My body twists and turns as I am pulled through a long dark tunnel. All the motion disorients me to the point that time and distance means little. Then it just stops. For a moment there isn’t pain or discomfort of any kind. An extremely short moment. I hack up a little blood.

Before I can recover, I'm moving again. This time on some sort of conveyor belt. Ringing in my head makes me dizzy. As I shake it off I realize its pitch black. Allowing myself to be moved through this place might not be the best idea. Crawling doesn’t seem fast enough to go against the forward speed. Carefully I get up and attempt to run. A few steps in and something knocks me down. Reminding me of my injuries. I should not have fought that thing.

The ringing in my head fades and loud noises from all around me replace it. They seem to be of a mechanical nature. A light flashes up ahead. Heat mixes with intense air flow. Before I can cover myself it’s over.

Slowly I touch myself to see if there is any unknown damage to my body. Hoping I don't find any wet spots or erupt in more pain. With every touch to my clothing or a new stretch of a limb, my clothing falls away. Disintegrating to dust and causing me to cough.

Now naked and alone with my own thoughts. No new movement. The wait is just long enough for panic to set in. Suddenly an object wraps around my ankles and wrists tightly. They pull on my limbs until I am upright, suspended in the air. Trying to struggle against the bonds, it just makes it hurt more.

Light hit me. My skin is burning. It is barely more than a flash. Now my eyes ache. Tiny dots fill my vision of the darkness. My hair and some sort of powder falls off all over my body. Everything is happening so fast.

A thud behind me, my body tightens. Lights come on again. I flinch in response. This light comes without any sort of heat and stays on. Some sort of machine latches onto my head. Now completely restrained. In front of me is another machine, large with many arms. The purpose of this one is not a thing I wish to find out.

I found out immediately what the machine does. Dozens of needles burst out of the arms. I am correct, I did not want to know about this. Slowly and surely they twist and extend to match the dimensions of my body. From my hands to my shoulders, from my head to my feet. Enough needles to cover me completely on the front with only inches between them.

It’s weird that it's just the front. One might think there would be needles for my entire body. Up, down, in front, behind. My neurons barely finished forming that though, when I heard small machine sounds from behind me. It sucks being right.

Why can't it be dark again? I really miss the dark now. The needles inch closer and closer. It would be awesome if it was dark so I didn’t have to see this or maybe wake up from this horrific dream. They slowly sink in between every joint, into what felt like every muscle grouping, and even into my bones. Feeling the needles enter me comes extreme pain. Just as I think the pain won’t get any worse, This burning sensation starts at the injection points and radiates outwards. It sucks being wrong.

The burning sensation escalates until it feels like every cell in my body is in fire. I want to scream so bad. The pain is too much for screaming. Time has no meaning. The only sensation is fiery pain. All I can hope for would be for my body to fall into shock.

That doesn't happen. I do not pass out in shock. Time passes but the pain does not fade. A flicker of external sensation tells me I am moving again. It was enough to know I am heading out of this torturous room and back into the darkness. My body shudders. The pain breaks me down and I go limp. It was uncomfortable, strung up as I am, but I can't bare to hold myself up any more.

Another sound of a door dropping behind me. Fuck, I hope there isn't more injections. No lights come on this time. There is only sound. Like a microwave. All this is for me to become something's dinner? It might mean this is the end of the pain.

Something is hitting me like being under a waterfall. There is no water. The sensation made my skin crawl. My joints feel as though they were being outstretched. A new kind of heat builds up inside me. I manage a scream and the noise that escapes my lips is deafening. The sound the room made start to get more intense. I pull on my restraints and they got tighter. I don’t stop. Little by little my arms come closer to me. The room quiets down enough that I can hear metal screeching. Then I fell on to the floor. ***************************************************************************

My eyes open. I am on the floor in the dark again. For the briefest of moments I believe that my recent experiences were all just a dream. As if I had been sleeping in a dark basement. That was not true of course. It was too vivid. Did I just experience that or was it another memory bleeding through? My head starts to clear up and with it my perception of my surroundings becomes clearer and clearer. Metal walls, a table, and something resembling a chair clear in my head as if looking at it in the light.

Getting to my feet is easy. A mere thought and physical gesture is all it takes. Not like before. That must have been a week ago. I think. Nothing like it should be with my out-of-shape body or even when I was in great physical condition. Waking up and immediately getting up used to be a slow process.

Stretching and rolling my joints, I am again amazed at the lack of popping sounds. No odd old tensions or pain that should be associated with old injuries and age. Definitely not a dream. How can a person dream of something they never felt?

The lights pop on over the table and chair. Figuring this was an oh-so-subtle suggestion to take a seat, I just stand there reaching with my perception again. No light fixtures. It seems to be emitting from the ceiling and the light doesn’t bleed outside of the table area. The walls are still dark as ever.

An uneasiness passes over me. Similar to how it felt before I walked through the door leading here. Moving closer to the table makes it fade away. They must want me to sit in the chair. Why else would there be a chair? However it’s tucked under the table. The legs seem to be fused to the floor. Wait, they are, in fact, all one piece. At least from what I know about metals. Do I know a lot about metals?

