He walked in, searched for and finally found the light switch, and turned it on.

He almost jumped. A man’s face stared at him, and he started to address it, to apologize or whatever, when he realized suddenly that it was his reflection.

His? Someone he’d never seen before?

He stared at it until he just had to go, and did. After, he didn’t flush for fear of disturbing the quiet and that woman in the bedroom.

He switched out the light and stood there in the semi-darkness, wondering what to do next. Get dressed and get out of here, he decided. That first of all.

He crept back into the bedroom, but stepped on a loose floorboard, and the woman awoke with a start, sat up, and stared at him, an expression not unlike that on the face in the mirror’s on her own features.

“Who—who are you?” she asked timidly, a bit fearfully.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “Who are you?”

Her mouth was open, and she shook her head slowly from side to side. “I don’t know,” she said wonderingly. “I can’t remember.”

The sound gonged at her from beyond her subconscious, beating in, like a lot of little hammers. It seemed to be demanding entrance. She struggled against it, but it kept on, insistent, and slowly turned from a series of poundings into an insistent ringing.

Dr. Sandra O’Connell awoke. Like a contortionist, she was twisted and bent in the chair, and she’d obviously slept hard for quite some time. Her right arm and upper calf were both asleep, and she could hardly move them. She tried shifting, and pain shot through her.

Cursing, using sheer willpower, she managed to get both feet on the floor and somehow grab the ringing telephone, bringing the receiver to her.

“Hello?” she answered groggily, still half asleep. There was no reply, and it took a few seconds before she realized she had the thing upside down. Turning it right, eyes still only half-open, brain only partially there, she tried again.