Tag: Bizzare

Cabin in the Woods

On October 29, 2019

Word Count: 2,121

When I was a child, I spent most of my autumn season with my family in the forest cutting firewood deep in the Alabama forests. My father made a meager living working as a cobbler fixing the soles of cowboy boots and dress shoes. I remember hearing my mother saying once that she was ashamed of him because people walk all over his work. Sure, he worked on shoes, so people obviously walked on his work. It always upset me to hear her say that.

We did not have the financial means to use the furnace to keep the house warm throughout the winter months. Instead, we warmed our home through the use of our fireplace. The cold season this far south did not last as long as it did when we lived in Virginia, but it still grew very cold. If we did not collect enough wood to stack to the height of the privacy fence in our back yard, we would likely die from hypothermia or frostbite.

I resented not having the opportunity to spend the weekends playing with my school friends, but I still managed to have plenty of fun playing out in the woods exploring and dreaming up imaginary settings. Some days I would pretend I was on an alien planet and others I was in an ancient forest contending with demons, dragons and the like.

My teacher praised me for my ability to come up with some of the most creative stories she said she saw from other children my age. I could compose some of the most intriguing and imaginative stories even adults found to be interesting reads.

With school on fall break, I spent less time writing and more time in the woods hauling firewood to the truck. For my father, carrying a large armload of the split wood was not a problem, but at my age even two pieces was almost too much to carry.

Dad did not make me work the entire time. He knew kids needed time to play. After performing my part of the task, a local boy and I would run off into the seemingly endless forest to play.

I felt kind of bad for my friend. His family was poorer and more necessitous than I thought a family could be. His dad was a terrible alcoholic and never worked.

Their meager home did not even have running water. The only light inside the house radiated from the fireplace or from kerosene lamps; they had no electricity.

Typically, Hubert and I followed the same basic path through the woods and came to know some of the landmarks quite well. Looking back, I wish we stayed on the regular path this time, but instead we decided to follow a trail we never explored thus far.

This pathway led into a thick part of the forest. The canopy cover was so thick it almost looked like night time under the massive trees. Something about this place spooked me, but I blew it off as my active imagination. I trotted along behind Hubert as we progressed along the unusually worn path. I did not know if animals or people wore the trail, but it seemed worn more than any animal trail should be.

Ten minutes or so along the path, Hubert climbed onto the lower branches of one of the trees to see if he could see anything up ahead. As he scanned the horizon, he pointed deeper into the woods and informed me he could see a clearing way up ahead. Hubert did not think it was much farther than we already traveled, so we decided to proceed on.

My friend underestimated the distance, and it took us nearly thirty more minutes to reach our destination. I suggested turning back, but Hubert insisted we walk until we found it. He lived in this region his entire life and never once saw this place. He just had to get a closer look at the small building.

In the center of the clearing sat an old cabin, which looked like it was built sometime in the late 19th century. The horizontal logs making up the sides of the cabins displayed deep gaps between each of the hand cut sections of wall. On the top side of many logs, I noticed were notches cut into the wood to create strategic areas from which to fire rifles and other fire arms. I did not know if they were shooting at Indians or if they were fighting in the Civil War.

There was a darkness about this place, and a deep sense of dread washed over me. I really wanted to turn back and find where my parents continued to cut firewood. I tried to play it cool and told Hubert we were gone from the others for a while, and maybe we should get back.

Hubert was curious and excited. He lived in this area all his life and this is the first time he ever visited this place. He wanted to go inside the cabin and see what it was like there. I tried telling Hubert the wood might not be stable and the building might easily fall over. Again, I tried to make the statement in a way that did not display my fear.

That was not going to stop my friend and he quickly approached the building. My trepidation told me to stop. I desperately wanted to turn and run, but I was not going to run away and leave my friend in this haunting place alone.

Hubert froze as he reached the doorless entrance. I think he must have felt the same fear I did, but when he turned around a look of adventure gleamed from his eyes. He appeared to have the excitement of someone discovering a new land for the first time.

Although it was nothing more than a small, old building, it seemed to him much more of a major discovery. Waving his hand, he beckoned me to approach the building as well. For a moment I found my feet refused to budge. My natural instinct and perception told me this was a place where I should not be. It took a lot of willpower to finally start my feet moving one in front of the other.

My head spun as if I had a few beers in me, but we were unable to sneak any bottles out of either family’s ice chests before bounding deeper into the forest. A wave of nausea passed over me as I grew closer and closer to the building. My breathing increased and my shoulders and neck began to tremble as if I were shivering from the cold.

Again, I tried to tell Hubert we should not enter the centuries old dwelling. This time I used the excuse the floor of the structure would not support us and give out causing one or both of us injury. It appeared nothing was going to deter my friend from entering the hand-cut log building.

I was perhaps ten or twelve feet away when he stepped inside. He was immediately enveloped in darkness. Light should shine through the gaps in the walls, but I could not see him at all. The clearing was large enough to allow plenty of sunshine to highlight the old building, but for some reason did not seem to illuminate the inside of the log cabin.

My heart beat so hard I thought it would burst out of my chest. I approached the point of absolute terror. I could not see Hubert at all, and I was sure some malevolent force drug him to hell or worse. I turned and was just about to run when I heard his voice call to me from inside.

It took everything I had in me, but I turned back to the cabin and slowly and cautiously approached the building. Once I stood at the open doorway, I was able to faintly see inside. Hubert stood near the center of the one room dwelling. He appeared as almost nothing but a faint shadow, and I was not able to make out anything else in the room.

Hubert beckoned once again, and despite all of my fear, my logic and my instincts, I stepped through the darkening entrance.

Even now I was also in the shade of the home, I could see my friend no better than before. I thought the drop in direct sunlight would make the illumination from between the old cedar logs more intense. Instead, it seemed to grow even darker, if that were possible.

I called out his name in a loud whisper. Hubert replied to my call, but it sounded as if he were far in the distance. We could not be more than twenty feet from one another, yet it felt like we were a mile apart.

A sensation of insignificance washed over me as I suddenly felt as if I were comparing myself to the entirety of the universe. In the darkness of the dwelling, it was as if no walls existed, only endless space.

Although I could see nothing but a vague image of my friend, I thought I saw the darkness in the room move and take on a tangible form. I could not see anything, but I somehow knew it was there.

Intense reluctance prevented me from running, but I knew I would have to flee this place if I wanted to continue to live. I was not sure if it was something holding me there or if it was my own intense fear keeping me from running.

In the virtually absolute darkness, I was not really sure what I saw inside the age-old structure. I knew it had to be nothing but my imagination, but I thought I could see more than just my friend inside. The unnatural darkness inside the old home prevented me from gaining a clear view or even a vague view of anything inside.

A shrieking scream pierced the darkness with a reverbing echo, giving me the sensation of being deep in a dark cavern. When the scream came again, I realized it emanated from the lips of my friend. Hubert called out to me for help. He shouted that the thing, whatever it may be, was trying to consume his very soul.

The cold ash-filled chimney suddenly burst into a blaze. The initial ignition caused a concussive force that almost knocked me to my feet. The flash blinded me for a moment as my eyes were struggling to see in the darkness when the fire erupted. An amorphous red blob filled my vision, but I still thought I could see more than my friend in the one room dwelling.

