by Zara Zenia
The forest continued right in front of her—she could see it. But her hands were pressed against a solid, unmoving wall. She pressed her head against it like she could shove through it the same way she had pushed through the briars. With her face against it, she could see the tiny pixels that made up the image of the false forest. She couldn't see a hint of them from even a foot away. But it was some kind of video screen. A projection on an otherwise immobile wall. That was why the sky seemed too close. She wasn't outside. She was in a room.
Her heart thudded in her chest and her breath raced so quickly that she stumbled out of the thorns, feeling them stab into her bare feet and snag on her coat, and collapsed at the foot of the closest tree, her breathing in wheezing, panicked gasps. She couldn't get enough air. Her chest felt like it was in a vise. She didn't understand what was happening and she wanted out.
She sat there on her knees, head pressed to the too-uniform grass, fighting to breathe.
“Okay.” She wheezed. “Okay, okay, okay. Pull it together. You can’t do this right now, you can’t—”
She forced herself to take deep, shaking breaths, gripping the grass with both hands like it could anchor her to the earth. As soon as she could breathe again, her panic only barely contained, she started moving.
She walked directly back the way she'd come, passing her abandoned shoe in the meadow. Ten minutes in the other direction, she found another wall, exactly the same as the first. She stood in front of it for only a moment, biting her lip as she mastered the fear clawing at her insides. She turned around and walked back to the meadow and went right this time. Ten minutes away was a false cliff looking out on a view of a mountainside that didn't make sense with where she'd just come from or with itself. It was too sculpted.
Someone had designed this view, and it was someone who didn't spend a lot of time looking at mountains. The wall was a foot away from the edge of the 'cliff'. When she lowered herself over the edge, she found a ledge a foot down and couldn't go any further. She climbed back up and charged back toward the center of the meadow. In the opposite direction, there was a river. Without a moment's hesitation, she plunged into it and waded across. The center was deep enough that she needed to swim. On the other side, she made it about two feet up the bank before she hit another wall.
“Oh, come on!” she shouted, then sobbed and sank down against it, shivering and crying. She was trapped. She didn't know what was happening, but she was in some kind of massive, impossible room. It had to be more than a mile across, maybe a mile and a half. And the technology involved in the screens on each wall and the ceiling were beyond anything she'd ever seen. Whoever had done this had access to money and technology she couldn't imagine. It had to be the government. It couldn't be a private citizen, not with resources like this.
What did they want with her? What was the purpose of this artificial forest in all its absurd almost-but-not-quite-perfect detail? Was she in some kind of 'Most Dangerous Game' situation? Was she about to be hunted for sport? Or was it a social experiment to see how long she could be isolated in this idyllic semi-wilderness before losing her mind? They must be really disappointed in how fast she was succumbing to a breakdown.
“Fine,” she said with a sniff as soon as she had herself under tenuous control again. “Fine. So I’m trapped. I’ll find a way out. If it’s a room, it must have a door somewhere. I’ve just got to find it.”
So she started walking again. This time, she stuck to the wall, feeling her way along its surface. It was slightly warm and as smooth as an LCD screen. But if she'd been put in here, there had to be a way out, and chances were good it was along one of these walls. If it was in the ceiling or at the bottom of the damn river or something, well, she'd figure that problem out when she came to it.
An hour slipped into two as she slowly worked her way around the outside of the room, carefully feeling every inch of the wall she could reach, looking for any change in the smooth, seamless texture of the walls. She found the corner, which was smoothly rounded off into the next wall, and kept going. This was the thorn bush wall, and she would have to either push through the thorns or lean over them to continue feeling the wall.
“Well that’s going to suck for a good mile and a half,” she muttered to herself, already feeling tired as she leaned over the thorns to put her hands on the wall. “I’m never going to look at blackberries the same way again after this. Roses can fuck off too. In fact, I’m moving to New York. I don’t want to see another tree again in my life.”
She made very slow progress until the wall curved again into the cliffside wall. Her back hurt from leaning over the thorn bushes and she was covered in scratches, so she lowered herself down to the ledge over the side of the false cliff just so that she wouldn't have to bend over the gap in order to reach the wall. The gap was not very large, only about a foot, maybe a foot and a half across. Jewel took a deep, shaky breath, her hands on the wall, her back scraping along the cliff.
“Sure, why not?” she croaked in exhaustion. “This is the perfect time to develop claustrophobia. It’ll go great with my new aversion to trees and thorny plants. If I keep this up, I’ll have the full set in no time.”
The ledge under her feet was as invisible as the walls. That wasn't pleasant either, looking down and seeing the empty air under her. She focused her eyes directly ahead of her as she felt for a seam, an edge, anything that might lead to a way out.
The 'sun', the false circle of light in the fake sky, had moved since she'd woken up. It had been more or less directly overhead when she'd first noticed it and had been moving in a perfectly straight line as though on tracks ever since, progressing slowly toward the cliffside horizon. Jewel imagined it must rise over the river. She wasn't looking forward to finding out what happened at night in this eerie place.
The sun had slid onto the wall in front of her by the time she was halfway down it. It hung above her head, white and ominous, while the wall under her hand turned orange and red, trying to imitate a sunset.
