I blearily rubbed my eyes, wondering what time it was, and why I had been asleep. Was it Saturday already? I didn't remember getting home last night. Also, my back was aching... Since when was my mattress so hard?

I rubbed my eyes again, wondering why everything was so blurry. It didn't help that the overhead light suddenly seemed so harsh, forcing me to squint. I did my best to drag myself out of bed and upright, but as soon as I put weight on my legs they felt like they'd turned to jelly, and I crumpled to the floor. The cold, hard floor. That was finally enough to partially shake me from my befuddled state. This clearly wasn't my room; my room had carpet.

I sat there for a minute, waiting for my head to stop spinning, and trying to remember where I was. I'd been walking home with Samantha and Alicia, and then we'd been attacked. They'd sedated me with something, which must be why I still felt so groggy. I hadn't even seen our attackers, yet all three of us had been taken out easily. Yes, the street had been quiet, but it was early evening in the middle of a residential street. To pull that off without worrying about witnesses, we were obviously dealing with professionals.

A kidnapping didn't bode well. My family were nowhere near rich enough to pay off the typical ransom demand that kidnappers would make, nor did we have insurance, or contracts with the private policing agencies that had cropped up when it became obvious that the public police were losing control. If they were professionals, once they realised that they couldn't sell me back to my family for as much as they would want, they would look to cash in on their 'investment' in other ways instead. At least it was better than amateurs, who would probably just kill me. It was unlikely I'd ever get to see my family again, but I refused to be the sort of victim that would just sit there and cry, waiting for a heroic rescue that was never going to come.

I gritted my teeth and tried to force the sedative out of my system with pure willpower. It didn't help, obviously, but at least it made me feel better that I was actually trying to do something. I had to continue sitting for another five minutes before enough function returned to my legs for me to stand, and it was a few minutes more before my sight cleared up enough to get a view of my room. I was stood in one corner, next to a bed, with only a thin, hard mattress, and no sheets.

Floor, ceiling and walls were metallic, with no visible doors or windows. The ceiling held a couple of panels that were emitting light, as well as vents, and a few glassy black spots. Cameras, perhaps? A metal shelf jutted out of the wall near my bed, on which was a meal on a paper plate, and what looked like a sheet of paper. The paper caught my interest immediately, but my sight hadn't cleared up enough yet to read. On the other side of the bed was a toilet, again metallic, but no sign of toilet roll. There was a sink, with an inbuilt soap dispenser, and a shower that ran straight onto the floor, behind a transparent door. A grate in the corner was presumably there to drain away the resulting water.

On the opposite wall were more metallic shelves, these ones populated by a collection of books. Every fixture and fitting was made from metal; no matter how much I raged out here, I wouldn't be able to break anything with force. As my eyesight cleared up a bit more, I could see the seams on the walls. A slot above the shelf on which the meal had appeared, and a few locations that could have been doors, obviously completely sealed from this side. I revised my professionalism estimate up a few notches; this wasn't a cell knocked together by any old criminals, organised or otherwise. This was built with no expense spared to ensure that whoever was on the inside remained there.

A slight chill made me realise that I'd been spending so much time looking around the room that I hadn't looked at myself. I appeared to be uninjured, but I was completely naked, without so much as a piece of underwear. I hadn't noticed earlier, even when I'd sat on the bare floor, thanks to my confusion. While my initial reaction to that realisation was shame, I quickly replaced it with anger. Whoever was watching had seen everything already, and I was damn well not going to give them the satisfaction of watching me squealing and trying to hide.

Another quick look around the room confirmed that there was neither clothing nor any storage that might contain it. Thankfully, the room was pleasantly warm, so the lack of clothing or bedding wasn't going to cause problems. I'd do a more careful inspection of the walls later, in case they hid a pop-out drawer or something, but given how unlikely that was and now that my sight had completely recovered, I had something more important to address.

Dear Lily

We apologise for the circumstances in which you now find yourself, and hope you are able to quickly adjust. Feel free to peruse the collection of books we have made available to you, should you seek entertainment. Aside from that, please try to remain relaxed. Please leave any waste on this shelf, and it will be disposed of appropriately. Cooperation will be rewarded with luxury meals. We promise that everything will be over within a month.

Well, that tells me nothing whatsoever. What will be over within a month? I doubted they would just release me. It wasn't even signed by anyone. It has my name on it, but I had my ID card in my purse, so they would know that by now even if it hadn't been a targeted kidnapping.

I hungrily ate the food that was provided, because after my drug induced nap I was famished, and no-one would go to this much trouble just to poison me. It was actually pretty good, despite the lack of cutlery. Better than I'd have got at home, for sure, not that that justified any of this. At least it seemed that I'd be fed well, and there was a limitless supply of water available from the sink.

I left the used plate on the shelf as requested, because it wasn't as if I could do anything useful with it other than piss off my captors, and I was interested to see how they reclaimed it. I washed my hands of the mess I'd made, and then raised my professionalism measure up another notch when I realised the room also contained no towels, but rather a couple of blow driers built into the walls. There was a small one for hands, and a full-body one for when I took a shower. Apparently, as well as just containment, there was little in here with which to commit suicide. I could probably charge head-first into a wall or bite my tongue, but I wasn't sure how reliable that would be, and besides, I wasn't that desperate yet.

Meal dealt with, I did a more careful examination of the room. There were no accessible secret panels that I could find, or any hidden storage, or any loose objects in the whole cell other than the books. The toilet had a built in cleaning function, which was weird, but at least compensated for the lack of paper. The bed did nothing whatsoever, the mattress being a fixed part of it. I did find one switch on a wall that dimmed the lights to a level that wouldn't be detrimental to sleep, but that was the only one.

My tour was interrupted by a sudden whirring noise, and turning back towards the shelf I saw that the panel above had opened, and the whole thing was withdrawing slowly into the wall. I walked over and peered into the new hole, only to see another metal panel behind, and no sign of light. Apparently it was some sort of air-lock system and didn't let me see into any sort of room beyond. I'd have added another notch to the professionalism meter, but by this point it was already pretty much maxed out.

It was obvious that there was no way I was getting out of here unless something changed, and I doubted anything would come from begging for my life, so I did my best to keep any sign of my growing panic off my face, grabbed the first book in the row and settled back to read.