Queen

Chapter 5

Queen- chapter 5

The nausea was the first thing to come to her consciousness. It almost overwhelmed her but she managed to control the urge to go running to the trash can underneath the table. It was then she realized there was no table or trash can. There was nothing. Only white... space? She couldn't tell if she was floating, or standing. She felt no solidity beneath her feet. Her eyes couldn't focus on anything in the room (was there a room?) because there were no discernible shapes to look at. No creases from a wall meeting the floor, no outlines of furniture, no shadows. She looked down at her body and saw only ripples of her lab coat. She looked like a cheap toy hologram you'd find in a kid's happy meal. The thought of experiencing nausea yet having no physical stomach made her head pound even more. Then it occurred to her she didn't have a head to make a headache either.

"For what purpose are you containing me?"

The voice wasn't a voice entirely, more like a suggestion whispered from within her mind. She had to remind herself she didn't have a mind right now either, at least she didn't think so. This had to be some sort of dream, she must have passed out from the fatigue. She wondered if her co-workers had found her head down, drooling on the table yet.

"You are not experiencing consciousness as you know it right now."

Nanette realized the voice sounded female to her. She also realized she had not said a damn thing out loud. "No mouth, remember?" she said to herself with a chuckle.

"No, we are not meeting in the body. I am not clear on what is happening to me either. I have no memory of coming to your place of containment, nor who took me from my home. I have not been able to communicate effectively with any of your kind yet, if they understood me as you do now, they did not engage with me. You are the first I have been able to reach."

It slowly dawned on Nanette that she was not dreaming, but joining. She would regain consciousness and understand she had not been sleeping. "Where are you? Or I guess I should ask do you know where you are? Do you know who I am? Are you human?"
The throbbing in Nanette's nonexistent skull was lessening by the second.

"I know I am in an area of isolation. Contained within what you call a room in a building, I woke to find myself restrained. I attempted to free myself, as a consequence your electrical systems ceased to function. After that as far as I can tell they have kept me unconscious."

Nan remembered the circuits in the building shorting and losing power for two whole days about a year ago. About the same time Spivey had approached her with the "mothman assignment" as it had come to be known since. She knew who she was talking to.

"You're alive somewhere?!" A sense of urgency overtook her. "I don't guess you have any idea how long you have been here do you?"

"No, but I don't measure time the same way humans do. I am alive in the sense that my physiological systems are still functioning. Other than that, I may as well be dead. Having the ability to communicate with you has given me a measure of hope."

Nanette's heart shattered. "I'm so, so sorry" was all she could muster from her empty space. She was flooded with more and more questions for this... entity. They multiplied exponentially with each passing moment. "Where are you from? What is your species? Are there others?" There was no end. She sensed the barrage of her inquiries was creating fatigue in the mind of her companion.

"I can show you the answers you seek. The verbal communication between us is draining my energy."

"Verbal?" thought Nanette "I didn't know we were actually talking, I don't have a mouth??"