as almost immediatly the chat and post is bombarded with hateful comments from her friends and family about a heartless hacker, disrespectful, disgusting, death threats. When she tries to respond the site locks up and reports that "This Account has been Reported as Hacked and In-Active User and will be shut down."

   "What the fuck?" ponders Emily, she tries to make a new account to try and contact her mom at least but then it does something she is pretty sure it can't do and says, "Unauthorized Location for this Site, followed by a very weird, *Not happening, clever, but this won't happen again...prisoners don't get social media.*

  The screen starts to flicker, a pair of red eyes appear in the darkening monitor in her own reflection. A very deep growl from behind Emily however seems to scare the monitor back to normal. The creature is leaning over Emily, it with all the knowledge and ease disconnects the plugs in the back of the monitor. Picks it up over Emily's head, walks to the balcony, opens the door, and tosses it to the street below. It walks over to the desk where Emily is still sitting, its gaze looks be half asleep. Its claw is glowing with a ghostly blue light as it reaches into the computer tower...phases into the top of it and pulls of a blue clear holographic version of a monitor. It sets it on the desk. Without speaking it *snaps* its fingers and brings up Facebook on the screen. It makes an X-mark with its index finger across the screen, creating a blue X on the monitor, it takes the X off the screen, floating it in the air over its palm and compresses it to human hand size and slaps it on Emily's forehead. She grimaces as it burns, she can even hear it sizzling into her flesh. She looks up at the monster which actually raises its index finger, waving it and goeing *tsk, tsk*.

   The monitor solidifies and turns normal. Nothing odd about it.

   Emily stands, but is just as quicky scooped up by the creature, which carries her like before back to its room.

  "Hold on," says Emily, "what was that? How'd you do that? I know you can talk damn-it! The...the snake could talk!"

   As it enters the room, Emily red with anger shouts, "If you don't answer me I'm going to keep you up with constant screaming!"

  The creature actually emits a low *growl*. Emily's anger turns to terror as it raises its right hand, claw like index finger extended towards her throat, it however only taps on her voice box, a faint blue light flashing. Emily is horrified to find she can't speak...she actually looks up at the creature with pleading horrified eyes. The creature's expression on its quasi-human face shows that it is thinking, it smiles and taps her throat again, giving her back the power to speak.

   Emily whispers, "I...why?...I...just..."

   The creature puts its palm over her mouth and goes , "Shhh, Moe, Lei, Codladh, Cwsg, Suripu, Shuijiao, kiiiiiii....sleep."

  The creature falls over on the pile of pillows and other assorted plush and goes back to sleep, Emily firmly in its arms.

    ******

     Emily awakens as light shines through the curtain. She finds herself alone amongst the various plush toys, pillows, blankest, sheets, and in the light of day can even see some loofas and shower curtains as well as a few odd and end other toys like rubber ducks and such buried about the room. She gets up, she feels like she wants to eat but doesn't feel woozy or any pain from hunger, although thinking about it her apparently makes her stomach growl. She cautiously exits the room and creeps about the very large apartment. Everything is pretty much how it was the night before. In the kitchen she notices that there are a variety of junk foods in the cabinets, all seemingly just thrown in there, most with some missing a few cookies or such from their packages. Emily laughs despite her situation at how apparently the creature just folds over the packages to seal them instead of using any clips or rolling the ends as she had been taught. The fridge confuses her as to why it looks it the creature actually attackd it, claw marks all over it and dents.

   She snacks on a few potato chips, which taste like ordinary potato chips, nothing weird like bacon flavored lettuc or a coke can that has pepsi inside it, in fact the soda cans she found stashed in a corner of the pantry all taste like what they are labled as. She passes the entrance to the apartment, and just stares again at the boarded up and blocked up doorway. Her mind is filled with terrible ideas of what could be just on the other side, if this creature is the very same thing that fought off a snake monster that could rip through walls and push a heavy steel room through walls and shelves...and then its self also throw that same room onto a roof...not to mention derailing...which may count as defeating a train like creature...then what could possibly be in the rest of this building that it could be afraid would try to come in here.

   Emily shakes off the imagined horrors and finds her way to the living room, a simple old television sitting on an old entertainment center...which Emily just narrows her eyes at as she had seen the creature manifest a computer monitor out of thin air...and it has such an old television. She is about to reach for the on-button when she stops...she remembers movies of static and ghostly voices and things coming through televisions. She just crouches there staring at her darkened reflection...she remembers the monitor and red eyes, and quickly turns the tv on despite herself. A DVD/VCR combo player menu is on the screen. She looks about the various tapes...oddly they are mostly cheerful movies, various Disney cartoons, My Little Pony DVDs (mostly the original and newer show she is aware of), many different older cartoons especially those from the 1970's, and 1980's, with a bunch of old Looney Tunes, and various others she isn't familiar with, a bunch not even in English...., "what is...Asterix?" she ponders aloud looking at a cover with a little steriotypical viking character.

