It was there before he had fully escaped from his dreams - a small but persistent kind of uneasiness at the back of his mind - an intuition that something was somehow out of place. He turned restlessly as the last remnants of the dream

  (nightmare)

  ebbed away, and his mind began its reluctantly sluggish ascent towards wakefulness. His skin met smooth, unyielding resistance as he moved - hard and slightly cool where the waking portion of his consciousness seemed to be expecting soft

  He pulled the sheets back and gently slid in beside her, being careful to keep his cold feet from touching her.

  and warming.

  He watched her for a short moment or two - the way that her chest moved slightly with her breath - and then reached to the nightstand and switched off the lamp. A soft, flickering glow emanated from the corner of the room where CNN reported the night's headlines on the muted television. He could still see the outline of her face in the darkness, and he realized as he had countless times just how beautiful she was to him in her sleep. I can't believe how corny you're getting in your old age. The jibe was self-inflicted, and the guilty grin it brought to his face didn't fade until he had pulled the covers over him and drifted into sleep.

  At first he wasn't sure that his eyes were actually open. There was no change, no light or color of any kind. His eyes found only the same pitch black they had met when closed. Sleep faded away completely, and the sense that something was wrong -- merely a whisper at the back of his subconscious before -- began to mix with logic and become true thought.

  Chris Porter was awake.

  He sat up slowly, his eyes still searching in vain for a sign of something – anything -- amidst the almost palpable darkness that surrounded him. His hands met an ungiving, cool surface as he placed them down beside him, and, as the sensation of the contact registered in his mind, Chris froze. If his thoughts had been sluggish upon waking, they were suddenly thrown into overdrive -- an instinctual sense of urgency overtaking him.

  It felt wrong.

  The bed... he thought, where is the bed?

  And where was the light? The light from the television, the alarm clock -- anything at all. An idea occurred to him, and he brought one palm up to move in slowly until he could feel it brush against his face.

  I can't see my own hand in front of my face. I've heard that expression a thousand times, but I don't think I've ever seen it get that dark. Christ. What the hell? Have I been sleepwalking? Fallen asleep on the bathroom floor?

  Chris felt the surface beneath him again and frowned. It was like running his hand over cool marble, or glass.

  There isn't a floor this smooth in the house.

  The thought seemed to echo until he was able to grasp the full implication of it, and, as he did, the sense of urgency he felt only intensified. He realized how dry his mouth was.

  You need to relax. Wake up and get something to drink. You're having a stupid moment. A stupid moment with some kick.

  He stood up slowly. The lack of light was so severe it was disorienting. He reached out and grabbed randomly as he stepped with care in his effort to avoid anything that might trip him in the darkness. But his hands found only air, and his steps became longer as caution gave way to a growing panic. There was nothing. No sign of furniture. No sign of a wall, a door -- anything he could have associated with his bedroom, or even his home. He continued his attempt at downplaying how much space he had covered in his mind's eye until it became impossible to convince himself he hadn’t walked more than the distance of any room in the house. He picked up his pace slowly, but with a building recklessness.

  Chris no longer cared if he ran headlong into a wall, or if he tripped over an unseen obstacle in his path. He would have welcomed the fall so long as he could have identified what had tripped him as something solid - something he could grasp. He needed something to help him orient himself in the darkness. The perfectly smooth surface beneath his feet had become his only real connection to his surroundings -- his only connection to anything substantial enough to convince him of his return to the waking world. His breaths shortened. His chest began to feel constricted as he felt and grasped into the blackness.

  He was panicking.

  "I'm going to need the crescent wrench, Chris. Check near the bottom of the tool chest. It's in there somewhere."

  Chris turned on his perch atop the wooden work table. A small seagull had landed just inside the garage's door, and Chris had been watching it intently, imagining that it seemed to be watching him back. He peered into the tool box on the table beside him, his eyes scanning its contents for what his father had asked him for. A voice at the back of his mind was telling him he knew what it was - that he should know what it was, but nothing in the box stood out to him as he searched. It was there - at the very edge of his thoughts. He knew every tool his father kept in the chest, but for some reason strange to him he was drawing a blank. The name "crescent wrench" seemed in those few seconds to be the most foreign combination of words that he had ever heard.

  He glanced at his father as the man stood waiting expectantly hunched beneath the hood of the battered '67 Chevy. He wore a look of quiet amusement on his weathered face.

  "Having one of those stupid moments, eh?" His father gave Chris that lopsided grin that always managed to make him suddenly look a decade younger. When he saw his son's puzzled frown he walked over to the table and sifted through the toolbox's contents until he found the crescent wrench, pulled it out, and handed it to Chris.