Suddenly, a chime rang out, a gentle two notes like an airplane letting you know the Fasten Seat Belts light was on. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once and startled Jewel so badly she banged her head against the cliff. Swearing, she turned around and raised herself up to look over the cliff’s edge.
There was a pile of fruit lying a few feet from the cliff on a picturesque rock. Apples and bananas and mangos, as carefully arranged as though she'd just interrupted a still life painting class. There was even a bundle of grapes artfully draped over the edge.
“Well, that’s not suspicious at all,” Jewel scoffed, scanning the trees for any sign of whoever had left it.
Were they trying to get her to stop fussing with the walls by tempting her away with food? She was hungry but she wasn't that hungry. Shaking her head, she got back to feeling her way along the wall. This did confirm one thing at least. Someone was watching her. There were people on the other side of these walls. She didn't know if she found that reassuring or terrifying.
She'd barely gone another few feet before the chime sounded again. Apprehensive, she peeked over the cliff edge. The fruit was back, but much closer to the cliff’s edge this time, like it thought she hadn't noticed it before. With an annoyed grunt, she grabbed and apple and chucked it as hard as she could into the trees.
“Not interested!” she yelled after it, still wondering how the hell they were delivering it. She would have heard people walking that close to her, and there was no sign of any people in the room. Unless they were as invisible as the walls. Not a comforting thought.
She shoved the rest of it off into the grass, then turned around and went back to her wall. The chime sounded again, three notes this time, more insistent. She didn't even bother to look. Suddenly, her fingers caught on something. She laughed in unexpected delight.
“Fuck you and your spooky room!” she declared, turning back briefly to flip the bird at the fruit scattered on top of the cliff. “I found the d
oor!”
She hooked her nails into the edge and pried at it with all her might. It didn't budge, but that was fine. She'd found it now and it wouldn't be getting away from her. She fumbled for a bit of rock from the cliff and started chipping at the screen, pleased when she saw the dark furrows the rock dug into the digital surface. She pulled at the tiny edge she'd found, wiggling the rock under it until she'd made a gap big enough to fit her fingers in. She laughed triumphantly and started pulling harder, yanking with all of her strength. It wasn't quite enough, but it would be.
She made sure the rock was securely holding the gap open, keeping her spot marked, then she climbed out of the gap, practically tripping over the banquet that had been somehow dropped in front of the cliff. How the hell were they doing that? Was it coming in from the ceiling? Even if they were invisible, they’d also have to be silent and fast as hell. But here was another ridiculous selection of fruits. And was that a honeycomb? She ignored it all anyway, squashing a banana as she ran to the nearest tree, leaping up into the crook and onto one of the lower, smaller branches, throwing her weight onto it to drag it down until it snapped. It was green so it twisted and splintered instead of breaking cleanly.
She had to drag at it and work on it for a bit before it came loose. Her hands were raw by the time it finally gave. Then she dragged it back toward the cliff’s edge, tearing off leaves and twigs as she went. She dropped back into the gap and shoved the thinner end into the space between the seam and the wall. She gritted her teeth, hands burning as she worked it as deeply in as she could. Then, finally, she planted her feet on the cliff and her back against the wall and began pulling with all the strength in her legs, using the branch as a lever. She heard the plastic and metal of the door groaning and splintering. She took a vicious satisfaction in the sight of the screen webbing with cracks.
Finally, there was a snap and the panel flew open. She dropped to the floor and rushed through, half afraid it would snap closed before she could make it. The hallway on the other side was dark, and her eyes struggled to adjust to the change in elevation. She was still holding the branch, clutching it like a bat, as the hall suddenly opened up.
She was briefly dazzled by the sight of a massive room, bigger than a football stadium, the walls sloping up and covered in glass windows. And then something loomed up in front of her, so suddenly she shrieked. She thought it was a man at first glance, but so much taller and broader than any human she'd ever met. And then she noticed the blue-purple skin and the high forehead sloping into long, tapering tendrils instead of hair. She caught a brief glimpse of golden eyes in black sclera, wide and staring at her. Then she slammed the branch into its face. It broke in half, splintering green shards, and the creature barely moved at all.
Then it hissed, tentacles rising around its face like snake tails. Jewel shrieked, utter terror rushing through her like ice in her veins, and she stumbled backward, back into the hall she'd come from. The creature surged forward after her and, screaming, she turned and ran back into the fake forest, scrambling up the cliff and into the grass. The creature followed as far as the door. Leaning through it to glare at her, it said something aggressive in a strange, purring language. Then it grabbed the broken door and slammed it closed again.
Jewel lay on her back in the grass, watching the broken door, waiting for it to open and that thing to come in after her. Instead, after maybe a minute, the broken panel began healing, repairing itself before her eyes. Within moments, there was no sign that it had ever been damaged. She heard a whirring noise. When she dared to edge closer to the cliff, she found the invisible ledge had been raised and was now level with the top of the cliff. She edged away again, still cautiously, watching the place the door had been in case it opened. It didn't. She retreated into the trees. The fruit had vanished.