I do not know if there was anything I could have done. There was nothing I could offer into the situation that could fend off the thing consuming my friend. All I could do at this point was run. I turned to the open doorway, and it appeared to be far off in the distance. I ran until I passed out of the darkness and into the light. I did not stop running until I made it back to our familiar pathway.

My legs collapsed as my lungs nearly gave out. It was still a time when children played outside, but I was not an athlete by any means. I fell to my knees and dug my palms into the dirt and rock. Rolling to one shoulder, I saw my hands bleeding and caked in dirt. Finally, I fell to my back and looked into the direction from which I came.

I saw nothing but a mass of weeds and a dense cluster of ancient trees. No pathway, no trail to the open circle remained in the forest giving any evidence of where I just was. There was nothing there.

Hubert told me once of a legend of a family living in this forest during the time of the Civil War. It was said that this family, in order to save their land, called upon things of darkness to destroy their enemies. Their plot succeeded, but at a terrible price.

The forest itself consumed the family and their home once the enemy was vanquished from the area. It isolated the family from the rest of the world and the story said they were never heard from again.

I cannot say exactly what I heard coming from inside the structure, but I realized the family was heard from again. I heard the terror of my friend along with that unholy howling. I heard the demonic wailing of beings born of vengeance and evil. I found that rumored cabin in the woods.

Father to Son

By Mychal Wilson

On September 22, 2019

In Aetet 1, Fourth Triad, Vastness of Reality

Word Count: 3,069

I grew up outside of Monroe, Louisiana. It was just me and my mother as my father passed away when I was only at the young age of five. I only carried vague images of him in my mind, but I wondered how many of these images came from a multitude of pictures I saw of him rather than genuine memories.

Last year I lost my only grandmother, and a live-in nurse now took care of Papa. His house was on a enormous tract of land in Hebert. I could not have been more than an hour drive away, but my mother rarely brought me to visit him. Mom would make sure I was not alone with grandpa, not even for a second.

Mother told me Papa was abusive with Dad, and for that reason she did not want me to be alone with him. It was during my ninth year I learned otherwise. Following a short drive through the country, we reached my grandpa’s house. It was a peculiar place which sat on a plot of ten thousand acres of land. The design of the house was somewhat colonial, but there was something unorthodox about it, something I could not explain.

No trees stood on the property save a massive pecan and one gnarled, ancient walnut tree growing on either side of the house. Otherwise, the enormous tract of land was completely devoid of trees. All around the perimeter of the property the forest began, it nearly encircled the currently unused farm land but grew in no deeper.

In the center of the property rested a singular, unnatural mound. Growing up, I heard stories that these were Native American burial mounds. As the story goes, when those of great power and great spiritual strength died, they were laid on the mound with their trinkets and totems and then covered with dirt. For thousands of years before the Europeans set foot on this nation, the Native Americans performed these rituals.

In the flat lands of Louisiana, it was not uncommon to see these mounds dotting the scenery here and there. The one on Papa’s land was by far the largest I ever saw, implying it was probably one of the oldest. For as long as I can remember I was forbidden to even approach the mound within 100 yards.

When we finally reached the large domicile, the home health care nurse, Amanda, greeted us at the door. Before we ever went inside, I heard my mother ask Amanda very quietly how Papa was doing. Amanda turned to face away from me and began to whisper in my mother’s ear. I could not hear what the pretty nurse said to Mother, but judging by the look on her face, I knew something was wrong.

Mother had a smirk on her face, not one of arrogance, but one of sadness and grief. Her eyes seemed distant and vacant as she listened to whatever bad news the nurse gave her. I already knew my grand pap was given to delusional spells. Sometimes he conversed with people who were not there and other times seemed terrified by the things his aging mind created. He interacted with people, with things no one else saw. Doctors ran tests on him, on his brain. We were all sure he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, but everything showed that was not the case.

Finally we went inside, and Amanda escorted us into the main den. She left the room then returned a few minutes later pushing Papa in his wheelchair. He had the capability to walk on his own but did so very slowly. If he wanted to get somewhere with any sort of speed, he used the wheelchair.

Papa grinned from ear-to-ear when he saw me. Every time we visited I watched as the look of fear and hopelessness in his eyes replaced by a spark of joy. There really seemed to be an actual spark of joy coming from within his eyes. His blue eyes took on a faint glow that came from no reflection of nearby illuminations.

I ran to Papa and hugged him tightly. Papa wrapped his arms around me tightly.

“You are my pride and joy son,” he said as he rubbed his hand and mussed up my hair. He wrapped his arms around me again then Papa whispered in my ear, “It’s up to you to pass on the bloodline.”

I really did not know what to say. I was taken back by those last words. I thought he must be in one of his delusional spells. He always called me his pride and joy, but it scared me when he said something about the bloodline. Before he let me go, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. I remembered his kisses to be rather coarse from his aged, wrinkly lips. I also remembered them as rather cold from the decreased circulation of blood to his purple lips.

This time I felt a static shock. It did not sting; if anything it tickled. When his lips made contact with my cheek, I felt a warmth and softness never there before. That unexpected warmth stayed with me even after our embrace was over.

For an hour, our visit went on as normal. Mother and Papa reminisced about Grandma and my dad and discussed Papa’s deteriorating health. Occasionally his beautiful, voluptuous nurse would check his blood pressure. He was always connected to some sort of machine. The medical equipment showed a display of Papa’s heartbeat, and occasionally it made an out of place fluctuation.

Every so often Papa’s attention seemed to drift away as if he was staring at something only he could see. This time it was different though and I did not say anything to Mother or to Amanda about it. When Papa turned his head to look at something else, I saw it too. I saw a man, if it could be called a man, standing next to Papa. The man spoke to Papa in words I could not hear. The being standing over my granfather stood about six feet tall with a high, slender head. Its dress appeared to be somewhat Native American, but many aspects of its dress appeared alien.

The ghostly green person pressed his finger against his lips as if telling Papa to keep quiet about the events unfolding. Kneeling down, the man lightly pried Papa’s left hand open from its grip and placed something in his palm. The man then gently closed Papa’s hand, turned to me and nodded, then walked through the back wall as if it were not even there. It was like the wall was the illusion and not the other way around.

Papa looked at me and a sly, lively grin crossed his lips. He just did something to me, and I had no idea at the time what it was. Mother and Amanda did not seem to notice, and I think Papa wanted to keep it that way.

Mother was working on a big business project for work and Papa did not have a phone in the house. It took about thirty minutes of driving before someone could get any kind of decent signal strength for a cell phone. Usually Mom did not work on the weekends, but it was important she and the rest of her team finish their project by morning. Before she left to use her phone, she pulled the nurse to the side.

I saw Mother’s lips repeat a familiar phrase, “Don’t leave him alone with his grandfather.”

As my mother walked out of the parlor door, I saw what could only be described as a tentacled fish swimming through the air. The strange creature passed through the wall and was gone. Suddenly a whole school of the flying fish passed through the wall and into the room. They headed straight toward Mother, and I shouted out a warning to her. The fish passed through her and continued on through the next wall. She did not notice a thing.

She turned with a start and looked at me with a panic in her eyes.

“What is it dear?”

I knew then she could not see these things and I had to think of a cover quick. I told her I thought I saw something, but it was only a shadow cast by a tree outside. Mother turned and gave Amanda a stern look and then exited through the front door.

