I Was an Alien Zoo Exhibit

You wake with the light, rolling over and mumbling something about how it's too early to be time for class. Your head feels like an eight-lane highway in the middle of summer construction season. When you go to roll out of bed, you make three observations.

Firstly, you're not in a bed, you're on the floor.

Secondly, you're naked.

Thirdly, there is a man next to you—also naked.

None of these is as strange as it could be. You must have fallen asleep at the party; maybe someone carried you to a cot or mattress or something. And while you don't always sleep in the nude, this wouldn't be the first time. Sleeping with someone else actually makes the first two things feel a little more normal.

So you shrug it off, sit up, and open your eyes. And that's when you freak out.

Instead of being in a house, or an apartment, or, you know, somewhere normal, you're in some schizoid place that's half indoors, half outdoors. You're lying on a mattress in what looks like it could be a living room. There's a couch, TV, bookshelf, etc. But a couple of feet in the other direction, the carpet and wood floor gives way to dirt and grass. There's palm trees, for crying out loud, and a water feature!

When you look up, instead of the sky you see a strange, ambient glow, like a ceiling that isn't really a ceiling.

"What the fuck?" you say. "Where am I?"

Having gotten that important question off your chest, you turn to regard the man beside you.