She awoke in a large room. Everything was white. The floor, the walls, the ceiling. She couldn't tell where the light in the room was coming from- perhaps it was everything that was glowing? There was furniture, she realized, a bed, some chairs, a table, but everything was white.
Her clothes were gone, replaced by what felt like hospital scrubs. They too, were white. Then she saw her. A little girl, sitting in an overly large chair.
"I'd say hello, but you don't want to be here." The girl had blue eyes and blonde hair, and was very pretty. She seemed sad, and Kim walked over to her.
"Where is...here?" Kim asked.
"A prison. A laboratory. A spaceship. Pick one. They haven't explained much." The girl looked to be about 6 or 7, but her speech patterns and mannerisms seemed very adult.
"They?"
"The aliens...or whatever they are. They don't come here themselves, they send their robots. They look human, but they're machines. They explained a few things to me, so I'll tell you what I know. This chamber, and perhaps the entire ship, was built to experiment with time. Not time travel, but manipulating it, moving it backwards, forwards, and in other directions. Certain sub-atomic particles can interact with time strangely, and intense gravity fields can warp time as well. This ship has powerful engines which allow it to move vast distances quickly due to emitting powerful gravitational waves, so this is an ideal location for research.
In this chamber, they are experimenting with anti-entropy, simulating the effects of time running backwards. My name is Nina. When I came here, I was 37 years old. The longer you remain here, the smaller and younger you will become."
Kim gasped. "How long have you been here?"
"Time really has no meaning here. They don't give me anything to write with, and they always clean the chamber. So I have no real way to track time. Months? Years? I don't know."
"What will happen to you...to us?"
Nina shrugged. "Eventually I'll lose the ability to talk and walk. The robots will have to take care of me until I become a newborn. Then, they will place me in an incubator until the point of conception, and then...they don't know. Do I eventually revert to nothing but inert chemicals? An egg cell frozen just before conception? Do I vanish from existence, or do I become my own mother? I don't know."
Kimberly hugged the little girl. "You must be so frightened."
"I am, but I've resigned myself to this fate. You should worry about yourself."
The two girls talked a lot, Nina was glad for the company. She continued to get younger (and so did Kim, though it was difficult to notice the changes at first). Nina reverted to toddlerhood, then one day, her speech patterns began to degrade, and soon she was speaking gibberish. Kim could tell that she was still aware of what was happening to her. She lost her ability to walk, and was forced to crawl about.
The robots, which looked like vaguely female, but featureless humanoids (kind of like walking, talking mannequins) began taking care of Nina full time. Feeding her, changing her. They explained a few of Kim's questions, but most of the time, they would remain silent. She was allowed to hold Nina, and they even gave her a strange-looking bottle to feed her with.
Kim was a teenager now, her body was becoming more slender, her hips beginning to narrow, and her breasts shrinking in size. Her voice (when she bothered to speak) sounded younger as well. Nina was very small now, and one day, the robots came in with another robot, that had a clear plastic sphere in it's abdomen. Nina was placed in the sphere, and the robot remained behind. An artificial mother with an artificial womb.
Nina kept getting smaller and smaller, and less developed. Then one day, there was a flash of light, and she was gone. "Subject 5439 has vanished from this point in space/time. Destination: Unknown." The robot has a pleasant sounding alto voice. "I will return for you, Subject 5440."
And then the mother machine left.
That was a long time ago, but how long, Kim can't say. She's a very young now, and has trouble walking. She hoped that 5441 would arrive while she could still talk, but apparently she'll be alone at the end. She cries.
Finally she can no longer take care of herself. Robots lift her up, change her, and feed her. She can't communicate with them, as the only sounds she can make are garbled nonsense. Then she is placed in the mother machine. She can see outside the artificial womb, but everything is blurry. Her eyes are sensitive now...she closes them, to keep out the light. And finally she can do nothing but...sleep...