I wake up naked in a strange bed. Not a stranger’s bed–not like a one-night stand–but a weird bed that changes shape each time I move.

I roll over, and the bed molds itself around me. Beds don’t do that, so I must be dreaming. I push myself out of the bed, and as if the bed can tell what I’m trying to do, it releases me.

I fall hard onto the ground, right on my ass. Pain shoots through my body as my butt cheeks don’t manage to absorb the full force of the impact. I wince and suck air through my teeth, but then I realize I’m not dreaming.

It all feels too real. The pain is too specific to be a dream. I look around and see that the walls and ceiling are beginning to glow with a dull, pink light. The bed I was on has changed shape to become completely flat, and I see four other beds–one in each corner of the fairly small room. But all the other beds are empty. I’m alone here.

“What the hell,” I whisper, my voice sounds shaky and desperate.

I’m still expecting to magically wake up, to not be wherever it is I am. I bite my lip. It hurts, and I don’t wake up.

I try to remember what happened before this. I was driving. Where was I driving to? To the cabin. I was on that long, winding road that slowly works its way up along the mountain. I was going to meet Elsie and Amber, and we were going to have a girls’ weekend of gossip and lounging around, with some hiking and swimming in the lake.

I vaguely remember seeing something as I drove. Some weird light in the night sky. I remember the light getting bigger and bigger, and the last thing I clearly remember is braking and pulling off the road.

And now I’m here. I sit back down onto the bed, and it morphs into a chair, cradling and cushioning my bruised butt. Technology like this doesn’t exist yet.

“Aliens?” I whisper to myself.

It seems too crazy. Too unreal. But seeing a light in the sky, then blacking out, and waking up in a place like this with holes in my memory? It’s like every cheesy alien abduction story I’ve ever heard.

Either this is the weirdest and most realistic dream I’ve ever had, or I’ve been abducted by aliens. It could be something even weirder than aliens, but thinking about that makes me feel even more queasy and terrified, so I settle on aliens. I keep the possibility in the back of my mind that I am still dreaming. I know it’s probably not true, but telling myself that this is some weird dream or hallucination is the only thing that keeps me sane.

I get up off the bed, gently this time, and it releases me to stand. I trace the walls of the room, looking for a door of any kind. Each wall is about ten paces long. The other beds look like mine, but when I try lying down on them, they stay stiff as a board rather than molding to my body.

How is there no door? What if I am just trapped in this tiny, sealed-off room until I die of thirst?

And as if to answer my question, the purple glowing on the wall furthest from me intensifies. I shield my eyes from the bright glow, but I see a rectangular shadow forming within the center of the wall.

My eyes start to adjust to the brightness, and I realize that the shadow is a door. I can see through into some kind of hallway, but then a huge figure fills the door and blocks my view.

Before I can get a good look at it, it throws a woman down onto one of the beds. The bed forms itself around her body.

“Hey!” I shout, but the figure turns its back to me.

Before the door closes again, I catch sight of teal skin and a muscular back. It’s a back that looks nearly human, save for the teal skin–and I’m pretty sure no man on Earth is quite that big.

Just before the door shuts, I see eyes as purple as the bright lights lock onto me from over that broad shoulder. Above his head I see curved horns, and I wonder if he’s wearing some kind of horned helmet, like a Viking warrior. But the door shuts before I can make any real sense of what I saw.

A man. An Alien man. Teal skin and purple eyes. Huge and strong, and…

And is that Elsie?

I rush to the bed and find my friend, who is naked as I am, surrounded by the strange bed.

“Elsie,” I hiss, trying to shake her by the shoulder.

I can’t budge her, the bed stays solid as stone.

“Elsie,” I say, louder, “Wake up!”

I see her eyelids flutter, and the bed moves as if it were soft as clay when Elsie’s body stirs and turns toward me.

“Alice?” she says. “Are we in the cabin already? I don’t remember arriving.”

Jesus. Seeing Elsie here should be a relief. I know I’m not in this alone anymore. But seeing her here and talking about the cabin drives home to me that this is not a dream. What if we never get out of this room?

Her eyes open slowly, and they dart around wildly as she takes in everything around her.

“It’s not the cabin,” I say, not quite wanting to be the one to break the news to her.

Then I see her leap off the bed, and I manage to catch her enough that she doesn’t fall totally flat on her ass like I did.

“I’m naked,” she whispers. “You’re naked too...Alice, what the hell?”

“What was the last thing you saw?” I ask her. “The last thing you remember?”

“Some purple light, getting brighter,” she says.

“Were you driving?” I ask.

She nods.

“I think we’re inside that purple light, Elsie. I think it’s an alien ship.”