I pull on the chair expecting it to be completely motionless, but it slides outwards. Kneeling to investigate I pull on the chair again. The metal legs flowed through the floor as if it was liquid. Expecting to feel the metal soften where the legs meet the floor. It's solid. I touch the connection point as I move the chair yet again. It remains solid the whole time. Even the texture remains the same. Nifty. Memories or not, nothing I know of on Earth can do that.

Sitting doesn’t interest me. So, I examine the table. The legs are the same as the chair. Only the table doesn’t move. It stays fixed in its position. The top of the table was extremely smooth. It feels like there is no friction at all. The only markings on it are moisture prints from where my hands come in contact with the metal.

Movement! Before I can fully pin it down, The chair is behind me. Forcing me to sit tightly against the table. My head nearly slams against the table-top. I settle and it's not particularly uncomfortable, but I doubt I can get up. Well, there is a chance some ability I have acquired could assist. If only I knew everything I am capable of.

The table-top shimmers, three dimensional objects started to form on the two dimensional surface. All sorts of shapes and sizes. I poke at one and it moves. Not like how the chair moved. They all become separate objects from the table. Able to be picked up and examined. My senses tell me it is no different than the walls, table and chair. I know it is metal and its general shape. The internals of it are unknown. Unlike when I focus on a person I can sense their insides. Is it the lead to my kryptonian powers?

While studying the objects, an image projects above the table. A square. All this amazing technology around me. Words cannot truly express how much I want to know how it all works. Where to even begin to catalog all the stuff I’ve learned about in the past few days? Hm, how long have I known about some of this stuff? When was I abducted?

So distracted by all the neat tech that I barely notice my implants are pulsing. Like little electric shocks growing in intensity. The sensation was new and, just as I was starting to enjoy this new mystery it became almost too much to handle. With one last long pulse the objects on the table melt away.

New objects appear in different configurations. Is this the test I was told about? The light shocks started again. So there is something I have to do here. I wave my hand through the image to see if I could interact with it. Nope nothing came from that. My hand just passes through it. The image isn’t even interrupted.

Getting worse again. Focusing on them it became clear that the pulsing happens approximately every three seconds. I count them and this time they end in a sensation even worse than before. The pulsing pains restarted softly. Again counting and it ends so much worse then the first. I figure it lasted about one hundred and fifty seconds though. Progress?

Ok, I have a set amount of time to complete a task. Involving these objects and that image. Failure to complete this task results in pain. Seems simple enough. Only what was the task? Why not an instruction manual or a video? Like a little animation. That would be nice.

“I’m an idiot,” I mutter to myself. Picking up the objects, I attempt to put them together. Like a puzzle. I press together two correct pieces in the right way. They fuse together. This isn’t particularly difficult. With the last two pieces in my hands time was running short. The increase of pulsing distracted me and they reached the apex, the objects melted out of my hand.

The next test I don’t waste any time. Hurrying to put the pieces together to finish the square. It goes quick and finishes before the pulsing even gets annoying. Satisfied I sit back and, of course, the image changes. A new object appears. Damnit.

A little more complicated and the objects are smaller. I work to get this one together as fast as possible. Again, it isn’t all too difficult now that I know what I need to do. Something told me this is going to get worse long before it gets better. If it did get better.

More images of increasing complexity. Smaller objects to put them together. The same amount of time to complete each one. An exponentially increasingly difficult test.

I stop looking at the objects and just use my perception. It got a little easier. The piece over here goes with that piece over there. A hiccup here and there causes me to abandon the main structure and work with the remaining small parts. My perception is almost like cheating. Some part of my subconscious is working with it to put the puzzle together in my head. I used to do puzzles all the time. I remember knowing answers before being consciously aware at times. The jolts of pain aside, this is kind of fun. Could it be that I had this perception all along but it was just not that developed? More likely whatever process they put us through just enhanced our normal features.

After a while the fun went away as it got way too damn hard. Dozens of shapes came and went. No one is perfect, especially me. I hit a wall in the puzzles. The table is littered in little pieces, it is too hard to make out where any belong. I fail, and fail, and fail. The peak of the pain increases. The time intervals diminish.

I shut my eyes and got ready to scream. My body jerks back and I grasp my head. I doubt how much more I can take. Maybe if I bash my head into the table it will stop. The table is gone. I lean over to look at the floor to see if any evidence of it. Nothing.

I got off the chair to take a closer look at the floor. Not a trace of the table. Movement behind me, the chair is gone as well. Springing to my feet in a panicked pose. My head snaps back and forth while I try to figure it out. Are they going to attack now? Do I go back to the main area? Maybe it is time for pie? Everything I think of seems a bit ridiculous, but nothing outside the realm of possibilities in this weird ass place.

Two bars appeared on a wall. One of them is all yellow. The other from left to right, starts blue and transitions into red. The multicolor bar had an indicator in the middle.

The indicator bar slowly moves towards the red area. I shake my head in annoyance.

“Real subtle,” beads of sweat form on my body.