   She smirks, "This place likes to fuck with you..." remembering what the crazy woman with the gun said, "I bet these are like messed up Youtube parodies."

   "What the hell," she says looking around, "not like there is anything else I can do..."

   They are not, they are the normal products, the proper programs. She ends up spending a good chunk of the day sitting around watching cartoons, eating junk food, and drinking soda. As she is lying on the couch, having found the remote, and watching a dub of a Japanese cartoon she'd never seen before, heard of but never watched (Ranma 1/2)...she hears a whispering voice coming from somewhere in the apartment, too low to make out at first. She turns up the tv trying to ignore it. Unfortunatly it is the nature of a whisper to make people try to listen to it, even when they don't want to...she pauses the show and demands, "Who are you?...what...what do you want?"

   She listens and can distinctly hear a soft whisper, "Jump,"

   She can't make out where it is coming from as she gets up and looks around, the soft whisper continuing, "Jump...its the only way...go outside...jump...escape...jump..."

   She puts her ear on the wall, but the voice is not coming from inside the wall as she hears it somewhere in the apartment, "You did it...before...jump."

   She did, when stuck between zero options. She looks at the balcony door.

   The soft whisper is louder, "Yes...jump, escape, be free of her...yes...yes, yes, yes..."

   As she walks towards the balcony it grows louder and more earnest...but the voice is behind her. She stops.

   "You will...live," comes the voice softer this time, "jump...be...free..."

   Emily turns away from the balcony, "Where are you? What are you? Are you the thing that videotaped me?"

   "Jump...just...jump...be...freee..." the voice is a whisper but seems angry as Emily walks towards the bathroom, following the sound of the voice.

   Looking in the bathroom, it is...big, a jacuzzi tub, the mirrors are gone, as are their doors over the sink, and under it. Some rugs. As she steps inside she jumps as the voice is below her, "They...can help you...be with them...your own kind...be free."

  "What...what are you?" asks Emily again, her voice a shaky, "I...are you....are you the same thing..."

   "Yessss," hisses the voice, "I am....Eye on the Sky..."

   "I...what?" asks Emily, "Should I know what that means?"

   "No..." whispers the voice, "Not yet...we are friend to you...help you...poor people...not ready...to...stop..."

   Emily is lifting up the rug looking the source of the voice.

  "Not...ready," growls the voice, "Do what I tell you..."

  It is still a whisper, although an angry one. She finds a handheld mirror face down and picks it up. It is her reflection but it has red eyes and is moving differently than her.

   "I am your friend," it says.

   Emily screams in surprise and throws the mirror. It lands, on its side, facing her, by the doorway.

   "Oh shit," whispers Emily.

   "Yo...y...you...you're...you are the thing...in the...in the monitor..."

   "Yes," says the reflection, no longer in a whisper, "I am Reflections...I am all Reflections, as such I speak the truth...you are not the monster's first, nor its last. You will be its prisoner...its pet...its toy...perhaps even its meals...carving off chunks of flesh for its dinners, watch as you heal back so it can do it again, maybe even cook the chunks of your flesh...and share it with you."

  Emily wretches into the toilet, which flushes, she can feel the suction however, its like its trying to suck her in. She pulls back and away from the toilet, her back to the tub, it was the first...well third counting the monitor and this handheld mirror, oddity she has found in the apartment.

   "That is also an escape," says the reflection in the mirror, althrough it shouldn't be able to show her reflection at this angle the way it is, "pipes and drains are special here...but not the way you want to go...jump...it will only hurt a moment and then..."

   The toilet suddenly implodes.

   "What?" says the reflection, "I mean..."

  It pauses and whispers again, "You saw them...the people...they are like you...they will help you...I can help you...help them...but only if you let me help you to help....what...how are you here? You can't be in here! It impossib..."

   The reflection vanishes replaced by a black smokey image and somekind of four legged beast scrambling about as something bipedal attacks it, its word was cut off...followed by a hellish sound, something one may imagine could only be made by a tortured swine. Then the mirror is a mirror again, except the glass shakes. She can hear the windows shake out in the apartment, and the tv. She walks out, stepping over the mirror and back into the apartment.

   ******

   All across the city, every mirror, glass window, pair of glasses, camera, and anything with a reflective mirror like surface suddenly shakes. Those who would be armed in this place take notice of it, as does a certain blond woman sitting alone at a desk.