The three of us sat there quietly until we heard Mom’s car fade off into the distance. Papa opened his hand and showed me a small, twelve sided geometric shape. I was sure the strange green man gave it to Papa; he did not have anything in his hands prior to that.

Suddenly a strange look washed across Papa’s face, a look like I never saw before. It was a look of strength, a look of wisdom, and a spark of life I never before witnessed in those eyes. He rolled the object in his fingers like a marble. When he would stop long enough, I could faintly make out the marking on the sides of the object.

Papa appeared to press on specific symbol, and the thing let off a faint glow. Without looking at her, Papa said to Amanda, “Why don’t you go slow brew us some tea.” Amanda did something she never did before and left me alone in the same room with my grandfather.

“Come, Ian,” Papa said. It was as if he were issuing a demand rather than offering a request. He did not sound cold or mean; he displayed a measure of strength I did not know he had.

I felt strongly compelled but not controlled. When he spoke to the beautiful nurse a few moments ago, he had a strange tone to his voice. She did as he asked without question. I do not know how he did it, but Papa made her leave the room. Amanda would never leave us in the same room alone together under her own will.

I perceived a foreboding sense of terror. Something in his face, the strange glow in his eyes, the change in his voice, and that object in his hand terrified me. Despite the churning in my gut, I got off the antique couch and made my way to Papa. As I stood face to face with him, I watched the glow in his eyes grow brighter and the blue of his eyes get deeper. Papa reached out his feeble hands and told me to take hold of them.

“Hurry boy, we don’t have much time,” he said, sensing my hesitation.

I took hold of his hand and immediately the world opened up to me. I did not know what I saw, and it absolutely petrified me. Suddenly, alien creatures of all sorts filled the room and the air around me. Grouped in colors, they ranged in hues from one end of the visible light spectrum and beyond.

I tried to pull away, but Papa gripped me tightly.

“I’m sorry boy, but this is the way it’s got to be,” Papa said with a seriousness I did not know he possessed.

Absolute panic overtook me as yet more creatures became visible. The walls of the room became the illusion and these strange entities surrounding me became real. I noticed only the creatures of the same hue interacted with one another. Those of different colors seemed to have no awareness of the others, even passing through each other like one shadow penetrating another.

As I tried to take it all in, I saw in the green spectrum more of the strange people like the one who spoke with Papa. I became aware one of them, the one I saw earlier, stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders. I cannot say how I knew, but there was no doubt this was the being who spoke with Papa.

My weight seemed to increase as soon as I saw those long green fingers. Frantically I tried to pull my hands free from those of my grandfather. Not only did I fight against Papa’s new found strength but the strength of this green, otherworldly ghost.

Every color, every layer of other worlds became my reality. Too much bombarded my mind all at once. I attempted to scream as my head throbbed in agony. Tears streamed down my cheeks. It felt as if my brain grew larger while my skull contracted. It was all too much for me to handle. My five senses, and new senses becoming open to me, flooded my mind with more input than any limit the human brain was meant to handle.

My body convulsed and seized, yet I somehow remained upright. The powerful green hands on my shoulders held me tight. I did not know what they did to me, but I knew I was dying. I was going to die and my grandpa is the one who was killing me. The glow in his eyes grew so strong the blue hue illuminated everything around us.

Suddenly I once again stood in the conversation room in front of Papa’s chair. Those overlapping worlds of chaos were gone and so was Papa.

In a weak whisper he said sadly, “I’m sorry Ian. I knowed you wuz too young.”

He said one more thing to me, and that was the last sound he made. The high pitched whine of his heart monitor flat-lining followed an instant later.

The next few days flew by as a blur. I only retained vague memories of me talking to Mother or anyone else. Papa revealed so much to me, and I did not know how or if I could retell this to anybody. I did not know what I was supposed to say. I could not tell Mother I saw through to worlds beyond the infinite expanse of our own universe. If I tried to convince others Papa was not senile, that what he saw was real, everyone would think I was crazy.

Papa left me the house, land, and an astounding amount of money. Because of my age, I could not yet have control over the monetary assets. Papa thought of this. He gave mother a trust fund and asked her in his will to take care of me until I reached eighteen years-old.

The next day I learned the land Papa owned was in the family for tens of thousands of years. That perplexed me because this land was in the family long before the Europeans arrived five hundred-fifty years ago. As a widely encompassing Native American belief, land ownership did not occur. How then could this land have belonged to my family for untold centuries?

After more than a week following Papa’s death, I was terrified at the thought of entering the day room in which he died. I did not want to go back into that room where I nearly lost my sanity. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to enter the room that turned illusion that day while the illusions turned real.

The sense of worlds existing in every color imaginable was a difficult thing to describe. I did not think any words existed that could describe it. Seconds after entering the room, the illusions began again. I leapt back with a start as something yellow swam before my eyes. Falling back, I landed in what I thought to be some orange, fluidic life-form.

A flood of colored images crashed in upon me. Maybe Papa was mad and now faulty genetics were making me become crazy. I wanted to die all while wondering if I already had. Terror unlike any I could fathom tore at my soul when those long green fingers again took hold of my arm. I knew the damn thing was going to restrain me until I lost all semblances of sanity.

Something entirely different happened. The being did not hold me in the chaos; he pulled me out. The vertigo faded and I became aware of a warm object the green man put in my hand. It was roundish, and I could feel the polished flat surfaces. It was the object my grandpa held when he died. I never thought to recover it after he passed.

I looked down to the object and found a dodecahedron. The six colors of the rainbow covered one side each. Five colors that did not exist in my reality covered each remaining sides. The twelfth side represented my own reality. This object was my family’s blessing and its curse.

Nye’too, as I later learned to call him, had much to tell me. A distant ancestor of mine, who lived in a time before man recorded history, desired knowledge above all else. So deeply did he cherish knowledge that he sacrificed the souls of others to a god born with the forging of the Earth. Every soul sacrificed to the demon-god brought the man a deeper and deeper level of understanding.

He and his tribe took over one nation after the next, sacrificing all those who resisted to his long forgotten god. He grew his knowledge until he knew everything that was and everything would be. The capabilities of the human brain, as it still is now, were much too primitive to take in all there was to see. The man descended into insanity while his god was now free to roam upon the Earth.

Nye’too’s ancestors were appalled when they learned of what the man did. The green man told me how most of his ancestors died while imprisoning the maligned god in a chamber deep under the surface of the world. Only one exit existed in the magically warded prison, a giant iron door inscribed with the hieroglyphs found on the object I now owned.

As punishment for his deeds, the man’s bloodline was cursed for all times to see all there is to see. One male of each generation was charged with guarding the trapped god. The only thing that could prevent madness was the key; this key for a door buried deep in a familiar mound of dirt and stone.

The madness forever followed the man’s descendants. I remembered Papa’s final words. With the most sincerely apologetic tone he whispered to me, “I’m sorry Ian. I knowed you wuz too young, but this is usually passed from father to son.”

Themselves

By Mychal Wilson

On September 4, 2019

In Aetet 1, Fourth Triad, Vastness of Reality

Word Count: 2,794

I was overwhelmingly ecstatic to be one of the few fortunate archaeology students privileged enough to be chosen from a multitude of extremely highly qualified candidates. We were to take part in a classified expedition to a wildly remote location. I simply could not believe it when the dean of anthropology from a prestigious institution of higher learning contacted me gave me the good news.

