Deciding to continue, Lana looked Chloe directly in the eye and tried to relate the bizarre events that she had witnessed.
"I … looked over the crest of the crater and saw … something that wasn't a meteor. It was large, and it formed a kind of triangle or diamond shape. It was a deep black. Its surface was smooth, like glass, and it was clearly artificial. It was also clear that it wasn't a satellite or an advanced airplane. I … I think it was a spaceship," Lana said in an amazed tone of voice, "I saw it open and a bright light came out of the opening, but before I could see anything else, I fainted and then I woke up here."
Chloe's eyes widened as she listened to Lana describe what she had seen after she crashed.
"Lana, are you sure that you didn't dream this or hallucinate it because of your head injury?"
"No, I'm not sure, but you asked what I remember and I told you. In other circumstances I would have simply dismissed it as a dream or a hallucination, but under the current circumstances, I think it might be a good idea to keep what I saw in mind."
"So you're telling me you think we were abducted by aliens?"
"I never said that, I just think we shouldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand. I mean, look around, this room isn't like anything I've seen before."
Chloe looked around the small room, which was about 10 feet by 10 feet by 8 feet, and saw that Lana was right. The room was completely bare, no windows, and the walls were made of a material that she had never seen before. The only color in the room was what they were wearing. The rest of the room was white. These things were cause for concern, but were not necessarily indicators of alien abduction. What was really concerning was that there was no obvious source of light and yet the room was brightly lit.
"The lights." Chloe stated.
"What about them?" asked Lana, genuinely puzzled at her friend's statement.
"There aren't any." stated Chloe, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Looking around Lana said "Your right, but I was referring to the décor, and the very obvious lack or a door, window, or any other visible means of entrance or exit."
"Oh, O.K., that too. So we are in a room that has no lights and yet we can see and has no entrance and yet here we are. Alright, I'm convinced. I'll keep an open mind. What we have to do now is decide what to do."
"There IS NOTHING to do; we're in a room with no exit, with no tools, and no knowledge of where we are or who is keeping us here." Lana exclaimed vehemently.
Chloe smiled and then laughed, "I know we can't get out of here on our own, at least not right now. What I meant is how are we going to keep ourselves occupied while we're in here."
Thirty minutes later…
"…And so Pete decided to get Clark back. The next day, while Clark's attention was on mooning over you, Pete dumped a bottle of hot sauce into Clark's coke. We could barely keep a strait face when he took a big swallow of his coke. But all he did was say that 'this coke tastes a little funny'" Chloe said, doing her best Clark impression, "and then proceeded to drink most of it. I will never forget the look on Pete's face when Clark did that." Chloe said, laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face.
"It's a funny story Chloe, but it's not THAT funny." Lana stated.
"You haven't heard the best part of the story yet. Later, just after Clark left, Pete said he didn't understand what went wrong. I told him he should have used a stronger hot sauce. He replied that he had used his family's secret hot sauce. This of course meant nothing to me until he explained about the hot sauce competition held that year at the fair. That year Pete's family had entered a new recipe into the contest. The contest judge, who could literally drink most hot sauces as if they were glasses of lemonade, placed one drop of the Ross Hot Sauce on his tongue and ran off the stage in tears." Chloe took a break to wipe her eyes with her shirt sleeve.
"After Pete told me this, I said he must not have out enough into the glass and the Coke must have diluted it. He said he put in at least a tablespoon, enough to bring anyone to their knees. So I suggested that maybe Clark had known what was going on and had somehow switched glasses when we weren't looking. Pete, of course, immediately looked relived and decided I was right. He also decided to prove it. So, before he could think better of it, he grabbed the glass and took a big gulp of Clark's drink. I had never seen Pete cry before, but as he swallowed he got the strangest look on his face. His eyes began to tear up and he started to cough. Tears began to pour down Pete's face as the hot sauce began to take effect. The best part about this is Clark forgot his school notebook and came back for it. He walked in to see Pete in tears, gulping his own coke, trying to put out the fire. Of course, Clark being Clark, he assumes that Pete is choking and is trying to dislodge the food with the coke. So of course, Clark grabs the coke from Pete and starts the Heimlich maneuver on Pete. Poor Pete was desperately trying to get his coke back but couldn't talk yet. So here I am, nearly rolling on the floor, I was laughing so hard, while Clark is performing the Heimlich maneuver on an unwilling Pete who was desperately trying to get Clark to stop so that he could finish his drink. It took me about three minutes to calm down enough to be able to explain to Clark what was happening. It took Pete three days to get the taste out of his mouth. Clark has never let him forget it either. To this day, if Pete ever asks Clark to get him a coke, Clark will ask if he wants hot sauce with that." Chloe finished with a huge grin.
By this time Lana was laughing so hard she snorted. "I … I can't … Hahahaa, I can't believe that Pete did that! How did Clark switch the glass and then switch it back?" she said while still laughing.
Chloe's smile dimmed a little at this statement, thinking that Clark probably hadn't had any idea of what was happening and had indeed drank the coke without it having any effect on him. This had happened to her a lot lately, old memories of Clark and his strange behavior suddenly making sense. "He never said. He always said he never did anything, that we had done it all for him."
As she finished speaking they both heard a whoosh and saw the outline of a door that hadn't been there a minute ago. As the door slid into the ceiling their eyes widened as they saw…
TBC.