She didn't stop walking until she'd reached the meadow in the center of the room again. Her shoe was still there, waiting in the grass. She fell down next to it, almost exactly where she'd woken up.
"What the hell was that?" she muttered aloud, into the grass. It had to have been someone in makeup. Or a robot maybe. There was no way it was real. There was no way it was actually what it looked like. Because what it looked an awful lot like was an alien.
Chapter 3
The fake sun continued to sink toward the horizon. A light summer rain began to fall. Jewel rolled over onto her back to stare at the ceiling, wondering how in the hell that was happening. At least the projection on the ceiling had turned appropriately gray and rainy. Jewel headed under the cover of the trees for some shelter and sat staring out at the rain. She was slowly coming down from the initial panic. Now it was time to plan.
"So here's what I know," she said to herself. "I've been taken. They probably snatched me right off the road. They do not appear to be human."
As much as she wanted to believe that was makeup and high-tech wizardry, things just didn't add up.
"They have put me in this . . . habitat?" she continued, wrinkling her nose at the pleasant park-like forest around her. "So I can assume they don't want me dead immediately. But they don't want me leaving either. So what do they want me for? Food? An experiment? A hostage?"
She had no way to confirm any of the possibilities so she shelved that question.
"Okay," she muttered. "They don't want me to get out. So that's goal number one. Can't try that door again, so . . ."
She stared up at the ceiling apprehensively. The rain only lasted about an hour. She got started as soon as it passed. First, she headed back to the cliff to find a few sharp rocks, chipping them against each other to make them sharper before she used them as improvised hatchets to break off another branch from one of the trees. The artificial moon, which rose from the riverside wall in the exact path of the sun, was full and bright, making things a little easier on Jewel as she located the tallest tree in the false forest and began climbing. She'd stripped the leaves and twigs from her branch and stuck it through the back of her shirt. The sharpened rocks were in her pocket.
She had to climb to the absolute highest branches that would support her to even get within reach of the ceiling. She wobbled dangerously on the highest limb of the tree as she pulled the branch from her shirt and jabbed it upward at the ceiling. To her delight, a panel of sky lifted away with only a little jostling, like the drop panel ceilings in a school. A dark crawl space opened beyond. The friendly chime sounded, much louder from this close to the ceiling, and Jewel looked down, suspicious.
There was the usual fruit again, and some kind of weird, brightly colored object that looked made of plastic. It was made of chunky, friendly looking tubes in the shape of a ball. A gently glowing smaller ball was inside the cage of tubes. Jewel bet it would jingle if she shook it. She was smart enough to recognize a toy when she saw one.
"Fuck you," she declared and climbed up into the crawl space. So they knew she was out again. She'd have to work fast. She shuffled along the dark, narrow space as quickly as she could, dragging her branch with her. She hadn't been crawling long before the tunnel ended. She peered out cautiously and realized she was back out in the arena space again. The tunnel she'd crawled through was one of many, not tunnels or vents as she'd supposed but gaps separating what she could only describe as modules, cubes with glass fronts which composed the walls of the vast room. As she watched, they shifted and rearranged according to some mysterious purpose. Some grew larger or smaller before her eyes. She dropped her stick over the edge and winced at the clatter it made. That had to be about twenty-five to thirty feet. This was going to suck. Slowly, she slid over the edge until she was hanging by her fingers, took a deep breath, and dropped.
She hit the ground hard and rolled instinctively, feeling the painful shock up her legs and the instant bruises everywhere as she slammed into the floor, which felt like metal but had a slight give like warm plastic. She lay on the ground for a minute, wheezing, as soon as she stopped rolling, mentally evaluating herself. Nothing broken, and her ankles
didn't feel sprained. Best-case scenario. Slightly dazed, she got to her feet.
Her module was in front of her. Its glass front must have been some kind of one-way mirror because she was looking through the riverside wall. She could see the churned up sand on the bank where she'd climbed out of the water not that long ago. She'd been lying against this very wall crying just a few hours earlier, on display for whomever this place belonged to. The thought caused a bloom of hot, shameful anger in her stomach, but she didn’t have time to be outraged right now. She needed to find a way out.
She stumbled away from her module toward the others. Across from her, the glass looked in on a craggy, almost Martian landscape, the mountains and earth all in shades of purple and red. Some kind of strange blue grass was growing in sparse patches. As she watched, a herd of something that could only very loosely be described as horses galloped across the strange landscape, their too many clawed legs throwing dust clouds behind them in the strange desert landscape. In the module beside that, a massive furred creature, larger than an elephant and vaguely reminiscent of a sloth or an anteater, ambled slowly past large crystalline rock formations.
Another module was filled with a strange sea. The water had the wrong consistency, more like rubbing alcohol than the water she was used to, and it thronged with weird, half jellyfish-half nudibranch creatures that made Jewel dizzy to even look at. The modules seemed to go on forever in both directions. Her module alone was more than a mile wide, and some of the modules around her were even larger than that. Too confused and amazed to process what was happening, she began running, jogging past window after window into wonders she couldn't even imagine. Finally, the massive stadium curved toward an end point, and as that end came into view, Jewel felt her heart stop.
