i was with my niece amy at some sort of big warehouse looking place that had an olympic length pool inside, some of the those games where you try to toss the ball into the target, and some other things inside. there was some sort of competition going on. my niece was involved, and i was just there to sort of watch. there was no audience. the main guy's name was alex (i think). he was really cute i guess, and a little older than me. he had a very petite and bitchy girlfriend that was prone to violence sometimes.

amy was swimming a race against a guy in the pool, and then these other guys that were racing a few lanes down crossed lanes. there was a collision underwater, and for a few moments, i was ready to jump in because i thought amy was in trouble. she came back up for air, though. she got out and was just fine. later, she was playing the other game. another chick that worked at the place was standing next to me. we were sort of talking. oh. there were probably about 30 people there, total. at some point, the guy's girlfriend broke up with him. he was sort of making the moves on amy, and i didn't approve. i didn't trust him, and i thought the whole thing was bad. i told amy not to go there, and she got a little miffed at me. the other chick started getting into an argument with me about it. she started saying some rude things about my niece. i realized she had the hots for the alex guy.

a bit later, the girlfriend came back and was hanging all over alex. she was also being rude to people. being who i am, i started shoving it right back into her face. she got really upset and tried to attack me. i beat her down, though. then for some reason i was wandering around this place singing the national anthem in this amazing voice. all of the people there came to listen to me. some joined in and were singing it really quietly. for some reason, this made them all sort of respect me. they wanted to know me better, blahblah.

we were going to leave. amy went outside first. i told her to wait out there for a minute, and i'd be out there soon. i don't remember what i was saying to the people inside. there was another chick leaving, too. i heard her honk her horn a few times outside, but i didn't pay any attention to it. i thought she was honking it to say bye to amy. shortly after that, i went outside. another girl was walking me out to my car. it was raining. the building was in the middle of a giant field. there were some trees far off. the girl walking with me kept asking me who i was, really. she said that i gave out a lot of facts about myself, but i still remained a mystery. i told her i had no idea why that was. i told her i was an anthropologist. some other facts. i said i'd heard that people thought i was a bit of an enigma before, but that i wasn't trying to be. that girl went back inside.

i was standing at my car waiting for amy for about two seconds when i heard the girl that i thought had left (and had honked her horn) screaming my name in a really breathless way and running up to me. she said something was wrong with amy. that maybe she had amnesia or something. she said amy had collapsed to the ground screaming about her eyes burning and being shot. i looked out in the field and asked where she was. the girl told me to follow her.

we ran out into the field, and there was a book with a yellowish cover lying on the ground. the girl pointed at the book and told me to read some of the middle pages. i asked her where amy was. she just looked at me with this horrified look on her face. i opened the cover, and read the inside of it. it was amy, talking from the book. it said something like this:

it's so cold here. my eyes are burning.
i've been shot, but i'm not bleeding. where am i?
who is this? these halls are so dark... KIMMY! HELP ME!!
i'm so tired. i should sleep.

etc. the important part of it really was that she was yelling at me in italics in it for me to help her. for some reason, i knew this was that guy alex's fault. that he wasn't really human at all. then i realized i wasn't, either. i went in there. my eyes had changed. my breathing was very heavy, and i was making some sort of guttural sounds with each inhale and exhale. i attacked alex. we fought. we were both really strong, and our wounds healed almost the minute we made them in each other. somehow, i was stronger. i got him by the neck, which i guess was some sort of vulnerable spot. i was demanding that he tell me how to get amy out of the book. he said he didn't know. he said i belonged with him and so did amy. the other people there were just sort of watching us. none of them were like us. they were sort of in shock, i think. nobody had known we were really these strange monsters.

alex and i fought some more. at some point i realized i was going to have to read the book and try to solve the puzzle of it to get amy out. she was in serious trouble. alex and i had some sort of tentative truce. he didn't know how to get amy out of the book, and he hadn't put her in there. i still hated him, though.

that's all i can remember.