   At once her walkie, ham radio, and various other communication devices are going off, she knows what they want. She gets up and walks to the bathroom, turns off the lights and looks at her reflection, "Eye on the Sky...they are going to need answers...have anything on that...weirdly specific earthquake?"

   Her reflection does not change, it does not move differently, its eyes do not glow.

   "Eye on the Sky?" asks the woman again stepping closer the mirror, "Come on you...you've been helping me...help them, since...since I found you and that first walkie...so don't go backing out on me now..."

   Nothing, she turns her back on the mirror, "This place likes to fuck with you...what you just helped me...get good with these people...helped me escape to what!? Just bail on me you..."

  She turns and freezes up, the mirror is gone, its an opening, and there is standing the black and grey, blue eyes and lips, dark red hair and tail tuft, winged creature.

  "No..." whispers the blond woman turning to run, but is not fast enough as the creature lunges out and grabs her, pulling her into the hole. The lights flicker, and the light switch moves of its own accord, the mirror is normal again, reflecting only the wall. The office room is filled with the one sided chatter of walkies going off, "This is Hector come in," , "Come in Commander, this is Bob...I repeat come in...are you still there," , "This Ricardo...can you read me?" , "Pack Leader here...is your radio on channel four? Commander..."...

  ******

   Emily is in the middle of a musical number of Disney's Alladden when the balcony door opens, she actually pauses the movie and stands up, like a kid caught watching late night television. However she practically does a double take as the winged creature enters, holding another woman, a physically fit long haired blond who is struggling to break free. The winged creature lets her go. The woman gets her footing and points at the creature, "I'm just going to jump again bitch!"

  The creature steps aside the closed balcony door and gestures to it, Emily can hear a latch locking.

  "Like I can't just break the glass," says the woman.

  The creature actually slams the side of its fist into the glass, Emily expecting it to shatter, instead a blue energy wave cascades over it.

   The blond woman actually crosses her arms and scrunches up her face, "Bitch...well how about..."

  She gestures at the barracaded door, "Uh..."

  She *gruffs* and walks away, "Never mind...but you they'll wander what happened to me! I won't just be...another...we lost one..."

  She shakes her head, "They need my help and...Eyes on the Sky."

  The creature lets out a very menacing growl that makes both the blond woman and Emily freeze up. It sniffs the air and walks directly to the bathroom.

   "Wait..." says the blond woman, "its not..hold on..."

   She stops and looks around, she stops and looks at Emily who just *shrugs* the woman looks perplexed and looks back and forth and is thinking really hard about something.

  Emily is about to speak when the woman says, "Wait...its the same nest...this is the same nest I was in...why'd it tell me its not? Of course I could find your nest...I jumped from that fucking window...and..."

  The creature storms past her, not as preternaturally fast as they both know it can move, making a show instead of its presence, and holding the mirror. It stops and holds the mirror in its hand.

  "Eyes on the Sky..." whispers the blond woman, "You couldn't...I mean its me...isn't...wait..."

  "The other person," whispers Emily, "that it mentioned."

  The blond woman is wide eyed and looks directly at Emily, "It spoke...to you...too?"

  The creature smashes the mirror into the floor where it erupts in black sulfuric smoke. The smoke clears and reveals a black boar with monkey legs and feet, a long horse like tail, short curled horns like the tails of a pig made into horns, and cloven goat hooves for front legs which most certainly do not belong on a boar. The feminine creature grabs the boar-thing by the back of its neck causing it to *squeel* despite being apparently dead. She gestures at the door, making it open on its own and carries the thing outside. Its bulging ram eyes open and one looks directly at the blond woman. It starts to make a soft laughing sound through its *gurgles* and foaming mouth and says, "Stupid bitch," with that the she-creature tosses the boar-abomination from the balcony. She enters, the door closing behind her just missing her tail, making her pause and look back briefly in annoyance. She looks sternly at the blond woman and raises her claw, pointing at the barricaded door.

  The blond woman actually starts to tear up as she whispers, "you...want me to leave?"

  The creature makes a *clicking sound* and shakes its head.

  The blond woman softly says, "where I found the mirror...when I...tried to...through there..before you...blocked it up when you found me...it showed me...them...the people I spoke to on the walkie...I..."

  She starts to tear up again, "I missed people...I just...want to go home."

  The creature grabs up the woman in a hug, gently petting the top of her head. The creature looks over at Emily and carries the woman to her, where she picks up Emily as well, the two women practically face to face, and faces smooshed into the creature's boobs.

