The jumble of LCD segments made little sense to Heather’s clouded mind, and she blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to get a clearer picture. The digits still read Ll: E.

“Lie?” she mused aloud, her voice hoarse and thick. “What the? Awww, screw it…”

The fear had finally become a faded shadow of what it had been a few minutes before, and she told herself that her earlier flashback to childhood must have been dead on. She probably just had a nightmare. She gritted her teeth and pushed upward once again until she was in a sitting position. Swinging first one leg, then the other, over the edge of the cushions, she let her feet touch the floor, then she leaned forward. Elbows on her knees, she cradled her head in her hands and massaged her temples.

The big question on her mind now was whether or not a nightmare could make you forget what you had done when you were conscious.

After something just short of forever, she stood and almost immediately fell. With a grimace she kicked off her heels, absently wondering why she hadn’t bothered to do so earlier. “Of course, since I can’t remember much of anything else, why should I be surprised?” she thought.

Heather stumbled through her apartment toward the bathroom on a single-minded quest for aspirin. If she could make the pain go away then maybe she could concentrate. Surely she would be able to remember how she got here. People don’t just lose entire chunks of time out of their lives, except maybe in those alien abduction movies.

“Yeah, right,” she laughed as she mumbled to herself. “Get real, Heather. You weren’t abducted by aliens.”

Her fingers found the light switch automatically and flicked it on. She squinted and turned her head away as the sudden flood of luminance assaulted her. She groaned audibly and wondered why her entire body seemed to ache. Flu, maybe? That could be it, she thought. Flu, fever, and the whole nine yards. Yeah, maybe that was the explanation.