"Walk with me to the end." He urges me on through the party's commotion. People are staring, laughing, and joking around us, behind us. They are consumed by bitterness, jealousy, or drink.

They frighten me. I'm afraid of their eyes and his. Afraid of his thoughts. His judgments. I'm new here after all, and I'm a star. At least that's what he told me. I danced like a dream.

He is focused and determined, and I try to keep up. We keep walking, ignoring the distractions, and eventually, we reach the balcony. He turns to me, a satisfied smile on his face, and says, "You see, you can make it through anything."

My sapphire dress drips through his hands on my back, around my waist, clutching me closer. I'm new here, I can't afford to keep a distance. I'm jumping in, I'm letting myself trust him.

We walk further out on the balcony towards the railing and my head spins from the wine or the height. I'm woozy but I keep my back straight and grip the cold metal bar with my pale hands. The wind catches my shimmering scarf and pushes my black curls off my face. I'm on top of the world.

"What do you see, Cherie?"

I look over at him and for a second I think I see his green eyes flash like the neon lights dancing below.

"Not me," he says. "Out there, into the abyss."

Though now I would rather look at him, his viper eyes, his sly smile, I pull my eyes away and look below at the crowded streets from the diamond suite view at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. Flashing signs plaster every building, cars block the streets, their lights gleam in the afterhour grid lock. Holograms flicker in the sky with pictures of guitars and advertisements for the Hard Rock Cafe across the street. In their own mischievous adventures, people yell and scream. Everyone has a different reason to be on the strip.

I for one, came here to dance. I came here to be discovered. "I see people, cars, lights..." I stutter and pretend to shiver, though the August air is warm. He takes his arm and wraps it around me.

"I see that too," he says. "But what else?"

I panic because I think he's testing me. I was invited here, I belong here, I tell myself. I regain my confidence and look at the strip again. "I see success. I see money everywhere."

"You're getting hotter."

He casually kisses my neck and I hear him hiss.

"What did you say?" I look over and his eyes flash neon green again. I think I'm drunk, I'm hallucinating. My pulse quickens and I try to remember if I took my medication. I never forget to take it. Did I forget this morning? Is it the wine? The height?

"Do you feel like letting go?" he asks as he motions below. "How far down do you think it is?"

"What?" I slur.

"You see, people like them, they've got places to go and nothing's holding them back. I think you and I have places to go, Marcella, places you've never seen before. I'd like to help you find those places. I want to show you what life can be like without limitations or fear. I want to help you discover what you're capable of."

I hear him speaking but the words drift around in my head like a crossword I can't solve. I'm just a dancer, I think. I'm here to dance.

I stumble back away from the iron railing. My knees barely keep me standing. I turn around and see an empty diamond suite. Did everyone leave? My ankles almost buckle beneath my weight and in my confusion I can't take another step before I fall.

He catches me and bites my shoulder. It stings and I don't flinch, but maybe I can't flinch. I try to move my arm and hand up to push his head away from my neck but it's no use. I'm immobilized. I feel my body surrender to the weightless sensation as he lifts his mouth off my collarbone. Two long fangs hang under his lips and drip with venom. They retract and his tongue flickers at me like a snake. Scales appear on his cheeks in waves before he smiles and they disappear.

I'm hovering above the floor.

I close my eyes and picture myself dancing cabaret on Broadway. I'm no longer booked through Scarlet Entertainment, I have my name in lights and on posters and I spin and I spin and I spin, until the world melds together and I'm weightless again. I float outside myself and drift to the stars. I soak in their light.

"Do you feel like letting go?" I hear an echo in the distance below me.

I cling to the moon as gravity pulls at my feet.

I'm so heavy. I can't hold on. I let go of the crescent tip and ascend.Even though I'm falling, it feels like I'm flying higher. I see a floor above me and I crash into it, and slowly meld right through it until I'm lying on my back on the other side of the floor.

I open my eyes and everything spins again. I lean to my side and throw up the wine, cheese, and chocolate I had earlier at the party that disappeared. Someone picks me up as I close my eyes and drift off to dreamless sleep.