   "Oh..." says the blond woman in a very different and snarky change of tone, "She got a second cat...wait..you're the new arrival Becky saw...the one..."

  She stops short as the creature sets them on their feet, her claws on their shoulders through, and her wings wrapping down around them, a big smile on her draconic face.

  "When she grabbed you newbie," says the blond woman, "I figured she gave up looking for me...and got a new cat.."

  She wipes a tear from the edge of her eye, "second cat...go figure."

   "Sorry," says Emily, "but..how..Becky...was that...that woman?"

  "Oh right," says the blond woman, "we didn't get proper introductions, name's Vicky, I used the call sign Commander when I talked to people...used to call myself major back home...shit..."

  The woman stops, "heard you had a rough time of it...Hector's team said they saw you spit out half digested by that Naga and left in a car for later...shit..."

  The winged creature's grip suddenly tightens and it looks at Vicky and then at Emily, its eyes glowing as it looks directly into Emily's own, causing Emily to vividely remember the roof top, the jump, waking up in the car, seeing the footage, up to the creature swooping down and grabbing her. The creature releases them both from her claws and wings and makes a very angry cat-growling sound before turning and exiting the balcony door, which closes behind and flying off into the twilight sky.

   Vicky crosses her arms and laughs, she looks back at Emily, "Ya'know right before she set us down I was going to say, hey arn't you the girl the snake vomited up, but I thought, she clearly wanted us to get that awkward pets meeting thing done..so yeah, give her that...ya'know, extra guilt trip when she finds out the neighbors dog had been chewing on her cat."

   "Uh...okay," says Emily before smirking, "Hope she kills that fucking snake..."

   "There is no death," says Vicky sitting on the couch, "hey...don't tell me you marathoned all day."

  She looks at the obvious (watched pile) Emily was making, "What didn't like Ranma one half? Looks like you only watched the first tape...did you at least watch all thirteen episodes on it? Damn...forgot that I actually missed having these around..."

   "Um," says Emily, "what...what's going on here? I seriously have only been here like two days, I guess today makes three..."

   "She grabbed you yesterday," says Vicky eating some potato chips, "So....I have no idea. The others like to do that exposition...bull shit exposition, like they'd fucking know right right? When they find new arrivals. She does this lab thing in the living room, hologram looking stuff that turns real, one day she makes some walkies and other such things. When she's not looking I grabbed one. I kept it hidden, but it was only one way...I could hear all these other people, out there fighting...I never saw anyone else. I showed up here at a farm house...zombies everywhere...I honest to...I honestly thought it was the zombie apocalypse."

  Emily sits down and blushes a little and nods.

  "You...showed up in that new hospital that just got added out there...used to be some creepy playground right there from what I heard."

   "So wait..." says Emily, "you arn't the person that left the cryptid messages on things?"

   Vicky raises an eyebrow, "yeah...guess I can't blame you on that one, I thought the first person I spoke to was behind that sort of stuff too, like a message carved in a tree that read...and I swear, it said the roots can smell your blood, and these cryptic paper notes nailed to trees...then one day...well...let's say I didn't go to the city...I went the opposite direction. I cut through the fields, figured it was a zombie apocalypse, avoid cities...but one day I run into this giant....I guess a worm crossed with a slug or something and then she swoops out of no where, grabs me up, and brings me back here...damn..."

   She picks up the Ranma 1/2 DVD case and looks at it.

   "Okay," says Emily, "so..."

   "You did watch all the episodes on here right?" asks Vicky.

   "What?" asks Emily.

  Vicky leans in close and gives her a stern expression, "I know some people are turned off by the first few episodes...but it gets really good."

   "Ye...yeah," says Emily, "I watched the whole DVD, I just wanted to watch something else for a break...I can't watch just one show all day..."

   "Good," says Vicky, "because we are so marathoning the rest of it,"

  She looks at the still paused tv, "with breaks between discs, yeah I can see that. The show gets really good."

  She grabs up some more potato chips, "man I missed this."

  Emily stops and thinks before asking, "Can...can I ask you why you ran away then?"

  Vicky swallows the chips, smiles, gets up and gets a soda, takes a swig and sits back down, "Okay..." she says, "story time...but first...look around."

  Emily looks around, she can see the den, kitchen, the large space by the balcony, there is the curtain room, the bathroom, and apparently two other curtain rooms she hasn't been in yet.

  Vicky then asks, "Back when you were...home...how long have you stayed in your...house...apartment...whatever you had."

   "House," says Emily, "and...huh...I don't really know."

   "Not for days at a time," says Vicky, "I bet, unless you went to jail or joined the military I doubt...did you?"

