disclaimer: i own nothing except my original characters and content, everything else is for fun

Beatrice was cold.

Really, really cold. It permeated her body to the bone, dug deep and made sleep impossible. It was too uncomfortable to stay unconscious.

It was dark. Beatrice was surrounded by corn stalks. She didn't remember how she got there. She didn't remember much of anything, really. Last thing she remembered she was at home, drying her hair after a shower. It was… winter, maybe.

It was not winter in the cornfield. It was cold, but there was no snow, and the stalks were still tall and unharvested. Fall, maybe?

Beatrice tucked her hands under her armpits and shivered, looking around. She was sitting on the ground in the middle of what appeared to be a crop circle, of all things. The ground was covered in trampled stalks, wet with rainwater, which soaked through Beatrice's leggings.

A cricket jumped to Beatrice's right, and she flinched.

Wait, why was she wearing leggings? And… a dress, of all things, partnered with nice boots and a too-thin-for-her-liking jacket. The chain of a necklace was like ice against her neck.

Beatrice looked like she was ready for a date, not…

...well, not for sleeping in the middle of a cornfield, of all things.

And God did her head hurt! It hurt to look at anything, or blink, and when Beatrice pressed her finger to the bridge of her nose she could feel a vein throbbing. What, had she been drinking or something? That could be a possibility. You know, if she drank at all. Or did any kind of drugs. Which she didn't.

Shit.

Beatrice shakily stood to her feet, tried to get some feeling back into her toes by wiggling them a little. It didn't help.

The stars were impossibly white, and they hurt Beatrice's eyes. She looked away.

Instead, she picked a direction and started to walk.

It was dawn before Beatrice found a road.

It was dirt, well worn with tractor lines, but… it was something. Beatrice could barely keep her eyes open, barely take another step. Her stomach grumbled indignantly.

She was tired and distressed, and she just… she just needed to…

A fence. Beyond that, cows.

Beatrice, much to her regret, started to cry.

It was another mammal! It was another living breathing mammal, holy shit! The relief she felt from seeing another mammal, even if it was only a cow, was immeasurable. She was half afraid the only other lifeform she would ever meet was more corn.

A concerned voice called to Beatrice, "Miss? Miss, are you alright?"

She turned. There, next to a large and muddy green tractor, was an older man in overalls, hair wispy and greying. He was looking at her with concern, one hand holding tight to the collar of a well-behaved beagle. The beagle whined but was otherwise silent.

"Miss?" The old man repeated once more.

If she'd been relieved by the cows, she couldn't describe what she felt about seeing another human. Her body kind of tingled, actually, the feeling traveling up the back of her neck.

Beatrice swayed, and managed to choke out, "Help."

The man and the tractor and the dog faded out at the end of a long tunnel.

Beatrice had fainted.

Most of the time, people had no idea what to do when Beatrice passed out.

To be fair, the man with the tractor was pretty justified in calling an ambulance. Beatrice had looked like hell, and she felt like she'd been through worse. Still, when she woke up being wheeled into a hospital on a gurney, she was a little miffed.

Beatrice had tried to tell the paramedics that she was fine, it was all a pre-existing health condition, whatever, but they didn't listen to her.

Dehydrated, they said. Suffering from exposure, they said.

Still. Beatrice sure wasn't paying the ambulance bill.

She was lying reclined in a hospital bed, picking absentmindedly at the IV in her arm and stewing when two police entered the room.

When Beatrice had told them she was northeastern Ohio, they hadn't been thrilled. But it was only then, in the hospital room with the two police, that Beatrice discovered why.

She was in Kansas.

Fucking. Kansas!

Beatrice didn't think she'd ever been to Kansas. Why would she ever go to Kansas? To Kansas City, maybe? Kansas City wasn't even in Kansas, it was in Missouri or some shit!

Beatrice became overwhelmed and started to cry, much to the frustration of the police. She couldn't tell them anything they wanted to know. She didn't have an ID of any sort on her, either. Beatrice showed them her phone, but they treated it… weirdly. Like they'd never seen a smartphone before, or something. Didn't help that it was dead, either.

Beatrice couldn't tell the police anything about how she got there, or what she had been doing, or why.

They had a nurse come in and test Beatrice for drug or alcohol usage, but everything came back negative.

It was like she had been kidnapped by aliens.

Or maybe just kidnapped.

The worst part was perhaps when the police called Beatrice's parents. The number was disconnected, was what the police said. She gave them her home phone, her father's phone, her mother's phone— all the numbers she could remember, but it didn't matter. Everything was disconnected.

It was almost as if Beatrice was on another planet.

But that wasn't the case. Things— things looked the same, for the most part. The hospital carried the same awful smell of antiseptic, the machines all beeped in the same annoying manner. Police still couldn't do shit, as was evident from how they didn't know how to handle Beatrice.

The police decided to call in the specialists.

It took mere hours for them to converge on the hospital.

Beatrice jerked awake to the sound of raised voices and hurried footsteps. From the view the window gave her, Beatrice couldn't see much, but if she craned her head and bent left, just slightly, she could see a multitude of army vehicles in the parking lot.

Beatrice was filled with a sudden anxiety.

She figured she should run somewhere, grab her clothes from the closet and hide, just try and hitchhike back home, but she couldn't. Her head still hurt and didn't have the guts to rip the IV from her arm, and before she knew it someone new entered the room.