This was a once in a thousand lifetimes opportunity. Signs of another advanced civilization prior to ours surfaced after workers found engraved stone tablet buried for who knows how long under the solidified rubble of an ancient mudslide. No evidence of any previous civilization as old as this, at least in modern times, was ever discovered until now.

Linguists from around the world were already on the scene making an attempt to decipher the odd lettering of the massive stone tablets. We hoped they would translate them of course, but personally I cared little about that aspect of the find. My unbridled excitement focused solely on the possibility of uncovering never before found fossilized remains of the inhabitants of this newly discovered civilization.

After an agonizingly long ground trip, I saw the winged vehicle in a small clearing that would take us to our ultimate destination. Our small aerial transport jolted abruptly, up and down as we passed through some rather turbulent winds. Sudden gales rocking the vehicle made me think more than once we would dive nose first into the dense jungle floor.

It was necessary to take this rough flight in order to progress over the mountains to our destination in the deep, remote valley. The long arduous trip from home to the sharply mountainous region of the southern continent was very uncomfortable. My body ached from the long flight as the craft shuddered through the side winds beating against the flying vehicle.

I had to admit, despite the numbingly rough ride, I did find the view of the majestic snow-capped mountains and vibrant green forests so incredibly alive with color. Seeing the vastly chromatic, lush green of the trees below and the white snow at the peak of the mountains all in one glance was indeed quite a sight to behold. Eventually, a small speck of a clearing became visible ahead. As we drew closer to the landing site, it was all I could do to quell my increasing excitement.

The clearing was small. It was a narrow fit, but the pilots managed a safe landing on the recently constructed pad below. As we began unstrapping ourselves from our safety harnesses and grabbing our equipment, the pilot told us sternly not to exit until the engine came to a full stop. I felt like I waited an eternity before the sliding door finally opened.

There were many supplies to unload. We first removed our most delicate equipment and set it carefully out of the way. Then we began unloading the basic essential supplies. The water here was found to be undrinkable, so there were many heavy jugs to unload. I am smart but not strong, and I strained my way through the unloading process until everything was on the ground.

Our transportation then rose back into the air with a flutter, stirring leaves and dirt from the jungle floor. It reached the top of the giant trees and disappeared over the canopy of leaves. A bit of panic, or perhaps anxiety hit me as I watched our only way out of this remote jungle fly away; I knew it was not coming back for seven days. The transport would return when it was time to bring more supplies, so the amount we had was going to have to last us until then.

We were virtually alone. There were the other team members, but the extremely remote valley location made contact with the outside world all but impossible. If for any reason, we had to contact the forward base, someone had to scale the steep mountain to send and receive transmissions. The funders of the expedition did not bring in an engineering team to install an antenna at the mountain’s peak yet. I did not think it would get to me, but I hated the idea of being cut off from civilization with no way out except for small aerial vehicles.

Putting those thoughts away for a while, I helped the others carry the equipment to a cleared pathway to meet with the linguistics team and geology team. With their camps already set up, the other teams helped carry the supplies to the base. The food and water was for them as well, and it was only fair they carry some of the load.

Although the linguistics team had yet to decipher the tablets, the geology team made some rather interesting findings. After using various methods of measuring radiation levels in the rock strata and the decay of radioactive isotopes, the group determined the rough age of the tablets. By their calculations, the tablets were more than two million years old.

Surely they made some egregious mistakes in their estimations. Our own species is estimated to be around one hundred thousand years old at most. I could not believe there was any possible way any intelligent species evolved so many eons before us.

My experience and education taught me only numerous, gigantic beasts roamed the planet before us. It was estimated to be about this time when an explosion in the number of species on the planet occurred. These enigmatic beasts were not technologically developed and died out hundreds of millions of years ago.

Most of the creatures were extinct. In fact, virtually all of the species were extinct with the exception of a few aquatic creatures. A miniscule number of species remained unchanged, but evolution literally took everything else to a different state.

Once we got all of our equipment and supplies to the camp, my team set up our own temporary shelters. The sun was already set behind the thick canopy of the trees overhead. It was dark enough already. I knew when the sun set behind the mountain peak, I would learn a new meaning to the word “dark.”

We had to set up the camp under the few lights we could spare. Power supplies for the lamps were as limited as the food, so we could not light the camp brightly enough to really see what we were doing. Setting up our feeble shelters turned out to be quite a difficult task.

I wanted to get to our dig site now, but it was not safe to be out in this untamed jungle in the pitch black night. Predators on the ground, in the trees and even in the air made night travel very dangerous indeed. When we finally arrived at the dig site the next morning, it was not at all what I expected.

I assumed the ground covering vegetation was removed, but it was as dense and green as ever. Dense underbrush and thick vines obscured any dirt from sight, and I realized how difficult this was truly going to be. It was our task to first clear the surface before excavating any deeper.

My team received our next load of supplies and the surface was still not completely cleared of the dense, heavy vegetation. It was vital we took as much care of what we did. Rushing and getting ahead of ourselves could in some way damage important archeological evidence. We toiled over the tedious work even beyond the arrival of our supply delivery at the end of my second week.

I knew without question, when I accepted this golden opportunity, I absolutely could not pass it up. An entire year in this miserably hot-steamy place was going to feel like an eternity. In my furvor to be given the chance to take part in such a rare expedition, I did not allocate much thought on the difference in environment from which I was accustomed. It was more than worth it, but the weather was still quite miserable. It was rainy more than it was not, but I was going to see something only two other teams in recorded history ever had the opportunity to see.

From this point, we began to sweep away the dirt after sectioning the area into a grid. I literally removed very thin layers each day, no more than my finger in thickness from any gridded section in a day using only a light haired brush.

Twenty-nine days passed before one of my team mates uncovered the fossilized remains of something incredible. Much more ground had to be excavated before we could determine what it was, but they definitely found the endo-skeletal remains of something.

It was four days after this when the gentle sweeping of the dirt uncovered enough of the fossilized remains to determine what type of creature to which these bones once belonged.

It was large, very large. The newly discovered beast was every bit as massive as the largest of the mammals living in modern day. Although badly decayed, we found evidence of some sort of harness on its body, there since the creature died. Patterns of iron-oxide in the soil indicated the harness was held in place with a series of rings and buckles.

We theorized this was a beast of burden or a riding animal, and became very hopeful to find the master who harnessed the creature. That would be the most amazing discovery to date. What made this truly unusual were the carnivorous teeth filling the beast’s mouth. What kind of being could tame a massive beast such as this?

The geologists surveying the area used various methods and set the date of the strata in which we found the beast approximately eight hundred thousand years old. This placed the time of the creature’s death after the time the ancient mudslide covering the stone tablets.

The linguistics team made a lot of headway as well. Although they had yet to translate the tablets, they began to understand the sequencing system of the chiseled language. Now they had that figured out, it was somewhat easier for them to make the translations.

Days passed, many supply shipments arrived, but no one discovered anything new. For leisure, we did not have much. Members of the three teams entertained themselves with daytime walks through the forest. They had to cut the thick vegetation in order to make walking paths.

One night those out for a walk were about to turn around and make their way back to camp. That was when several of them spotted two vine covered cyclopean stones. It was an immediately noticeable aspect they saw that the massive stones were too well shaped to be natural.

