A Night in January 2018

New Year’s was already just a past memory. I didn’t remember exactly which part of January it had been, but I was certain it had happened then. An encounter like this could never be forgotten.

I had just started dating my husband, who at the time was only my boyfriend. I was living in São Paulo, in a neighbourhood called Butantã, all by myself—or rather, I was the only human in the apartment. It was such a small place that it could easily have been classified as a studio with walls dividing it. But I had seven cats with me.

My cats usually slept with me, but that night I really wanted a good night’s rest. Please don’t get me wrong: I loved my cats, but having seven of them sleeping all over you during summertime wasn’t exactly comfortable.

I followed all the usual routines before going to sleep: I took a shower, brushed my teeth, checked my cats’ water and food bowls, cleaned their litter boxes, and began shutting the doors and windows. First, I closed the backyard door (I was living in a ground-floor apartment with an amazing and safe backyard where my cats could enjoy themselves, since they were completely indoor cats). Then I closed the window in my office and the one in my bedroom. After locking the windows and the glass backyard door, I checked the main door to make sure it was properly locked—and it was.

I said, ‘Good night, kitties’, and dragged my tired body, dressed in pyjamas, to my uncomfortable double bed. I closed my bedroom door, though I didn’t lock it. It had been such a hot day, and because my bedroom was so small (approximately 10 m²—believe me, I’m giving it my best shot), I felt like a broiling pie. I sent my boyfriend a goodnight message and drifted off to sleep. Or so I thought.

When I opened my eyes, the room was cold and everything around me was blindingly white. A light shone directly into my face. It felt as though the air conditioning had been set to 16 degrees Celsius. I was confused; my vision was blurry. It felt like waking up from post-surgery anaesthesia.

My sight took a long time to return to the point where I could make out objects and the environment more clearly. My senses came back slowly: I opened my eyes, which took time to adjust with my short-sightedness; I managed to command my mouth, which was dry but still functioning; my ears were just as strange as my eyes, because I heard metallic sounds—like tools falling on a steel surface—and voices making noises I couldn’t identify. Then I tried to check my arms, hands, legs, and feet.

Trapped. My wrists and ankles were restrained.

I began to panic, and the rush of fear cleared my vision instantly. If I had ever been short-sighted, in that moment I wasn’t. I could see everything. Every detail. What followed all happened in a fraction of a second.

I couldn’t move my neck, which was also strapped down. Somewhere between my waist and hips, I felt restraints holding me in place.

By forcing a slight movement to the right, I managed to push against the flexible but tight material around my neck just enough to glimpse what was holding me. Straps of something that looked like aged leather with thick buckles.

Wide-eyed and unblinking, I began to take in every detail of the surroundings. It looked like a laboratory—or perhaps an operating room. Everything was brightly lit, but all I could see were hanging cabinets and counters with drawers beneath them.

The sounds—the voices—seemed like frequencies rather than speech. Metallic, distorted tones.

Through the blurred reflection on the cabinets, I saw moving silhouettes with strangely shaped heads, completely disproportionate to their bodies. They were dark-grey figures, and those strange frequencies came from them. Behind them, I caught glimpses of machinery in the reflections, as only the smaller figures moved clearly within the glass surface.

My desperation grew.

The more I struggled, the faster the grey silhouettes moved, as if they were accelerating some process—or whatever they were doing. And then, suddenly, they stopped.

I heard a faint engine noise. Modern. Mechanical. I froze, trying to identify where the sound was coming from.

Above. It was coming from above.

Suddenly, a machine moved into my field of vision from the ceiling. I couldn’t describe it precisely, but it had a round metal base attached overhead. From this base extended a robotic arm, similar to those surgical machines shown in documentaries about future medicine. Where I would have expected to see a hand, there was instead a thick needle, topped with a cylindrical glass dome.

The needle descended slowly towards my stomach. It paused, then continued until it pierced directly into my navel.

I had never felt such excruciating pain in my life—and I had had all four wisdom teeth removed in one surgery and dislocated several joints. I screamed. The agony was unbearable. Cold sweat broke across my body. The needle stayed lodged inside me. I grew weaker, on the verge of losing consciousness—but I couldn’t. How could I let myself pass out there, in such a place? What were they doing to me?

And then, I blacked out.

I woke up screaming in pain, drenched in sweat, weak, my body unresponsive. My belly button hurt terribly.

As the pain began to subside, still throbbing, I noticed my bedroom window—facing my bed—was open. At the foot of the bed, all seven of my cats sat in a circle, staring at me, visibly worried. I turned my head to the right. My bedroom door was open. My cats had pushed it open.

Then, one by one, they climbed onto the bed, pressing their warm bodies close around me, especially near my stomach. The smallest of them, an orange kitten, curled up directly beneath my navel.

I didn’t know if I fell asleep or passed out again, but I was grateful it was the weekend and I didn’t have to work the next day.