  "No," answers Emily.

  "Okay, then I doubt you know the feeling of being trapped somewhere." says Vicky, "But those things have other people around. Never just stayed in your house, not able to leave...for days...by yourself, cut off...honestly I think I snapped...after I got the walkie...it was one way...I could hear them...tried to imagine their...adventures...I actually thought of it like..."

  She gestures to the movies, "This is all fiction, mostly animated...which I oddly never noticed before...huh....I wanted to go out...I would be here all alone when she left...and well..."

  She looks forlorned, "When she grabbed me that first time, I thought she was going to eat me, kill me, went through a phase where I thought it was Hanzel and Gretle situation, but then I started to think maybe she wanted a friend...a...lover..."

   Emily blushes as Vicky says, "she always reacted to my attempts like they were cute...no matter what I tried...or she did...but...it dawned on me one day, I was a pet...a kinky pet...well...maybe more than just a pet...the taboo didn't seem to really be there ya'know...like it wasn't something she'd be ashamed of and seemed to encourage...but...not an equal."

   "An alien love slave?" asks Emily, causing Vicky to pause, making Emily think she might react hostile to the comment before Vicky laughed in her throat, "love it...no...a slave...does it look like anyone works around here? No a slave would be forced to do stuff...she never...wow...she never really did force anything from me...which is closer to the pet thing...that and being disciplined...its like she views herself as superior..."

   "She can talk," says Emily while taking this in.

   "Eh," says Vicky, her nonchalant response now what Emily was expecting, "I mean sure they understand what we say to them, but you get this...vibe ya'know, when they talk like they have to focus on slowing it down or dumbing it down, they even cycle through different languages...not even correctly at times from what I got from it."

   "aliens," says Emily.

   "Sure," says Vicky, "a bunch of the guys think we're in Hell...some Matrix style program, or limbo...or whatever, its not like any of us ever got the devil or grim reaper or st. peter treatment with a trial or explination...hell I'd love a fucking manual to this place."

   She sips her soda, "so...we going to finish this movie before she gets back or what? She comes back at random hours...sometimes not till dawn, but when she's back she likes to cuddle as she goes to sleep...damn...pillow slave."

  Both women burst out laughing.

  Emily is about to reach for the remote when Vicky says, "Oh right, my backstory...okay long story short...one day I actually went out the front door, this building looks the nest from the movie Aliens...I swear...its an H.R. Geiger painting, museum, bar, thing out there...just without the evil babies stuff I guess...more the walls look alive and mechanical...and a shiny black...and stuff....there is always stupid stuff everywhere...well I found that mirror in a creepy looking bathroom in...another apartment. It looked totally normal, there was this other thing, a spider thing...but she showed up, threw fucking lightning at it, and seemed to talk to it in this really fast crazy language, before bringing me back."

  Vicky gestures to the barracade, "which was when she did that, manifested half that shit...after doing that magic lock the door shit, like a big fat...don't do that again. Well long story short, one day I am watching Beauty and the Beast, and I out of boredom immitate that mirror bit...and shit..it actually showed me the other people, before too long when the lady of the house was out I'd be talking to it, I figured I'd snapped and knew it, but it told me how to repair the radio to talk to them...went by Commander, they refered to me as a Loner, some folks prefer to stay apart, some sob story about a village they made in the city that attracted the big shit to smash it up...idiots, make yourself obvious in a den of monsters, of course the ant eaters are going to attack the ant mound...heh...that was fucked up even for me."

   Vicky *shrugs*, "that is pretty much it, thanks to the talking reflection, going by the name Eye on the Sky, we provided them with useful intel, I could even see through the mirror and watch in more real time...but...I was still here...that's when it told me to jump...escape...go and help my own kind and...."

  Vicky can see the expression on Emily's face, "It...skipped right to that stuff with you didn't it?"

  Emily nods

  Vicky laughs, "This place likes to fuck with you...it figured that part got to me, so goes straight to that with you...well about a week ago, I did it, knowing you can't really die here...just hurt a shit ton, I jumped. But I didn't want to just run to them...I had cultivated this mystique ya'know...also couldn't explain my....well what I thought was some psychic power I'd developed...I had hidden the mirror...but while she was taking a bath...it had talked to me through the tv...so...forgot about it...so the magic item thing didn't seem right anymore...I can't believe I was tricked...played like that by some fucking...pig...thing...."

   Vicky starts to cry.

  Her tears interrupted by the sound of a musical number on the tv as Emily started the movie back up. Vicky smiles and says, "thank you..."

  As she leans back Vicky whispers, "get a second pet."