With few supplies and the dangers lurking in the forest in the night, they had to return to camp without any further examination of the newly discovered blocks. We started at dawn getting our supplies to the new location. Going back and forth each day would take too much time, so a secondary camp was set up near the new discovery.

The explorers emphasized the massiveness of the blocks, but I did not think they would be this big. The obelisks were every bit of ten times my height. They were the largest of the tablets found yet. These, covered from top to bottom with the strange ancient glyphs, might be the cypher the linguistics team needed to break the strange code, those writings of this long lost civilization. If the team translated the tablets into our language, it may be very possible they may indicate the locations of other important sites.

At the secondary location, when darkness came, every little noise made me jumpy. In the midst of the large encampment, I felt safe. Now, with nothing more than a few tents and a small campfire in the center, I felt much more vulnerable to the creatures in the jungle. The first two nights, I got very little sleep. By the third night I began to grow accustomed to this even more remote location, my nerves were not quite so shaken, and I finally managed to get a good night’s slumber.

One of the stones was finally cleared and the linguistics team got to work on the translation. My small group chose a spot and prepared for a long and tedious excavation process. With our team divided, we gently dug into the sediment in search of more evidence of the ancient civilization. Five supply shipments later and discouragement began to affect us all. My particular sections of the excavation became deeper than I was tall.

On my knees, a pad underneath me to distribute my weight, I swept away dirt and dust by one stroke of the brush at a time. For what was supposed to be the biggest moment in my life, I had to say the tedious work almost drove me insane with boredom.

I was close to sneaking into a supply transport to get out of here by this time, but then I finally uncovered the bones of something big. It looked very big. It was much bigger than the first fossilized find. Now all of the tedium washed away. I made the discovery of a creature much-much larger than the beast of burden. Nothing remotely like this could be found in recorded history.

I wished I could dig it out with a shovel, but it was far too large. I had to be patient as we slowly removed the several million year old sediment from around the massive skeleton. It was probably going to take me more than the rest of my scheduled time here to completely uncover it. I knew I would need to ask to sign up for another year. I was the first to discover something so amazing, and I was not going to hand my find over to someone else.

It took nearly thirty days only to reveal what appeared to be a hand. A chain of bones held at what we believed to be the upper cavity of the creature was exposed thirty days after that. The chain of bones had at their upper end a set of strangely curved bones. It was possible for me to stand fully erect inside of the torso cavity.

As the excavation continued, we theorized the creature must be bipedal. It was astounding to think something as enigmatically tall could possess enough strength to defy gravity in order to remain standing. It did not add up. The strength to weight ratio for something this large to maintain an erect posture was not previously believed possible.

The phalanges at the end of the top limbs appeared to have been dexterous enough to manipulate tools. The ends of the lower appendages were different, being too short and oddly shaped to effectively use tools.

On the next supply drop, a six member camera crew exited the vehicle and unloaded all of their equipment. Due to the size and amount of the equipment, there was little room for the food, water and basic medications we needed. One member of the geology team rather lost it when he confronted the pilots about this. Our water was running low and our food supplies were nearly depleted.

As angry words spewed from his mouth, one of the pilots stopped him and told him another shipment would arrive in a few days with yet another crew. This crew faced the monumental task of figuring out how to move the pieces of the giant skeleton safely to a museum. There, great care would make sure the bones remained intact for generations to come.

I did not like the idea of someone handling my discovery. I could not stand the thought of them disassembling the body to move it one bone at a time. This body rested here for millions of years and it felt wrong to move it. It had to be moved now as my excavation exposed it to the elements though. Careful and very specific labeling was done to assure the curators reassembled it correctly.

My find was nearly completely uncovered by the time the linguistics team finally deciphered the language found on the many engraved stone blocks. With great enthusiasm, the team ran into the camp yelling they finally made their translation.

“We broke the code,” one of them said while trying to catch his breath.

“We know what they called themselves,” another continued.

They both nearly collapsed as they tried to breathe. The members of the linguistics team tended to be sedentary and out of shape.

“Humans, they called themselves humans,” the first managed to say.

Humans huh? That seemed like an odd name for creatures to call themselves.

Photo by Dynamic Advertising from Freerange Stock

The Others

By Mychal Wilson

On September 3, 2019

In Aetet 1, Third Triad, Vastness of Reality

Word Count: 6,379

From moment I took my first steps, my parents had to start installing deadbolts and other locking mechanisms on all of the doors and windows throughout the house. The first scare occurred when I was still at the very young age of three. My parents awoke one night to find my bed empty. In a panic, they searched the house for me, but found no sign of me. After calling the police to the scene, my terrified father left my mother to wait for the authorities as he searched the nearby streets for me.

My father discovered me safe and sound sitting on someone’s front doorsteps four blocks away. Apparently, I took the newspaper I found in their lawn and had its pages spread upon the porch. My father observed me scanning over the unfolded pages and thought he actually saw me reading them, but I was not even a in preschool yet.

With each nightly episode of my sleepwalking, I was always found acting out of character for someone my age. Many times, my parents simply caught me quietly watching television. My mother found me one night as I was fervently flipping through the pages of the phone book. She never spoke directly to me about this, but I overheard enough conversations to put two-and-two together.

One summer evening Mother came to check on me and found me encircled with books. I was rapidly scanning over the pages turning them one right after another. Mother swears I was speed reading through the dictionary. Spread around me I had several encyclopedias, a dictionary and multiple magazines. Most of them were damaged, the pages torn as if I could not flip through them fast enough.

When she took me by my little wrists and attempted to take me back to bed, I fought back vehemently. Screaming unintelligibly, I kicked and clawed my way out of her grip. After that violent incident the doctor’s visits began. Several times a week my parents brought me to a special “talking doctor” to try to get to the root of my nocturnal sojourns.

Bolts on the doors no longer kept me captive in the relative safety of my home. In my sleep I managed to come up with some very creative ways of circumventing the locking mechanisms. How I got out frightened my parents as much as what they would find me doing.

One time they found me in a bookstore with the alarm ringing loud in the night. The owner of the store said he must have forgotten to lock the door one night, but he was wrong. I managed to enter a locked business and was found in the non-fiction section. I was surrounded by books of weaponry and war. It was at this point my parents decided dead bolts were not enough. Never once did I remember even a minute fraction of what occurred, which scared me even more so than it did my parents.

In my bedroom door my father installed a key operated dead-bolt lock which only unlocked from the hallway side of the heavy-oaken portal. Outside a heavy steel grating was placed over my window and fastened down tight. The glass in my window was replaced by the shatter resistant glass containing chicken wire. The first morning after being so heavily secured in my bedroom, my parents woke to find me sleeping in my bed. Their hopes falsely rose when I went more than a week without incident. Their despair deepened when they opened my door on the ninth morning.

Father unlocked the door and I was sound asleep in the corner. Using my crayons, I wrote on every inch of the wall I could reach. I don’t recall seeing the writings myself, but I know Mother took some Polaroid pictures of the strange characters. Even to this day I never ever peeked at those photographs.

The walls of my room were painted over with several coats of paint that day. Fans were necessary in order to provide safe ventilation because my bedroom window no longer opened. I was kept in my parent’s room over the course of the next several nights to allow the fumes to dissipate. They never told me so, but I knew they began taking turns staying awake with me because of how they seemed so exhausted the next day.

