The slow aerial ascent took forever it seemed to reach the gaping hole in the bottom of the craft and about time, too, because out of the water, she shivered with cold, her damp sundress clinging to her. She hugged her arms around her body, but it didn’t help her chattering teeth.

What are the chances I’ll be greeted with a towel? Looking around at the wide-eyed fish with their mouths gaping open and shut soundlessly, she didn’t count on it.

The bright light she’d mistaken for Heaven’s doorway didn’t diminish until she and her fellow aquatic abductees went past the lip of the ship. Then she goggled in astonishment because ringing the area on all sides were huge vats filled with liquid, oversized fish tanks if she wasn’t mistaken-and not all of them from Earth. A purplish fluid in one certainly didn’t resemble anything she’d ever seen and displayed the occasional black tentacle. Cool, although she wouldn’t plan on going for a swim with whatever resided inside.

As the beam she found herself caught in angled up over the lip of an open vat, she noted something disturbing. All the other tanks were sealed shut. Her mind quickly came to an unwelcome conclusion. If she allowed herself to get dropped into the approaching aquarium, she’d find herself right back in the same spot; drowning.

“Not again,” she muttered. She twisted herself to look around and noted a network of beams holding narrow walkways running above and around the vats. She needed to get onto one of those. Using her arms and legs, she kicked and pulled, much like she would if she were in water, if water were a thick molasses that fought her every inch of the way. Sweat beaded on her brow as she struggled against the beams inertia, her progress slow, slower than the tractor beams implacable movement.

She brushed against other captives, their wet slimy skin icky against hers, their lidless eyes watching her passage-and I swear they’re praying I don’t make it.