The Ethereal Vision

  ***

  After a time—the duration of which she could not discern—Jane slowly came to consciousness again and opened her eyes to blackness. She sat up, opening her eyes wider, hoping for some light. She looked around frantically at the room she now found herself in. She could tell only that the interior was white. Straight ahead of the bed she was sitting on, a glass window encased the entire front of the room. The strain of sitting up rapidly tired her, so she lay back down and closed her eyes, willing herself to focus properly.

  After a moment, she looked back around at the room through the darkness that enshrouded her. The space was small, but not overwhelmingly so. It seemed to be approximately twenty feet by twenty feet. To her left was a desk, and on the wall just above and to the right of that there seemed to be a television screen. Shadows fell to the left of these objects, cast by the only light entering the room. It seemed to come from small lights lining the bottom of the corridor that ran the length of the room’s exterior. Beyond that, she thought she could see a tree of some kind, but she dismissed this idea, assuming it was the remaining effect of whatever drug they had pumped into her during her journey to this place.

  She clenched the muscles in her stomach, trying to sit up, and squinted as a sick feeling threatened to rise in her throat. A groan escaped her, and after lifting herself a few inches off the bed, she fell back down and was asleep again within minutes.