When I finally returned to my room, I was about a month away from my seventh birthday. Nothing was put in my room with the exception of my dresser, bed and a heavy table on which I liked to color and play. When it was time for me to go to bed, my parents removed the crayons and any other writing utensils. My clothes were in the dresser, but there was nothing I could use to write on the walls while I slept this time.

Several months passed without another incident, until one night I somehow pushed the table to the wall and stacked the dresser on top of it. Using a spring removed from my bed, I carved new characters on the wall, all the way up to the ceiling in most places. I moved the furniture around the walls of my room to reach the ceiling. As with any other night of my sleepwalking, I remembered nothing. I awoke to my mother’s startled scream. Father picked me up and rushed me out of the room, and mother slammed the door behind us.

I spent the first day of my eighth year answering questions and taking tests. Instead of a party, I was admitted to a mental health care facility. For the next two years, I called a hospital home. The doctors proceeded under the assumption my sleepwalking stemmed from a deeper psychological abnormality.

Sleep studies provided very interesting results. They discovered my brain became fully active during my dream cycles. Although I was unconscious, the tests indicated to the doctors I was in fact awake. Attempts were made during one of my mobile dream-states to communicate with me. My gurgling, hissing speech was unintelligible. To the untrained ear I spoke nothing but gibberish.

If the doctors provided me with writing utensils, my dream-self tried communicating by writing. The problem was I did not write in sloppy grade-school English. Instead, I randomly covered the paper with cryptic hieroglyph-like characters and grew frustrated when no one understood. Records were kept of each night’s session, the writings taken away from me, and audio recordings made. Throughout this time, I continued to remember absolutely nothing.

One time the doctors thought it would help me confront my problem, and made me watch my nocturnal ego. It terrified me beyond imagination. It felt like watching a horror movie in which I was the object of terror. I saw myself moving about, speaking a strange guttural language and writing in an unknown script. I cried. I begged them to stop and eventually I refused to open my eyes and would not allow them to show me anymore. I could not watch as my body moved around like a puppet on strings under a guided consciousness that was not my own.

Specialists used many forms of medication to try to control my extreme sleep disorder. Only the most potent anti-psychotics had any effect on me, but they made me very slow and distant during the daytime. I would rather be a victim to my night-self than spend my whole life in a daze. I cycled through dozens of drugs before the doctors found a combination that finally appeared to suppress my night-self.

The hospital released me three months after I turned ten, and I was soon allowed to go back to school. The few friends I did have prior to my hospitalization no longer wanted anything to do with me. Other children who did not like me before called me a freak, monster and many other extremely hurtful things. They made me the object of “creep” jokes. Kids can be cruel, but they can be downright evil when afraid of something. I’m sure the jokes and speculation really circulated during my second absence.

When the kids returned to school after the weekend, they were met with different messages. I got into the school over the weekend somehow, and covered every chalk board and dry erase board in the strange glyphs. Like always the characters did not follow a linear pattern. The characters were always placed in what seemed a random order, like the beginning and end of the message meant nothing. If it was indeed a language, the beginning, middle and end did not seem to matter so long as the necessary characters were present.

Although I never heard it, the demeaning jokes about my sanity stopped to be replaced by frightened rumors. The people of the community whispered their theories as to the nature of my condition. Because of my secured bedroom, some rumors spread saying I was a serial killer. Others said I was being abducted by aliens, and others said I was possessed by something dark and sinister. Everyone seemed to have their own theory. My parents could no longer deal with the hidden stares and whispered gossip from the adults in town. Father put in for a transfer, and in only a few months we moved out to a two-story home in the middle of nowhere.

Dad had a high up position in administration at the brewery in town, so he had the company move us out where some of the grains for the beer were grown. He had to take a pay cut, but that didn’t hurt us so much. Rent was cheaper in the country, the water came from a well, and we got most of our electricity from windmills.

Here they hoped my excursions would end. Every time my parents discovered me sleepwalking, I was found either reading or watching television. With no bookstores, libraries or even neighbors’ houses, my parents thought I might remain inside. The TVs in the house were placed like traps for a mouse. Despite all other media, they hoped I would stop and remain in front of a television.

I had my episodes for the first month of living in the country, and strangely they abruptly ceased. Six months later I was placed back in school, and my parents hoped with this fresh start I had the chance to make some friends. The school was nearly twenty miles from our house, so there was not the chance I would break into this one to cover the boards in those cryptic letters again. The expectation was I could now live like a normal teenager.

I made these next four rides around the sun without any more episodes. Immediately following my sixteenth birthday, I wanted to get a car and my driver’s license. All the kids my age were beginning to drive, and I did not want to be left out of the experience. My parents were very apprehensive, and I understood why. I could not go anywhere in my dream-state because the next house was ten miles away. They worried, if I learned how to drive, I would then have access to more. I could take the car somewhere to satiate my dream-self’s need to digest information. In the end, it was decided it was best I not yet learn to drive.

The final consensus between my father, my mother and I was it was not yet time for me to become quite so mobile. After our discussion, I went up to my room and went to bed. The force inside me driving my uncanny behavior apparently grew frustrated. When I awoke the next morning, every notebook I could find was filled with the inhuman hieroglyphs. It seemed like it should take several days to fill that much blank paper, but it obviously happened over a few short hours’ time.

Every night I recorded these strange writings. I used the same set of glyphs every time, but they were never in the same order and never seemed to show any discernable patterns. Many of the characters were repeated, but with no seemingly logical organization.

Once again, my parents pulled me from school. They did not know what to do and were desperately at their wits end. I even overheard them entertaining the notion of bringing an exorcist to the house. Neither of my parents were ever the religious sort, but at this point they were willing to try anything. Psychiatric care did not help, anti-psychotic drugs failed to produce positive results, and even moving me out to the middle of nowhere did not stop my sleep-walking episodes.

Some of the symbols I recorded bore a striking resemblance to crop circles. Others were hieroglyphic in design. My nocturnal writings had a vaguely Asian design as well as Scandinavian and Arabic. I was absolutely convinced I was writing in some form of obscure or unknown language. There had to be someone somewhere who could interpret this for me.

My parents were now keeping an incredibly close eye on me, ensuring I did not leave home at any time after sunset. They hid every scrap of paper, every pencil, and every pen in the house. They tried to remove anything with which I could write or record these symbols.

My closest friend, my only friend really, came out to the house to check on me occasionally. He felt bad for me living my life in virtual solitude. It was nice to have a good friend like Neil. I told him about my sleep-walking problem, but I did not lead on as to how severe it truly was. He was very understanding when I told him the sleeping disorder again grew worse. It came and went with an increasingly predictable frequency. When Neil asked if I needed anything, I think he was only being polite. I don’t think he expected my response.

I gave him thirty dollars I had hidden away, and asked him to buy me some pens and paper. I wanted him to buy as much paper as that afforded. The next request really stunned my friend. I asked Neil to deliver it to me at the road which ended at the back of my family’s property. He almost acted reluctantly as if I were trying to get him to go along with a major drug deal.

Now, I wanted a way to continue my dreaming journal, and this was the only way to procure the supplies necessary. I knew Neil was intelligent enough to discern something was amiss, but he agreed to do this for me anyway. I loved to write, and to my friend it was a feasible excuse because he knew I loved to write. Neil was quite aware of this because we shared several classes together before I was removed from school.

