I woke up on a dark green couch with a thin baby-blue blanket draped over me. As I put it aside, I noticed that I had my work suit still on - well, the jacket had been folded and put under my head, and my shoes were at the foot of the couch, but otherwise I was still dressed. As I often end up being in the morning nowadays.

It was an appreciably spacious room, and a ceiling at least two arm's-lengths above my head. The couch and I were at the middle of one wall, with a window above and a door at the leftmost end. The right wall had some folding chairs and another couch up against it, as well as another window. On the other side of the room, on its own leftmost end, was another door. In the middle of the room was a ping-pong table.

I could tell that something was wrong, somehow - beyond me having woken up in a strange room. It didn't feel... hostile? A welcome change of pace, anyway.

Still, I went through what had become an obvious procedure, checking the floorboards, the walls, the ceiling, the couch and its cushions, the table all around, just about every last square micrometer of the room. All seemed as it was supposed to be. One door led to a hallway with two other doors, both locked. The other looked like it led outside.

I tried the latter.

The knob twisted. Unlocked.

Unlocked? I tried again. The knob twisted. I pulled it open.

A porch outside.

I closed it, then opened it again.

Porch again.

I stepped into my shoes and put on my jacket as I went out the door, looking around for any sign of human life. Slowly, I followed the porch that wrapped around the building - a nice farmhouse, wholly ordinary. Small tables and lawn furniture, but nothing that gave any hint of... well, being a hint.

Wrapping back to where I'd started, I noticed something that wasn't there before - a folded piece of paper taped to the railing just next to the steps down to the ground. The part facing out was blank, save for a bit of handwriting:

Chiron, the centaur of Greek myth? Mentor to some of the legendary heroes? ... I would be surprised, but I suppose I've dealt with bird-headed men and a maimed family tree enough times to suspend my disbelief.

I took the page and unfolded it to find that it was a map of the place. By the southeast corner of the map was a house labeled 'Big House', circled and additionally labeled as "You're Here". Just east of a forest was what was labeled as 'Mess Hall', also circled.

Well, I was hungry. Simply needed to skirt past that lake on the way.