What hidden motivations were the engine of his actions? Yesterday I’d been convinced that he hated me. That he considered me but an insignificant ant. But now, as the remaining dregs of last night’s drunkenness finally dispersed, I remembered with crystal clarity the words he had spoken as he took me from the alley.

I cannot leave you alone. You will only hurt yourself…

He could not leave me alone. Did that mean… that he couldn’t bear to be away from me? And, whatever it was he’d done to those creeps in the alley, he’d saved me. That much was clear. Could it be that he… no. No, it could not be. Could it? No. But maybe…?

“Well,” I started again, but I suppose I’d spent too long in contemplation, because his voice cut mine off sharply.

“I shall tell you. I shall shine a bright light upon you, and I shall share with you great truths which you shall understand by only half. And I shall lay myself bare before you. Because I have been left with no choice!”

With that, my blindfold was torn harshly away. He stood before me. His eyes pierced me. They were luminescently green, deep, fearsome and… unnatural.

Beautiful.

Indescribable.

“Look about you,” he said.

I obeyed. We were in a great space, a vast cave of size beyond size, filled with darkness and inky shadow. It was also utterly, unspeakably impossible. We were atop a massive formation of pocked and puckered stone, like volcanic rock. I could easily trace the path we had taken from the boat, which I could now see was a jet-black gondola. But the gondola, the dock it was tied to and the black water in which it floated were somehow above me, even though I was looking down at them.

Around us, I could discern objects which might have been a table, a couch, a doorway, a bed, a bookshelf. But the angles were all wrong, the perspective skewed, everything stretched and compressed in hideous and abominable ways.

The darkness that filled the space seemed to pulse, to contract, to flow, to breathe. I began to feel ill again, but worse, like my insides were trying to claw their way out of me, my veins in a frenzy, twisting and tangling themselves.

I started to moan, to hyperventilate. I hated that I was allowing myself to be so weak in front of Riley, but I had lost all physical control. I strained against my bonds, pitched my gaze all about in an attempt to find something, anything to latch on to, anything I understood that could anchor me. Even Riley seemed twisted and distorted to me… he was fading, receding into the black seas of infinity, leaving me. Oh god!

“Andromeda.” My name on his lips brought me back from the brink, and in the melodious timbre of his resonant voice, for the first time in my life, it sounded… beautiful.