I never remembered meeting Neil to get my supplies, but when I woke the next day, I found them sitting on my dresser. The last thing I remembered was telling my parents I was going for a walk in the early evening. While I sat against a tree as I waited on Neil, I must have dozed off and my dream-self took over.

I do not know what happened during my encounter with Neil, but I never saw him again. I felt like I was going to lose control and succumb fully to this force driving me during my dreams. I feared I would lose myself forever.

I began meditating during the day. When I cleared my mind of my daily worries, I slowly but progressively felt my will grow in strength. I did not have any more episodes over the next few weeks as I continued my meditation sessions. The more time I spent in meditation, the stronger and more in control of myself I felt.

During those weeks, I slept soundly through the night. When I woke up each morning, there was nothing written in my notebooks or anywhere else. I thought perhaps my dream-self was now under my control. In the middle of the fourth week, I awoke to find the strange glyphs recorded on one of my notepads. The meditation worked, but now to a smaller and smaller extent.

I began a regular routine of going out for a one-hour brisk mid-morning walk. I returned home and ate a small lunch, and after a soothing shower, I went to my room to meditate. As the weeks passed, I found deeper meditation was much easier and my episodes again seemed to lessen. I still found writing in my notebooks, but the frequency of these episodes continued to grow less and less often.

In the fifth week something happened that never happened before. I was meditating later in the evening and I felt another conscious invading its way into my mind trying to take me over. I struggled against this presence that I now understood took over my body during the night. A swirling vortex of colors and shapes filled my mind as I heard voices in my head, voices speaking in a language alien to me. I fought vigilantly against this consciousness trying to claim my body for its own use, but alas I succumbed to the superior force.

My meditation sessions grew more intense as I increased them in length and frequency. I knew now something else, something alien took control of my body as I slept. Now that I had more of an idea of what I was dealing with, I had to discover some means of combatting it. I managed to shield my mind from it for months, but I was unable to fortify my psyche enough to prevent it from once again possessing my body.

This time the invader did not try to take me over while I was asleep; it took me over when I was during one of my meditation sessions. I fought it off for fifteen minutes or so before I finally succumbed to its superior mental strength. I felt the alien force reaching deep inside of me. The idea of something else taking control of my body absolutely mortified me.

What was it? Where did it come from? Why did it take over my body? What did it want from me?

I woke to find more of my notebooks filled with the strange writing. This time I remembered having very vivid dreams. I could not remember what they were about, but I do know I woke up with a feeling of extreme claustrophobia.

I began to spend even more time meditating. I went from meditating an hour a day to meditating for nearly five hours at a time. In the morning, instead of taking my daily constitutional, I would sit in the forest to meditate. I practiced removing the sounds of the birds, insects and any other day-time animals from my thoughts. I practiced blocking them out along with the rest of my worries. It was not long before I was able to do so successfully.

The invading psyche still took me sometimes while I slept. I learned long ago there was nothing I could do about that. My notebooks filled with the strange writing, which I now assumed must be the written language of my possessor. Once again it tried to take me during a meditation session. I fought for control of my own body for more than an hour. This time, when it won, I knew what it did with me while my physical body was under its possession. It sent me to its own body, which seemed to be in some sort of hibernation.

I tried to move, but I had the muscle control of a newborn baby. I did manage to open my eyes. What I saw was like nothing I ever saw before. I was inside of some sort of structure. The architecture was totally alien. I tried to move my head to look around, but I was so new to this body, I did not know how. I studied the same small area in front of me until my tormentor returned me to my own physical form.

I remembered everything when I awoke in the morning. I remembered seeing some of those strange symbols, those strange glyphs I recorded in my sleep. I still did not know what they meant, but I felt like I should. I looked at the drawings with a distant familiarity instead of the absolutely unknown as before.

I finally learned what happened to me during the night ever since I was a small child. I never was sleepwalking. Something took control of me as I slept using my body like a puppet. During these invasions, this other being trapped me in its body.

I realized, when I entered a deep meditation, this other creature thought I was sleeping. It always took me when I was asleep because that was the easiest time for it to do so. It did not have to wrestle with my own consciousness as I slumbered. That is why I never remembered it taking control of me. Every time I was thrust into its world, I was unconscious. When it took me during my meditation, it sent me into its body with me in a waking state.

I felt a whole new sense of terror. It was scary enough when I thought I was sleep-walking. The idea of an alien creature taking my body to use as its own absolutely horrified me. There could not possibly be a more of a personal violation thin this. This thing controlled the fate of my body as I slept.

I could not tell anyone. I could not ask for help. Who would believe me if I did?

Anything I told anyone would only make me look like an absolute lunatic. I would be locked away for the rest of my life. I wondered if that might not be for the best. If I was locked away, if it had no use for my body, perhaps it would leave me alone. That would be no kind of life for me to live though. I think I would be better off dead.

After this latest experience, I knew what happened to me as I slept. Perhaps now I could learn to use its form as it did with mine. Fear of the unknown passed over me in waves. I did not have a clue as to where my mind was sent as I slept. Wherever it was, I was sure it was no place like this world.

I got very little exercise during the day because I spent much of my time outside meditating. I believed I discovered the way to salvation from my nighttime activities. Each time I fought against that other mind; I found it easier and easier to fend off. I still could not defeat it, but with continued practice perhaps I could. During the day I stayed master of my own body, but in my sleep it still belonged to the other.

The next time it tried to take me during one of my meditations, I allowed it to do so. If I could learn more about it, I might just gain an advantage at fending it off.

Trying to make any voluntary functions in the alien body was still very difficult. I was trying to use a form vastly different from my own. I realized the strangeness of the coloration inside of the structure was not an effect of any design or architecture. The color perception of this body was just as alien as the body. It had no sense of hearing that I could discern, but I could somehow feel the things around me.

I lay there on my back, its back, and stared up at the ceiling. There was no way this room was tall enough for this body to stand. I figured it must be some sort of crawling creature. I tried to turn over, to get on my belly so that I could crawl, but I simply did not yet have the muscle control to do so. I squirmed around some, which was much more than I did the first time.

Several months passed as I learned how to use my possessor’s body more and more. The reason I could not roll over in its belly was because it already was on its belly. I was right when I thought it was a crawling creature. The ceiling was only twice as tall as the body was high. With time, I learned how to move the alien body while it was mine.

The being swapping minds with me was long and narrow. Three sets of limbs lined the slender form. The front and back sets of limbs acted as feet while the center set performed the function of arms. Learning how to manipulate all six limbs was by far the most difficult part of operating this form. Now I knew why it started taking me while I was so young. It had to learn to use my form as I did its vastly unfamiliar body.

The neck was very stiff, and I found it impossible to look downward. It finally occurred to me that this thing had eyes in the top of its head causing it to constantly look up. This creature apparently relied mainly on its senses of smell and touch. I did not know how the body did it, but somehow, I could feel everything around me. Without physically touching anything, I could still feel the smallest detail. I could read the engravings on the ceiling even with my eyes closed. I thought perhaps it was some sort of sense that acted like radar.

Eventually I learned to control the body enough to crawl around. The long arms protruding from the sides of the creature were attached to the back legs by fan-like membranes. The membranes looked a lot like they were once wings, but were no longer strong enough to get the body off the ground.