  "That's one of those moments when your mind goes blank, and something that should be really simple and obvious suddenly becomes irrationally confusing. I call them stupid moments. The good news would be that -- so long as those moments are rare and reasonably brief -- you can feel free to count yourself among the more intelligent of Homo sapiens on the planet. "

  Chris looked at the tool in his father's hand and grimaced.

The grin had grown. "Recognize it now?"

  "I saw that in there but I couldn't remember what it was." Chris answered before hesitating briefly. "But I know what it is."

  His father nodded before turning back to the Chevy, and Chris experienced that sense of awe then that one can feel only towards a true mentor. The inspiration that his father was one of the wisest men on earth could not have been wrested from him by any argument at that moment.

  "The more you think about it the less sense the puzzle seems to make. That’s how stupid moments work. We all have 'em, Chris. They’re as inevitable as taxes and flatulence. "

  Chris' perception of what his senses told him had become pervaded by an overwhelming sense of surrealism. The puzzle didn't make sense. And so he stopped walking. Stopped everything.

  He needed to restart.

  Chris Porter stood motionless in the darkness and waited. He could feel his pulse inside his skull. The lack of any kind of sound from his surroundings only served to amplify the dull pounding behind his ears. He realized he was dizzy a few moments too late, and lost his balance. He threw his hands out to brace himself, but his impact with the floor (ground) still held enough punch to knock the wind from him. It was like hitting solid stone.

  Christ. He thought. Where the hell am I?

  He rolled onto his back, his breath coming in short gasps -- his eyes still unwilling to accept the fact that there was nothing for them to see. He stared intently up into the darkness as he lay there, and the absurdity of what was happening hit him with its fullest force.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Chris brought his hand up suddenly and slapped himself. The pain was surprising.

  "Wake up, damn it." His voice sounded insanely loud to his own ears, and he found himself laughing quietly as he rubbed his face.

  Well, that hurt. He thought. Crazy bastard. You just slapped yourself, ol' boy. You're not quite old enough to be senile, so don't be so anxious to start jumping the gun. You're awake. He sat up slowly. Or if you're not, this is one hell of a vivid dream.

  "Laura?" He attempted to call out his wife's name, but his voice was hoarse and ragged. He cleared his throat.

  "Laura, baby? Where are you?" He waited.

  "Laura? Can you hear me?" He could hear the panic in his own voice as he called for her, and it scared him. He needed to stay calm. The sooner he reasoned out what had happened to him -- why he hadn't awakened in the bed he had fallen asleep in beside his wife -- the sooner he would be able to figure out how to get back to her. To her and to his kids.

  My kids. He thought. Shit. Where are my kids?

  "Kyle? David? Can you hear me?" Chris stood up as he shouted for them, hoping his calls would carry farther."Sarah? Can you hear me, baby?" His voice had begun to quaver, and he abandoned any semblance of pride. "Daddy's lost. Can somebody hear me?"

  He waited, counting the seconds that passed.

  Christ. They can't hear me. He thought. How can they not be able to hear me?

  He tried again to calculate how much distance he had covered since waking, but there was nothing for him to use as a gauge or point of reference. He only knew that it seemed he had been walking for a quite some time.

  But how long? I should've counted my damned steps. He kicked himself. You've got to think, Chris. Something's happened. You’ve covered too much empty space. If you didn't somehow sleepwalk your way out of your house and to some giant warehouse somewhere, you've been moved in your sleep.

He paused.

  "Moved in my sleep." He whispered the thought out loud as his mind attempted to wrap itself around the concept of it fully.

  Kidnapped. The single word echoed in his head. Am I saying I've been kidnapped?

  He answered his own question. What other options are there? Abduction by aliens? Christ. This is insane.

  "Hello? Can you hear me? Can anybody hear me?" Chris managed to draw some small satisfaction from the fact that his yelling at least sounded more controlled -- more purposeful. "I know there's somebody out there who can hear me, damn it. Just talk to me. Whatever it is that you're after, I can help you. I'm not interested in playing games. I can help you get it - money, whatever. I'll work with you."

  He paused, turning where he stood in an attempt at catching a glimpse of something in the darkness.

  Christ. He thought. It's like I've gone blind. How can any place be this dark? How can any place be this big? This empty? I need to get some idea of where I'm at. If they won't talk to me, I've got to find a wall or something that can give me some clue. Shit. I'm not even sure who "they" are. It could be a single lunatic out for a quick ransom for all I know.

  "Talk to me, goddamnit!" He yelled. "What do you want?"

