Disclaimer: I own nothing. No infringement intended.

When Miley began to stir, she had no sense of how long she had been unconscious. Her head was pounding, and she wanted nothing more than to slip back into unconsciousness, but she forced her eyes open because she could feel that she was still in the water, though her face was above the water. But when she opened her eyes, she still couldn't see.

After a few moments, Miley realized that she could in fact see, but there wasn't much to see. Above her the sky was a dark, roiling purple, and she could feel that her limbs were caught up in some sort of binding. She shifted and kicked about, trying to get free of whatever she was caught up in, but it was to no avail. Tugging her arm upward, she managed to get a glimpse of her bindings, seeing that she was caught in a large rope net. That was when she became aware of the noises behind her.

Miley couldn't tell what the sounds were, but had she been asked to describe the sounds, she would have said that she heard chittering, like a group of anxious squirrels. The chittering grew more excited as Miley felt herself being pulled backwards. Soon, she felt something solid beneath her, and the chittering was louder than ever. Shadowy forms passed by her, just out of range of her vision. Hands gripped her arms and pulled her back further, then began unbinding her from the net. Some of the chittering started forming into words.

"We've got a pretty one, here," someone behind Miley said shrilly. This comment was followed by more formless chittering.

At last, Miley was freed from the net. She tried to shake the stiffness out of her limbs, but immediately she was flipped over onto her stomach. Someone wrenched her arms behind her back and tied them together at the wrists. Her ankles were similarly bound, and then she was lifted up and carried, to where she did not know.

There was a sound of metal scraping, and Miley tried to turn her head far enough to see what the sound was. It must have been a metal door, because Miley soon found herself being carried face-up toward the ceiling down a well-lit hallway. The walls were adobe-pigmented concrete with a salt-and-pepper finish. They looked ancient.

Miley still couldn't see who was carrying her. She tried to find her voice to speak, but coughed up water instead. Turning her head to the side, she spit the water out. When she tried to speak, her voice came out as little more than a croak that was unheard above the jubilant noise of her captors. She was utterly helpless.

Soon there was another sound, a rusty squeak, and before Miley knew what was happening, she had been flung to the ground. The ropes binding Miley's wrists and ankles were cut, and the loud, rusty squeak repeated itself, followed by a loud clang. Miley picked herself up off the floor and into a sitting position. She found that she was in a square room with two adjacent walls constructed of the same concrete as the hallway. The other two adjacent sides of the room consisted of a crisscross of wrought iron bars. On the side through which Miley had been flung, there was a door, constructed of the same wrought iron. The other side had no door; it was nothing more than a wall of bars. She was in a prison cell.

Miley tried to call out, to make anyone hear her, but her voice was still cracked from swallowing water. Nothing more than a rasp and a squeak escaped her throat. Not knowing what else to do, she crawled weakly over to the concrete side of the room, curled up against the corner, put her head against her knees, and cried herself to sleep.

x.x.x

When Miley awoke again later, she still had no clue as to how much time had passed. She sighed heavily. Her sigh came out louder than she expected, and it occurred to her that her voice might have come back. She decided to do a test.

"Hello?" she called out shakily. Her voice was still raspier than usual, but she could at least speak. What she wasn't expecting was a response.

"Hello?" a voice replied. Miley thought for a moment that the voice was an echo of her own, but this new voice was, at least for the moment, clearer than her own, though it did crack in its own strange way. Moreover, the new voice sounded more desperate than confused. For the moment, Miley was more confused than desperate. Still, she wanted to be sure, so she did the only logical thing she could think of.

"Is that someone else, or is that just my echo?" Miley asked.

"I may be an echo of my former self," the voice replied, "but I'm certainly no echo of you."

Miley looked over to the wall of crisscrossed bars and saw a figure standing there. The only light in the room came through the bars from the hallway, so she could see only the figure's shadow. Whatever it was, it was large. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm no one," the figure replied. The voice sounded like it belonged to a boy going through puberty in reverse; a low voice cracking and changing to become higher. "I once was someone, but now I am no one," the figure said. "It will be the same for you."

"Where are we?" Miley asked, trying to keep panic out of her voice.

"No one knows," said the figure. "Some of us have taken to calling this place 'the Rock.'" The figure emitted a painful, cracking laugh that seemed to hit two octaves at once. "I guess that's only fitting in my case."

Miley had regained some of her strength, and now she tottered slowly toward the bars of her cell. "You sound familiar," she said.

"Not for much longer," the figure said. "Not when they're done with me."

Miley came to the bars and latched her hands onto two of them to keep herself steady. Looking at the figure close up, it seemed more familiar.

"Yes, you knew me once," the figure said. "Before I was brought to the Rock, I was the Rock."

Miley gasped. "You're Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson?"

"I was. Now I'm just Dwayne the Woodchuck. Or Dwayne the Almost Woodchuck. They're changing me."

"Why?"

"Who knows?" said Dwayne. "All I know is I woke up in the water tangled up in a net and they threw me in here. Ever since then, I've slowly begun turning into a woodchuck."

"Are they going to do this to me, too?" Miley asked, tears beginning to stream from her eyes.

"They've done it to everyone else."

"But I don't want to be turned into a woodchuck!" Miley cried.

"They won't necessarily turn you into a woodchuck," Dwayne said. "Others have been turned into squirrels, rabbits, cats, ducks, dogs—"

"I get the picture," Miley said, cutting Dwayne off. "So how do we get out of here?"

"Get out?" Dwayne said incredulously. "This is the Rock that beat the Rock. There's no getting out."

Miley sighed heavily. "I think I'm just going to go back to the corner and try to sleep again," she said.

"That doesn't sound half bad, now that you mention it," said Dwayne.

Miley returned to her corner and curled up as she had before, crying until once again she slipped into sleep. Considering the vastness of the dream world, she could have dreamt of her family, of freedom, flying, adventure, or anything in the world. But she only dreamt of Lilly.