Taken

Daniel was always too nervous to travel, despite owning an adequately successful travel agency. He had never left the country. He didn’t even have a passport.

Daniel had never revealed this to his girlfriend, Kate, though. She loved travelling. When she was a child, she had made a goal to visit every continent before she turned 30; she had accomplished that goal at age 26. Daniel had been taken by Kate from the moment he first laid eyes on her when she walked through the doors of Adventurous Travellers Travel Agency seeking help to arrange a trip to Burkina Faso. Kate was also instantly smitten with the bespectacled man in the blue fisherman’s sweater behind the front desk.

Daniel always thought of himself as an honest person, so it gave him great anxiety when he lied to Kate. He told her he was too busy to go on a trip. The truth was, he was too scared.

Daniel knew he wanted to marry Kate. He loved her and she loved him. He had been carrying the ring around in his pocket for 121 days. But Daniel was nervous that Kate wouldn’t say yes if he revealed his fear of travelling.

But destiny would help him out in a way he never could have expected.

One day, Kate had dropped by Adventurous Travellers Travel Agency with a couple of egg salad and pickle sandwiches and a bottle of limeade to share with Daniel during his lunch break. They hadn’t even taken their first bites when the building started to shake.

Daniel abandoned his sandwich and pulled Kate under the desk to shelter from what he thought was an earthquake. Then a fierce white light blasted through the plastic venetian blinds. Daniel and Kate didn’t even have time to wonder where the light was coming from.

The next thing they knew, they were awaking somewhere completely different. It took several moments for Daniel’s eyes to focus and for his brain to comprehend what he was seeing. He and Kate were no longer in Adventurous Travellers Travel Agency. They were in what seemed to be a gigantic aquarium. They were laying on top of a small rock platform with their toes dangling in the water. Above them was nothing. Well, not nothing, just a metal domed ceiling.

Beside Daniel and Kate, sharing the only (and rather small) portion of dry land in the aquarium, was a flamingo, a tarsier, a tabby cat, and two goats.

Behind them, was a glass wall through which Daniel could see an empty corridor. It was a strange corridor, not like one he had ever seen before. He didn’t know what it was about it, but his first impression of it was that it wasn’t human-made. Daniel couldn’t see much farther as he realized he didn’t have his glasses on. He noticed they were laying beside him, and so he picked them up.

Suddenly, Kate was pulling Daniel up the rock. And then he saw why. A shark was swimming in the water. The clear water seemed to be quite alive with wildlife. Shimmers of silver and different colours darted this way and that way.

Kate was pulling Daniel so fast, she almost bumped into one of the goats.

“Where are we?” She asked Daniel. He wished he had an answer for her. It was all quite perplexing.

With his glasses now on, he was able to see farther down the corridor on the other side of the glass. There was a window. And outside the window, was what looked like stars. And a tiny blue and green planet.

“It seems we have travelled quite a long way,” Daniel told Kate.

“What are we going to do?” Kate asked, clutching Daniel’s hand tightly.

“Well….” Daniel said, then took a deep breath in, summoning all his courage. “Why don’t we start with this?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring.