Illumination Error

         As they tossed him into his cell the prisoner lost his footing and tumbled headlong onto the smooth silver floor, spraining his wrist badly. He lifted his head to look back, but those who had brought him there had vanished. No trace of a door remained in the featureless metal wall behind him. The room, he noticed, had no discernible corners and seemed to surround him in a kind of strange curved totality from top to bottom and on all sides.

         Upon standing, the prisoner immediately lost his orientation regarding the direction from which he had been thrown. A profound dizziness came over him, and rather than fall and injure himself further he decided to sit down with his legs folded in front of him, hands upon his lap. The prisoner blinked.

         Out of a dead silence, a mechanical sound - like an antique grandfather clock preparing to strike the hour - began whirring from no discernible direction. Glancing all around himself the prisoner caught sight of a small, dark circle above him - what he at once recognized as a circular opening in the distant ceiling - that seemed to be steadily growing in diameter. With a sudden ear-splitting hiss - like that of compressed air being released - the expansion of the portal gradually slowed, finally settling with a sharp click. The prisoner was at a complete loss to estimate the size of the opening, as he could in no way tell whether the ceiling was fifty feet above him or five hundred.

         As the room once again fell silent, the prisoner - who now realized that he had involuntarily clapped his hands over his ears and held them there still - focused intently on the round hole overhead.