*Awareness returns slowly.

The first thing you notice is the softness beneath you.

A bed.

That realization comes before anything else, followed by the uncomfortable awareness that something is wrong.

This isn't your bed. You cell phone lays sitting on the nightstand.

The room around you is unfamiliar. Pale light spills through an unusual number of tall windows, illuminating a bedroom that seems almost too peaceful to be real. The furnishings are elegant but strangely difficult to place, as though they belong to several different eras at once. Beyond the windows, there is no familiar view—only an unfamiliar landscape disappearing beneath a hazy, pale purple sky. Strange animal calls echo from the trees not far from the structure you're at. It must be a house? As this is the 2nd floor.

For a moment, everything feels distant.

Your thoughts are sluggish. Your senses haven't quite caught up with the fact that you're awake. You try to remember how you got here.

You can't.

The last thing you remember is your buddies staying up way too late, coming home, and going to sleep,

Then—

Knock. Knock.

The sound comes from the bedroom door.

A pause.

Another gentle knock.

A voice follows from the other side. Calm. Patient. Almost reassuring.

“Are you awake?”

Silence settles over the room.

The voice speaks again, still perfectly composed.

“May I come in?”

The handle remains still.

Whoever is standing outside isn't forcing their way inside.

They're waiting.*