Jack woke up slowly, bare-assed, face-down in a pillow whose faintly animalic smell was unfamiliar to him. When he runched it with a restless fist he found it full of grainy fluff: down. A down pillow. This was not his room. When he rolled over he clutched at the fine soft sheets in shock.
Above him stretched a clear dome, perhaps 30 feet across at the base, and beyond the dome lay the sea. Dark strands of tall kelp swayed in an uncertain, distant light from the faraway surface; huge silver-scaled fish slunk slowly past, dotted with parasitic freeloaders, and smooth lampreys, and a sickly pale crab skittered down the dome's exterior. He couldn't tell how far down they were, nor whether it was day or night. The illumination inside the dome came from a ring of lights around the base.
A camera was enclosed in a shield at the apex.
Unconsciously, he tugged at the thing around his neck -- there was a thing around his neck. Snug, metallic. He ran his fingers all the way around it and found no clasp. Fear started to percolate through his shock. He cast about on the wide white bed for a single god damn clue, and instead he found another body there.
Long, powerfully-built, naked and scarred, tangled in the sheets, with a metallic collar around his thick familiar throat... Jack's eyes widened. He hadn't seen that throat, bare and exposed, for over a decade. His breath caught in his chest, and it was hard to tear his eyes away when he saw shimmering in his peripheral vision.
Above them letters written in colored light flickered over the internal face of the dome, attracting the greedy gazes of fish.
but i love bullshit and resentment
Above him stretched a clear dome, perhaps 30 feet across at the base, and beyond the dome lay the sea. Dark strands of tall kelp swayed in an uncertain, distant light from the faraway surface; huge silver-scaled fish slunk slowly past, dotted with parasitic freeloaders, and smooth lampreys, and a sickly pale crab skittered down the dome's exterior. He couldn't tell how far down they were, nor whether it was day or night. The illumination inside the dome came from a ring of lights around the base.
A camera was enclosed in a shield at the apex.
Unconsciously, he tugged at the thing around his neck -- there was a thing around his neck. Snug, metallic. He ran his fingers all the way around it and found no clasp. Fear started to percolate through his shock. He cast about on the wide white bed for a single god damn clue, and instead he found another body there.
Long, powerfully-built, naked and scarred, tangled in the sheets, with a metallic collar around his thick familiar throat... Jack's eyes widened. He hadn't seen that throat, bare and exposed, for over a decade. His breath caught in his chest, and it was hard to tear his eyes away when he saw shimmering in his peripheral vision.
Above them letters written in colored light flickered over the internal face of the dome, attracting the greedy gazes of fish.
A loud siren blared, and a clock appeared below the persistent message.
2:00:00