  Then something occurred to him.

  There aren't any echoes. He thought. What kind of warehouse or room this big wouldn't at least have a slight echo?

  Chris could feel that small knot of panic deep in his gut attempting to grow. He licked his lips absently as his mind sifted frantically through a severely limited supply of possibilities.

  You need to start walking, ol’ boy. It was the internal voice Chris addressed himself via when he needed to see something his emotions were threatening to obscure. You need to stop talking to yourself in the second person one of these days, but you need to get through this first. You need to start walking. You need to find a wall, a support beam, something to give you some clue how big this damned room is.

  Chris started walking slowly, but purposely -- being sure to keep his steps in as straight a line as he could. He began counting aloud with the first step, and didn't stop as he moved forward into the blackness.

  "...five, six, seven..."

  He concentrated on keeping his breathing controlled. He knew that knot of panic he felt could be dangerous to him if he let it get too powerful, too big. He needed to stay completely rational - needed to keep those types of emotions under strict surveillance.

Got to be strong. He thought. I've got to be strong through whatever this is for my family's sake. For my wife's sake. This'll be a walk in the park if I stay rational - figure out where I am, who's taken me, and why. Negotiate with them if I need to. Whatever it takes to get back to my family.

  "...twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five..."

  As the numbers began to climb, and Chris began to recycle those same thoughts of strength and reason, the rationality of what he was attempting to do began to seem less and less obvious. The knot of panic became almost irrelevant as it was overwhelmed by a growing sense that what was happening simply couldn't be happening - no matter how many of his senses were telling him that it was.

  "...one hundred fifty-seven, one hundred fifty-eight, one hundred fifty-nine..."

  He wasn't sure when he began to hum as he counted, or even what he was humming, but the sound that it produced seemed to relax him. "It's A Small World" became "More Than A Woman", which in turn led to "Achy-Breaky Heart" before eventually drifting off into the "Barney" theme song.

  If any of the guys ever found out that I even had this song hidden somewhere in the deep and sinful recesses of my head, he thought absently, they wouldn't let me live it down if I lived to be a hundred and ninety. I love you, you love me. Let's all go screw in a giant Christmas tree.

  Chris stopped walking abruptly and began to laugh. He wasn't sure why his seemingly random – undeniably crude -- mental improvisation of lyrics seemed so comical, but the relief it gave him from his own endless re-hashing of the possible explanations for what he was experiencing seemed invaluable at that moment. And so he laughed until it began to hurt and he was clutching his sides. He laughed because the Barney theme song was so damned annoying, and he laughed because he was walking through an impossibly large and dark something in the middle of who-the-hell-knew-where whenever he had every right to be sleeping beside his wife in his bed in his home in the neighborhood that had always seemed just a little too unkempt to be labeled "upscale".

  Chris laughed because he had counted to two thousand five hundred and sixty-two, and his bare feet hadn't encountered so much as a grain of sand on the floor (he had begun to think of it as the ground due to the fact that he had yet to encounter anything that might have indicated he could possibly be indoors, but then that was crazy, wasn't it?). He laughed because it would have been so much easier to simply stop where he was and go back to sleep - to flip reason and rationality the bird, lie down on the impossibly smooth ground beneath his feet, and wait to wake up back in his own bedroom.

  But you won't wake up in your bedroom, will you? He thought. You won't wake up back in your bed because this is real. It’s excruciatingly obvious that something's gone incredibly wrong. Maybe you've flipped out completely. Maybe some freak accident put you in a coma while you were sleeping and you've become a vegetable. Maybe you were abducted by three-foot aliens and you've been thrown in some massive cell on a flying saucer. Whatever the case, ol’ boy, you'd sure as hell better keep walking. You'd better keep walking because that may just be the only chance you have of finding out. You'd better keep walking because you owe that much to your kids. They expect you to be there for them whenever they wake up, and they would expect you to keep walking - keep counting. Laugh at Barney all you want, mutilate lyrics all you want, but keep walking, damn it. Keep walking.

  A last chuckle escaped him, and he began to walk again.

  "Two thousand five hundred and sixty-three."

  Chris walked until humming began to seem more a waste of energy than a form of semi-entertainment. He walked until his legs began to scream for him to stop - until his feet stopped throbbing and simply went numb.

  At some point continuing to count began to seem too much as he struggled to remain awake. His eyelids felt like lead weights, and he was afraid he would fall asleep despite the fact he was still somehow on his feet.

  The last number that Chris Porter counted trailed off into the silence.

  "...seventy-five thousand three hundred and ninety-..."