Suddenly I realised I'd been asleep, why and for how long had me baffled.
I came awake, lying on a bed with the blankets all kicked off the end. My semi naked body was a lather of sweat as if I've been having a nightmare, but I cannot remember any bad dream.
There is a vague recollection of something running behind me, something large, shadowy and ferocious. I still felt the uneasiness that follows a feverish sleep, when you don't know what it was you feared, and whether it was in the dream, or whether it's real. Perhaps it's behind me now, but I feel with my right arm, and there's just the wall.
It was the wall of my cabin. I lay there, resisting full awakening, and stare above me. There was a constellation of some strange configuration, with odd sized stars I'd never seen before. On one side of the swirls of heavenly bodies was a large void of blackness, the cold, empty. one-eye socket staring down; a dangerous and all consuming black hole.
With a jolt of returning memory, I jerked wildly and sat up. I peered at the rectangular perimeter of the pattern of stars, my overheated body chilling instantly. The view above me was impossible. I must be still dreaming. It couldn't be a nightmare because there was nothing threatening about the sky above me, dark and night though it was.
No, there was nothing that should frighten me, or bring me feelings of misery, except for one thing.
My cabin no longer had a roof. Or ceiling. I was looking up into the void of space. Then, just when I was ready to jump out of bed, go racing out the door to find an explanation - surely discovering that this was just a nasty dream - the whole ceiling was growing lighter, and instead of outer space, galaxies and stars, there was a huge glowing shape that grew in size until it filled the whole sky above the cabin. The cabin walls were shaking, dust was flying and I knew then without any doubt that this was no dream.
What happened next brought my heart-hammering body upright and the hair on my neck stood up.
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