• •

I wake up in my room with my roommate's stereo blasting a Katy Perry techno remix from her bedroom. I cringe and turn the other way in bed and block it out by folding the pillow over my ear. My neck feels stiff like I slept crooked all night and I moan when I peek at the beckoning clock on my nightstand.

Celeste, my roommate, is singing along now, trying to motivate me to go in there and make fun of her. She just wants me awake for company. I lay there for a few moments before her grating voice does me in. She's lucky it's almost noon and I have to be at rehearsal in a couple hours.

I sit up to yell 'I'm up!' But the pain in my neck stops me short. Instead, I rub my shoulder and crouch my way to Celeste's room and open the door.

"Oh my god!" She yelps, "you scared me! I didn't hear you come in last night, I didn't even think you were home." Celeste has bionic hearing. The slightest sound wakes her up. She hears me come in every night when I'm out late without her. She can even tell if I've been drinking or not by the different noises I make before finding my bed. "What's wrong with your neck?"

I'm holding on to my neck where it throbs and I suddenly realize it doesn't feel so stiff after all. "I'm not sure," I say slowly. I try and rub my neck in circles but that sends pain down my shoulder and to my back and I cry out.

"Whoa, what happened?" Celeste runs over and grabs my hand. "Oh man, what is that, a spider bite?"

"Huh?" A spider, no... Then the man with fangs and scales on his face pops into my head and I feel him bite me again. "No..." I moan and stumble to the bathroom door and fumble with the light switch to look in the mirror at my neck.

It's red and swollen and my veins have turned blue around the bite mark. "What was he?" I wonder under my breath.

"What was who?" Celeste fusses at my neck trying to get me to raise my chin so she can get a better look.

"No one, no, it was nothing." Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You sure? Because it sounded like someone." I shook my head and managed a weak smile. "Really, it was nothing."

"Didn't you leave with that tall, hot shot agent in the green suit last night?"

"Green suit?" I pretend to forget. "Yeah, maybe I did."

"So, what happened?"

"I don't remember."

• •

I got to rehearsal early. I had to leave the apartment. Celeste was driving me crazy with all her questions. She thought I was drugged or stabbed in the neck and should report it to the police. All I could think about was not missing work, and I couldn't even remember what happened. How did I know I hadn't done this to myself?

Still, maybe she's right. I can't remember most of the previous night, except for that gorgeous guy who claimed to be a local agent. We sat at the bar and he bought me a drink, but the rest of the night blurs together, in waves of images that don't seem real. I don't even remember his name. I hope I didn't do anything stupid. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

But I can't think about it now. I'm at rehearsal and this is the big time. If I screw up here, I'll be nowhere else, and fast.

I wrapped white tape over my neck and shoulder to hide my bite mark before leaving the apartment. Some of the girls ask if I'm OK in the powder room where we fluff and dress for the show. I feel OK, I tell them, but really I am sweating and clammy and feel light headed.

Pain shoots through my neck and another flash of the mystery man from last night enters my mind. The Monte Carlo and his green eyes. I'm suddenly ravenous and all I can think about is him and his fangs. I grab a bottle of water from my booth and chug it down, but it doesn't quench the dread I have. People scatter around me like I've hit fast forward.

Suddenly I'm dancing. I'm spinning and kicking my legs. I'm sashaying and sidestepping,but I can't remember the beginning and I definitely don'trecall ending.

Until he is there, with his green eyes and green skin, and the world stops.

Vile shouts are directed at me as I run to him. Screams of disbelief.

"Ignore them love, it's time to let go."

We filter through questioning glares and hidden sneers. I hear a dancer bid for my part. I don't understand that because I'm the star. I'm the one they will all come to see. I dance in moon craters and through dreams. I'll be back and put on the show of a lifetime. I just have to... I just want to.... I pull him closer. He has something I need.

"Where'd you go?" I ask him.

"I never left, love," he asssures me "just had to be sure you want this."

A red Cadillac convertible  waits for us by the curb and he drives us to a hotel with glorious hovering lights and a levitating ballroom dance floor. "I had this made just for you," he tells me as he parks. He grabs me out the passenger seat into his lap and bites my collarbone again. This time I feel a course liquid being fed into my veins.

His teeth retract slowly from my skin. "Stare with me into the abyss," he whispers in my ear.