It was a woman wearing an impeccably kept suit and a severe look.

"Beatrice Ridley. I'm Rachel Baker, Director of the UNIT American branch, a branch of the United Nations." Baker said, and Beatrice laughed.

And immediately stopped when Baker didn't laugh with her.

"You… I'm… excuse me?" Beatrice replied, face slack.

"We need you to be truthful with us, Miss Ridley." Baker continued, completely uncaring as to how Beatrice was losing her fucking mind.

UNIT. As in… UNIT, like, from Doctor Who? Yeah, okay.

Except Rachel Baker, Director of the UNIT American branch, was not joking. She did not look like the joking type.

"Miss Ridley." The older woman said, straight-faced and firm, "We need you to tell us the truth."

"I don't— I have been telling the truth!" Beatrice said, voice warbling in desperation. Nothing about this situation made any sense.

"Your story doesn't add up, Miss Ridley." Baker squinted at her, "There isn't any evidence of a kidnapping, nor is there any trail of your journey here."

What the fuck?

"Not to mention," Baker continued, sounding more and more like she was criticizing Beatrice, "There are no records of a Beatrice Ridley from Northeast Ohio. It's as if you don't exist."

What?

No.

This wasn't right. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

"There's something about you that doesn't make sense," Baker said, but Beatrice had already half tuned her out.

This wasn't real. Beatrice had finally lost it, that was what happened. Genetics had really fucked her up this time! She was hallucinating, big time, going out like her great-grandmother had. Her medication was messed up, or something, and Beatrice was probably having a stroke, or… or…

"Miss Ridley?" Baker asked.

Beatrice shook her head, "Sorry." She placed both hands over her ears and held tight. Closed her eyes, drew her knees up and rested her head on them.

Where were her parents? Where was anybody? Was she completely alone in this?

They left her alone after a while, even though they really didn't. Beatrice could still see the UNIT soldiers that stood guard outside her door, clad in all black with riot gear and big guns. Beatrice didn't like to look at them for too long. Instead, she turned towards the window, watched the clouds slowly move by.

She was still being kept for observation, just until the morning, until the hospital was sure she would be alright. After that, she would be released into UNIT's care.

Only she would definitely have to escape before that.

Beatrice just wasn't sure how. Guards change shifts, don't they? Maybe Beatrice could slip out during a shift change, run down the hallway and out of sight. If that didn't work, maybe she could slip out the vents, or the window? Maybe in the laundry chute?

She just… Beatrice just really needed to find her parents. She needed real help. Everything else would come with time.

Under the cover of night, Beatrice bunched up a blanket and stuffed it into her mouth, as much as she could fit. She needed to take out the IV. She knew this wasn't how it was supposed to be done, but…. Shit, she needed it out!

Beatrice bit down and yanked on the IV as hard as she could.

Immediately, blood spurted from the wound and trickled down her arm. Beatrice groaned into the blanket, bending into herself as she tried not to yelp in pain. Shit, it was still bleeding, what should she do?

Through blurry eyes, Beatrice wrapped her arm in the white hospital bed sheet. Gauze, was there any gauze in her room?

But shit, what if she opened a drawer and it squeaked and the guards knew she was awake?

No, whatever, it was fine, she'd been through worse pain. Beatrice was bitten by a swan when she was five, this pain was nothing!

...Was what she told herself as she bit her lip and shuffled over to the closet, blinking away tears. Oh God, this had been a mistake.

Beatrice struggled into her leggings, then shucked off the annoying hospital gown, arm throbbing all the while. She'd occasionally dab at it with the blanket, but she moved swiftly. Dress next, then jacket. She didn't put her boots on, though— she definitely needed to sneak around, and her boots zipper tended to make an annoying tinkling noise Beatrice couldn't silence. Instead, she held them gently with her good arm while she cradled her bad one to her chest. She'd nabbed some toilet paper from the attached room and wrapped it around the wound, just so it wouldn't stain her jacket.

...It was a nice jacket, alright? She'd got it on sale at Nordstrom Rack, don't judge her.

There was a thud from the hallway, and Beatrice froze. Her heart raced.

One of the guards spoke up from the doorway. He yelled, "Halt! This is a restricted area, who are you?" The voice moved a little to the right— the guard was walking away.

Beatrice darted out the doorway of her hospital room, slid into the hallway because of her socks. The other guard sputtered, "Hey!"

Oh shit!

The only lighting in the hallway came from the multicolored lights from humming machines and computer screens, so Beatrice couldn't be sure, but. There was something not right off to the right. The first guard was standing before it, but he turned to look at Beatrice, moving his arm as if in slow motion as if to warn her—

Beatrice saw sharp teeth, then red. A scream got caught in her throat. The guard's body fell with a thud, head rolling, innards exposed. The computer lights reflected off the blood pooling on the linoleum floor.

The second guard, the only guard left, immediately raised his gun at the thing that had killed his coworker.

"Stay behind me!" He shouted at Beatrice and pushed her backward.

The— the thing with the teeth, the incredibly sharp and white teeth, advanced. It was fuzzy, Beatrice couldn't get a good look at it, like it was smudged from reality, somehow. Like a smudgy pencil drawing.

Then it hissed, and every instinct Beatrice had screamed at her to run.

She turned and fled into the darkness, really wishing she had put on her boots since she really wasn't doing much sneaking now, was she?

There was a scream of pain from behind her, and Beatrice ran faster.