He could not fathom what sin he could have possibly committed to deserve such punishment. He was a decent enough man, all things considered. But these thoughts were merely momentary distractions from the excruciating pain.
After what seemed like an eternity he felt his body being slowly pulled. He could hear a dull roaring sound and imagined a tidal wave of molten iron, lead or rock coming to compound his suffering. He was no doubt surprised to find his body striking something cold and hard, the dull roar turning into a constant splash that slowly diminished. There were voices, not demonic as he might have expected but certainly strange, speaking unrecognizable tongues. They were shouting at each other, some of them sounding like commands.
Fritswick's body still felt like it was on fire. As cool as the floor felt, it's touch only compounded the pain. It was no different when the hands touched him, several of them trying to lift him up. He instinctively struggled against them, crying out in agony, but their grasp was firm. The pain was unbearable and just as he thought he wouldn't be able to take any more he felt a sharp stinging sensation in his neck. He shouted out again but his shouting died away as he suddenly decided shouting was too much work. He felt his pain slowly diminish along with his consciousness.
Fritswick awoke on some kind of padded slab in the middle of a bright room. Light poured out from what he could only describe as a large white circle in the ceiling. He began to look around and saw a blue beam of light spilling out from some kind of mechanical device suspended from the ceiling just in front of the foot of the slab. The beam moved back and forward over his naked body. From his waste down his skin was red and horribly blistered but as the beam past over each one the blisters melted away. He tried to move to get a better look at this clearly fascinating phenomenon but found that he couldn't.
A hand pressed against his shoulder and a foreign voice calmly spoke to him. The voice was that of a woman, blonde and dressed in what he could only presume to be some kind of military uniform, though none he had ever seen before. He could not understand what the woman was saying but by her voice he understood that she most likely didn't want him to move.
The woman reached over and picked up a device situated on a nearby counter. She held his forehead and pressed the device against his temple. For a brief moment he felt as if she had shoved a nail into his skull but the pain vanished almost immediately. She spoke again, this time in clear American English.
"Who are you?"