Kylie slowly came to her senses. She was loosely strapped to freezing metal board. Kylie found that she could easily move around or free herself from the bindings, but that it hadn't always been that way. As she quickly unstrapped herself, something extremely strange began to happen to her: she started to slowly float up to the ceiling.

As any fourteen-year-old girl who just discovered she could defy gravity would do, Kylie screamed. But, she found that just as easily as she went up, she could come down. Simply by thinking, Kylie Hartells had been given the ability to hover, and fly. Enjoying her newfound skill, she floated fluently around the room. She started to notice her surroundings- and grew increasingly more terrified. Kylie was in what looked like some kind of mad scientist's sadistic laboratory. Pointing to the table she had been laid upon, was a small but impressively made laser beam or weapon of some kind. Kylie assumed this strange device had given her her new ability.

Slowly, Kylie started to remember. She had been at the food court in the mall with her friends, when suddenly one of the bunch, Sierra, spotted a strange figure in a trenchcoat.
"Look at that creeper!" said Sierra, pointing him out to the other girls. They agreed that the menacing figure was quite an oddity from the usual faces they saw at the mall. Forgetting about the man, the girls sat down to eat lunch, and then continued window-shopping. Later, as Kylie had been walking across the parking lot to wait for her ride home, she spotted the same, menacing mad in a trench coat. All of a sudden, the man looked straight at her, into her warm hazel eyes with his own cold, hard, gray eyes. That was the last thing the Kylie could remember, other than an odd dream that she had had:

In her dream, Kylie had been swimming in a giant expanse of milk. The sky was white, and everything as far as her eyes could see was white. Even Kylie was the color of milk! Everything around her was completely motionless, and Kylie felt very peaceful. This was all she could remember of her bizarre dream.

Suddenly, Kylie noticed the only door in the laboratory, which she hadn't seen before. Desperately looking for a way out, Kylie ran to the door and tried the knob- it was open. She stepped into the void that she assumed to be a hallway or corridor of some kind. Kylie groped around so that she would not run into anything or trip over anything that might be in her path. Slowly, she moved forward in the complete and total darkness, and silence. After about ten paces, she hit something rock solid; a door. Kylie also found this door to be unlocked and proceeded through into an extremely dim room. There was a trace of light, but it was more like a memory where light had been at one time, rather than an actual light. She sensed movement, but quickly dismissed the thought.

But she was quickly given reason to consider this 'absurd' thought again: a deep, slow, but not unkind voice came out of the darkness, "Little girl. I've been waiting for you to wake up. Do you like your new ability?" Kylie jumped. Analyzing the situation in her mind, Kylie concluded that it would be conducive to her safety to answer this voice sweetly and politely.

"Yes, I do enjoy it quite a lot. I was wondering how it managed to come about that I received it?" Kylie spoke slowly, choosing all her words carefully.

"Indeed," replied the voice from nowhere. "I would imagine that you would wonder where the technology came from that we could induce weightlessness and defy gravity with just the touch of a button. But, it is possible. See, you are a living example. Our first successful prototype."

Kylie was stunned by this news. She, an experiment? However, she decided that whether or not this strange man was serious, she could fly! What better compensation for being abducted? Sweetly, she asked the man to please show her the way out, and thank you for the wonderful gift. The man ate up her sweet attitude like she was the best thing since sliced bread, and showed her out into the bright sunshine. He directed her toward the school where she lived not too far from, and gave her the time of day and her coat back.

As she walked home, she contemplated all that had happened. When she arrived home, her parents had been worried sick and just about to call the police. All's well that ends well, thought Kylie. Apart from telling only her closest friends about her new skill, her life was relatively normal.

Until next Saturday, when the girls again saw a strange, hooded figure in the food court. And when Sierra was not at school the next day, Kylie had to wonder what had happened…..

TO BE CONTINUED…

OR NOT?