It's morning, I'm still here, and I remember everything just fine, so I feel a bit stupid for all of yesterday's fanciful speculations. My new, simpler hypothesis is that I was kidnapped during the scan (corporate competitor?) and dumped for dead in the pond. I might easily have looked dead to someone who didn't realize what I was doped up on, and I was probably close enough to recovery that getting thrown into the pond woke me up. The whole lab/blue-sky/falling-out-the-door thing was surely a semi-lucid dream inspired by the car ride and getting chucked out the door and into the pond. The large thing moving by in the night? Probably a semi-truck on the interstate (though I can't explain the lack of running lights).

Simple, somewhat obvious, no? I'm sparing myself any conspiracy theories as to who or why for the moment. Right now, I'm most wondering where the heck am I? And what happened to my friends?! And what should I do now? Until I do answer who and why, I'm not too keen on alerting the world to my survival.

Somebody's coming.

----

That was Laura returning this morning, with some fresh fruit and bread. Quite good, though I haven't really regained my appetite.

I'm still surprisingly in the dark. I can see why they dumped me here. I never knew such an insular community existed (though I suppose that is almost by definition). People talk so strangely, I've mostly kept my mouth shut all day. Every time I open it, people ask why I talk so funny. Laura tells them I was hit on the head, and they give me the sympathy-to-the-idiot look. (Da da da! The Drooler at your service!) Better just to keep my mouth shut.

Oh, and another coincidence is explained, or at least it is much less of a coincidence than I thought: many of the women here look a lot like the girl from the prank the other night. I mean, as much as Laura does anyway. Now I wish I'd had more chance to talk to the prank girl--wouldn't surprise me if she were from here, and, hey, then I'd know where here was.

Yes, I still don't know where I am. Well, we're on the outskirts of what looks to be a pretty large city which they're calling Segransa, which I've never heard of, but I swear the whole place is just one giant multi-generational cult because they will not talk about anyplace else. And they're complete Luddites. Well, not complete, because there's definitely a blend of very modern bits to their architecture and such, but that's about it--no cars, no phones, no electricity!

(Actually, I have to say it's kind of nice. It's very pretty, and the people have been very nice despite my suspicion that they sacrifice small children during full moons.)

I wish I had my camera; I'd love to post this all as a photo journal some day. That is, assuming I live that long.

This reminds me, another bit of confusion: I looked at my clothes today--the ones I was wearing last night when I stumbled into town. Completely trashed, almost disintegrated. And pale too. Nothing left in the pockets, of course. Anyway, it's like they were soaked in a bleachy swimming pool for too long. (I had a pair of blue jeans once that I tried to fade that way, and they just started rapidly disintegrating after that.)

Another cultish, insular oddity: The year? Seventeen. At first I just took it for a joke, you know, 2017, ha ha, I hit my head and traveled into the future, but no, it's just their own calendar. It's just seventeen, no twenty. And when was Laura born? Ninety-five. And so hey, it should be no surprise then that nobody seemed to know how long this cult, ur, Segransa, has been around. I'm betting fifty years at least, maybe longer.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm heading back to the interstate and hitching out of here. Laura's not going to be happy about this, I can tell already. She's really quite fond of me; I couldn't say why. We really haven't talked much; I certainly haven't told her anything about me. But she looks at me...like she wants me in the worst (okay, best) way. And I've already alluded to her being very much my type, so it's quite mutual, but as much as I'm trying to stay cool I am still rather freaked out by all of this. I need to resolve what exactly happened the last couple of days. And then? I could definitely see coming back.

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