先挖坑，BH慢慢来填
They were in my mind. It was a malicious intrusion, the cold, probing curiosity of a scientist with a new specimen. They were intrigued by my research, by my own approach to vivisection. They wanted to appropriate my techniques and add them to their own.
I was imprisoned in a large alien menagerie. My cage, as far as cages went, was not that bad. Better accommodations than the "worm-hound" (as I came to think of it) across the chamber in a steep pit, or the bird things chained with barbed collars to a central, tree-like structure. I, at least, had bedding.
Feeding time was the worst. From the shadows, one of the bent alien figures would occasionally emerge to slide a bowl of bubbling brown "stew" through a hatch in my cage. And then I would eat, and they would be back in my mind, monitoring my revulsion as I choked down the foul substance.
Periodically, they would come and lead me through the underground complex to a new chamber, a new specimen, and a new set of tools. A scaled, spiked rodent with eyes along its spine. An immense, oily, bristle-haired slug with the forelegs and head of something that was almost a wolf. A leathery bat-like creature with a four foot wingspan and a tail that ended in a three-pointed barb. The creatures were fearsome, alien, and diverse: a biologist's dream. I dissected them all as my captors looked on, fascinated by my technique and my psychology, utterly indifferent to my results.
After each dissection, I was returned to my cage, where I thought of Tyler. I could not shake him from my mind. I raged at his betrayal. I had been shamefully naive. Why would a strong, attractive, and disarmingly charismatic man have any interest in an awkward, lonely scientist like me? And yet... he talked to me, he listened, and he held my hand as we climbed the hill.
They could not cut through my emotion, if they could see it at all. Tyler became a shield for my mind, an object upon which I could fasten my thoughts and feelings whenever I needed to force the intruders away. They were at ease in my mind when it was familiar to them, when I was the cold and calculating scientist they expected me to be. When I thought of Tyler, and let loose the emotional whirlwind surrounding him, they fled. This defense helped me to sleep in the cage, where I dreamt of the time I first gazed into his captivating brown eyes.
The dissections continued, for what seemed like days if not weeks. I lost count of the number of creatures I had taken apart, and I grew more accustomed to their inhuman but strangely sophisticated tools. I was alone and had no one to speak with, but was my new existence really any worse than my old?
The final experiment began like any other. One of the creatures came to the menagerie and unlocked my cage. Their presence was back in my mind. Another day in the lab. Doing my best to stay as far as possible from the stench of my jailor while keeping up with its long lurching lope, I was led by my collar along a winding corridor, past several openings, into what appeared to be a warehouse, and then led trough a screened off entryway into one of the numerous small labs.
Across the room, strapped to a strange medical table, and with a pair of gaping sockets where his eyes should have been, lay Tyler Scindere.