But I dance, I think. I want to move, so I float away from him and up into the flying hotel. I'm spinning around and laughing. I can see myself below in the red car and I'm sleeping, missing it all. I need to wake myself up.

Then he is on me. He's searching me for something he lost, something he must need. I lay still on the white leather interior. He takes all of my belongings, including my cellphone and my jacket.

"Hey!" I yell down at him, trying to grab his attention but he doesn't hear me. He rips off the silver chain and heart pendant I wear around my neck. "Stop it! Those are my things!" I scream as I try to get closer to him but I'm stuck behind this glass window in the levitating hotel. He takes off my shoes and throws everything in a knapsack in the back seat. My face drops and my arms fall heavy down to my sides. The size of my head is hulking. I lean it against the glass window, eager to sleep, but I keep staring into it. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I can feel the tears streaming down my face. I'm exhausted, scared, and alone.

I see my body shake and twitch, then the man with the green eyes looks up and wavesat me, or perhaps someone else, before he opens the passenger seat of the red Cadillac and kicks my lifeless body to the ground.

A blinding light shoots down and envelops me as my figure slowly and steadily defies gravity and makesits way up to the hotel and through the window. It floats right up to me until I feel a part of myself reenter my body where everything is cold and dark and vacant. I finally close my eyes for a sleep I think will last forever.

• •

I wake up and can't move, but I'm moving. I'm nowhere I recognize. I'm walking down a hall edged with blinking lights, though I have no control over my legs. I try to stop, talk, scream, lay myself on the floor in protest, but I l can't control my body. I feel like a passenger in my own skin. I can't turn my head, I see only what is in front of me.

I enter a large white room and sit on a single chair in its centre. I sit there, waiting for what seems like hours, though it is only minutes, until a person comes through the door in front of me.

"How is everything feeling?" the strange woman asks. She has green eyes that look oddly familiar to me but I can't place why.

"I feel no fear." I hear my voice answering, but it is not my thoughts expressed.

"Is the host manageable? Did it conform to all biological enhancements?"

"I believe so."

"Let's just be sure, open up." The woman grabs my chin and shines a small flashlight in my mouth. She applies slight pressure to the back of my neck and I feel my teeth split apart and my skin crawls. "You've adapted."

I have not! I don't want this. I am not this thing.

"Remember, you have 48 hours to prepare another vessel or you will be sent back to Station Six. If you succeed, you'll have full access to this body. You can stay here on Earth, or you can join any one of our sister planets."

"I'm feeling nauseous, is that normal?" My voice asks.

"Hmm."She quanders and spins me around and looks me dead in the eyes.

"Any residual mind melding?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no."

"Compound thoughts? Sense fusion? Differential functioning?"

"No, not at all. Just queasy."

"Hmmmm. We'd better give you a full vaccine workup, just to be on the safe side."

"I thought those weren't necessary?"

"Just a precautionary measure. It may be a silent residual mind. It's rare, but I've read studies about its occurrence."

She pulls out a needle and fills it with drops of different liquids. What is it for? What will it do?

I panic. I scream and try to wiggle out of my skin. Somehow I sense that if she pokes me with that thing, I'll be gone for good. I kick and scratch at my arms and legs, though my body remains still. I can feel the fear in every muscle, every hair, and every breath I take. I'm trying to cry out for help, but I can't make a sound. I'm so scared I can't move, I can only lay here in terror.

"You'll just feel a slight pressure now," she says as she lifts up my shirt. Inoculation is injected into my spine and I silently scream. I feel it enter my body and its cool current works its way up my back and into my shoulders.

The room is spinning now.

I feel it in my eyes and my sight clouds over. I can no longer see.

It spins around in my brain and muffles my ears. I can no longer hear.

I can no longer touch.

I can no longer feel.

But I am here. I exist, but I am not alive. I am an empty shell, a ghost of my former self. I am here, but I am not present. I cannot feel the warmth of the sun on my skin or the joy of being alive. I am merely an observer, lost in a void of my own emptiness. I am trapped in a world I cannot escape. I am unable to find a way out of this dark abyss. I am alone, without hope, and without purpose. I am nothing more than a shadow of my former self, an empty shell in an endless void.