I awoke in a sweat, not a cold one, because I'm in Texas, and it was summer. The whole notion of a cold sweat seemed like a paradise at that moment. I had dreamed that there was something at the end of my hall outside my bedroom, scratching at the stairs. The details turned fuzzier as I started waking up more fully, hearing the low humming of my overhead and my area fan, feeling droplets running from my forehead and strands of my hair into my eyes, my crotch, my sheets. Staring at the undignified stain surrounding my sweating body, I decided that, among other things, it would not be good for me to get sick the night before I went in to apply for a job. I looked over at the clock. 3:01 am. I decided to take a cold shower. Stripping the sheets, I thought about what I had to do the next day to impress the guy on the other end of the interviewing table. How hard could it be, after all, to bag groceries for people?
As I bunched up my now freshly-salted bedcovers, I walked towards the bathroom, and I noticed that what I had taken for the humming of my fans was getting louder. In fact, it was getting more distinct, more persistent, like microphone distortion, except it was more of a vibration, and I was totally immersed in it. I felt waves of sound, or perhaps pure force, beating against my ribcage, buzzing my nostrils as it intensified. My ears began to vibrate as well, to tickle, and then to hurt. I began to shout for my mom to wake up, to ask what was going on, to get any kind of response. A bedside lamp wobbled, and fell to the floor, shattering. I screamed as I felt liquid begin to run out of my ear canals, the sound drowned out by the knowing that no one could hear me and yet desperate that someone might.
There was no white light.
There was no particle beam.
There was no metallic saucer arm.
One second I was in my bedroom, screaming for my life, and the next, I awoke once more, shuddering in the cold. I could not see. My eyes were open, but I could not see anything except a somehow soothing blue luminescence. I remember wondering how I could see this light, but not see any details around me. I felt a strange tingling sensation along my neck and arms, and I finally realized that the blue luminescence was not a source of light, but rather of electricity. The hairs on my body were all standing perfectly straight.
Later...
Must have blacked out. Suspended in yellow liquid, I opened my eyes, and I could see, but there was nothing to see. I felt pressure against my lips and inside, against my lungs. I looked up, down, searching for a cave or a stable outcropping. Nothing. Frantically, I stroked and kicked towards what I thought was the surface. I realized suddenly that if this was a weightless environment, I would not know which way is up or down. I kept going. Lungs aching, I needed air, and soon. I began to thrash more wildly as my cheeks ballooned under strain. I slowed, movements weakening, and snorted some of the liquid unintentionally. Sulfuric. Burning, like chlorine, except more so. I started sinking, unable to find which way is out, and beginning to accept my fate as ended. I floated for a few moments more as the yellow stuff filled my cheeks, and my lungs spasmed as I tried to breathe thick liquid. I instinctively curled up, hands grasping for my throat as I spasmed again, trying to cough and vomit at the same time. Something brushed my leg. A hand.
...A human hand?
I awoke sputtering, but finding no liquid surrounding me, I was alive and well. I knew so because my lungs were sore. I had never had sore lungs before, but then I suppose I'd never had lung spasms before, either. I sat up on my bed, and my mom was standing there with a look of concern on her face. She said I had been flailing around in my sleep and that I had knocked something over. I sighed with relief and hoarsely told her that I was going to be okay. She looked at me again, then suddenly seemed to be satisfied and walked out of the room, stairs creaking as she walked down them. I looked around my room, surveying it. My eyes came to rest on the clay pieces of what used to be my desk lamp. I looked up at the clock. 3:04 am. I guess imagination can do funny things to a person, huh?
So why did I still feel so cold in 85 degree heat?