Sweating, confusion, unconsciousness, and...?

Our minds are tricky little things, particularly when it comes to interpreting information from our own senses. Our eyes, for example, work differently from how you might think. An experiment: hold out both of your hands in front of you, about a foot from your face, so when looking dead ahead, both are just visible in the left and right corners of your vision. Without turning your head, focus and look at the left one. Then, to the right, and back to the left again - head and hands both motionless, the only movement from your eyes.

Do you see how your vision flashes from one perspective to the other?

Your eyes are moving across the full range between your left and right hands, yet the only images you see are at the start and end of that movement - there is no motion blur as your eyes sweep across the screen in front of you. The transition, the liminal images between one hand and the other, are imperceptible. There isn't a gap, or a flash of blackness, instead, in one instant, you are looking at one thing, in the next, at another.

Our brains do this because we can't do anything with the information from the transition; it is too chaotic to be understood, so we decide that it does not exist. Effectively, as far as our brains are concerned, there is no transition, no movement.

One moment, we are here; the next, we are... somewhere else.

******

Jonah took a drink from the tall glass of water in front of him, eyes unfocused. As he put the cup down, he suddenly tensed and gasped, body jerking as if waking from a nightmare.

"What the FUCK?"

He stood up from his chair, heart pounding. He was under some kind of large tent, with several rows of fold-out chairs and long low tables facing a raised podium, behind witch was a statue of a beautiful wild woman. A wedding stage?

"Greetings, Master Jonah."

He yelped. What he thought was a statue was in fact, a...woman? She looked almost as if she were carved from marble, and, elevated on the podium as she was, towered over him in the aisle. He tried and failed to meet her eyes. There was an undeniable authority to her, which, combined with her notable lack of clothing, was enough to **** Jonah into staring at his shoes, stammering in panic.

The woman pursed her lips. "Be calm," she said, and Jonah felt his heart slowing down. His breathing eased up, too; something wasn't right. He wasn't... sedated, exactly. But his fight or flight response was gone. A slow dread crept over the space his panic had left; he briefly considered running, but quickly decided against it. He had no idea where he was, or what this woman was capable of. Information was what he needed, and a lot of it.

"Where am I?" He asked, forcing himself to meet her sea-green eyes. "Where are my friends?"

"You are at the Peak Château," the woman answered regally, "centerpiece of this season of Harem Hotel. Your friends will be joining us shortly."

"Okay..." Jonah said slowly. None of what she said made very much sense to him, but he filed his follow-up questions away for later. First wide, then deep. He needed to know as much as possible. "And, who are you? Ma'am," he added the last part hastily, wary of offending the strange figure.

"I am Ceth." She answered simply. "I am the host. It is my job to ensure the show runs smoothly."

"That show being... Harem Hotel?"

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face. "Yes. Did you not receive your primer?"

"My what?"

As if by flipping a switch, Ceth dropped her ethereal demeanor, slouching her shoulders and groaning. "Seriously guys?" She called out to no one in particular. "He was supposed to get primed before you brought him here!" She sighed and pinched her nose. Her strange accent - Scottish, Jonah thought - was gone, replaced by an annoyed Midwestern tenor. "Fucking amateur hour over here."

"...What?" His senses still dulled, the abrupt change in Ceth's behavior left an already confused Jonah entirely off-balance.

"Okay, I'll make this quick, and you better listen close because I don't want to go over this shit a second time, alright?" Ceth said, exasperated. "This is Harem Hotel, a reality-altering game show where six or more women compete over the affections of the audience and their Master - that's you, by the way - in order to determine who gets a favored position in the harem."

Jonah's head was spinning. "...Harem?"

"Bup-bup-bup," Ceth snapped her finger, "no interruptions kid. You shoulda been told all of this exposition horseshit before they sent you to me, but," she made a noise halfway between a growl and a hiss, "those assholes in Integration fucked up. Moving on: Each of the girls is someone who knows you, they get transformed based on audience votes in ways that are inevitably hopelessly sexy, there are challenges, eliminations, VPs, BPs, CDs, yadda yadda. You don't really need to know the details, alright? You're mostly just along for the ride." She rapidly fired off these concepts as if listing the rules to a board game she resented knowing how to play.

"Uhh..." was all Jonah could muster in response.

"We got a real himbo this time, huh?" Ceth rolled her eyes. "Sit back down, kid, your friends should be showing up soon, I need to get back into character before the cameras start rolling. I just hope they didn't fuck up the girls' intros too."

With nothing else to do, Jonah sat back down in his seat, quietly wondering what the hell was going on.