The room in which I always found myself appeared to have what looked like a doorway at one end. The opening was as tall as the ceiling from the floor and twice as wide. I did not try to exit this one room. I did not want this being to realize I learned to use its body as my own.

I allowed this to continue for nearly a year. The opening to this chamber opened into a vertical shaft. This was how I discovered this body possessed the ability to easily climb up walls. I could also crawl along the ceiling. The body did not have to turn; the limbs pivoted from front to back with natural ease.

I must have had some minor access to the alien’s memory, because it did not take me long at all before many of the hieroglyphs made sense to me. I was able to determine most of the engravings on the ceiling mapped out this creature’s family tree. It listed the name for each birth.

I waited a long time before I could bring myself to leave this room. I did not know how I was supposed to act in the case I encountered others. Once I did, I found a labyrinth of tunnels cut through the stone. Rooms did not have doors, so several times I almost entered the chambers of others.

The first alien I encountered said something. It did not use sound. It did not even use this radar like sense of touch. The only way I could think of describing it would be to call it telepathy. I could not understand what it said, so I repeated what it said to me. Apparently, I succeeded because this being went on about its business.

Somehow, I knew the tunnel led to a large chamber filled with more of the aliens. It was some sort of bazar or market. I avoided any such places until I developed a better understanding of their way of speaking and what their words meant. Just as with the written language, it did not take me very long to learn their means of communication. Their words made sense to me very quickly.

I tried not to spend too much time away from my possessor’s chamber. I did not want it to know I was taking excursions in its world as it did in mine. If it knew I gained command of its body, the alien may end the swapping of our minds. I wanted to know as much about these creatures and their world as I could. I hoped to find something that would indicate where in the universe I actually was.

I continued to avoid large, crowded areas such as the market. I learned these beings were very artistic. The tunnel system was carved with amazing images and art galleries were common. I did find the three-dimensional carvings to be very strange. I could feel their details as I moved, and some of them seemed to be somehow physically impossible.

The walls of the tunnels also contained engravings detailing the destinations of each passageway. This made it very easy for me to explore without getting lost. It also helped me avoid any large, highly populated areas. One of my biggest concerns was I would run into another who was friends with the one’s whose body I used.

Their social structure was as alien to me as their world. I eventually learned the concept of being friends, the way I understood the relationship, did not exist here. In fact, it appeared every individual lived alone. They only came together when it was time to conceive a child.

The family structure of this society was very loose and disconnected. When a child was conceived and born, the parents returned to their respective chambers. Who cared for the body was determined by the sex of the child. The custodial parent was the one with the same gender as the child. I did think it very odd that the creatures reproduced much the same way as animals on Earth. The idea that they had only two genders, the same two genders as found in my world was incredible.

I learned much about these creatures and their ways. I understood why the being in my body was going to my world. It wanted to study us. Our ways of life must be as alien to it as its world was to me. This invading mind apparently went unaware I controlled its body as it controlled mine. This creature wrongly thought I was asleep while I was in deep meditation, rather than sending my sleeping mind into its body, it was sending me in a conscious state.

I discovered these creatures expected a great cataclysm to occur sometime in their near future. This idea struck fear into my very soul. I began worrying they planned to take the earth, steal our bodies, and leave us here to die. I grew strong over this time, but my possessor was stronger yet. I did not think I could stop it if it tried to take my body for good.

These tunnel dwellers did not perceive time in the same way as humans, so I could not determine when the creatures expected the cataclysm to happen. If they tried to take host of human bodies in mass, they would doom all of those lives. They may even doom the entire human race.

I wanted to warn everyone I knew. I wanted to help the human race defend itself from the likely invasion. I wanted to help the earth, but I knew everyone would think I snapped.

Who would possibly believe such a strange tale as this?

I continued to study them as much as I could. There was a faint hope I could find something to help my people. My mind could not understand these beings’ odd sense of time. If I wanted to save my world, I needed to know how much longer I had. If there was enough time, perhaps I could at least save a handful of people.

Their art also seemed to be a sort of recording of history. I therefore decided to spend time in their museums to try to gather information on their full history. The problem was, to get to one of these places; I would have to travel through the community’s market. There were thousands of others in the bazar at any given moment. I had a rudimentary command of their language, but not enough to engage in conversation. If any others engaged me, I might be found out.

Eventually I decided I had no other choice. The ones I encountered up to now were not very communicative. A greeting was traditional, but I encountered no conversations thus far. I could only hope they were the same way when gathered in large numbers.

Finally, while the other made use of my body, I worked up the nerve to pass through the market place so I could reach the museums of history. I passed many other tunnels on my way to the large chamber, passageways leading mainly to the dwelling rooms of the aliens.

Those I passed on my way said nothing but the usual greeting. I felt rather good about my chances in the bazar. The massive chamber contained thousands of these beings. When they gathered together in crowds, the typical greeting was apparently not necessary.

Vendors greeted me with offers to purchase their products. I politely told them no and went about my business. I was so glad these beings did not form personal relationships. If they had, one of them may have recognized me and initiate a conversation. As it was, I made it to the other side without ever having to say more than a few words.

This was the first time I encountered any of their technology. The aliens used crystals of different sorts as what I could only describe as computers. All this time, I carried on this body a belt containing pouches full of crystals. I thought these were used as currency, but I actually carried with me some of their technology this whole time. I never took the time to discover their purpose.

I made my way through the tunnels to a museum dedicated to relics recovered from ancient civilizations. I thought that might give me some insight into their perception of time. I hoped then I could figure out when they expected this massive cataclysmic event.

So far it was impossible for me to determine what the event would be and when it was supposed to happen. I did not ask any of these beings any questions about the events. I only knew what I picked up here and there.

I was excited about seeing their archeological finds, but I could not rush to get there. These creatures did not display stress or excitement. They always went about their business at a leisurely pace. If I tried running, or even rushing, I knew I would draw unwanted attention.

Stifling my excitement, I entered the museum. The carven walls were high, the highest I encountered until now. Even the marketplace did not match these heights. It was shallower and more widespread.

The high walls were decorated with massive engravings. The ceiling was so high in this museum because of some of the things it contained. It appeared, in this ancient civilization, the dominant species walked upright. Many of the artifacts stood as tall as this body was long.

First, I encountered a display of fossilized animal remains. An engraved tablet described the animals as livestock. The body I inhabited ate only the fungi cultivated in this subterranean civilization. For some reason the thought of eating another animal made me feel sick and woozy.

I continued on to the next display, which was labeled as tools of the ancient civilization. I saw several familiar items in the display. One of the tools looked like the head of a pick-axe. Another of the relics appeared to be the tines from a metal rake. A large number of knives lay sealed up in a transparent case.

The next display caused me a great deal of anxiety. I could swear it was a car. There were many pieces missing, but what was there looked like an old sedan. It amazed me a civilization on another world could parallel humanity so well.

I got my answer when I approached the next display. This one contained the fossilized remains of the species that once dominated their world. Displays of stone tablets engraved in the ancient language sat scattered about the display. The words on the tablets were written in English. The skeleton was that of a human.

I did not get transported to another world when the invader and I traded bodies. I was still on Earth. I did not travel through space; my mind traveled through time. The cataclysm they anticipated was not about them; it was about humankind. They were waiting to witness the extinction of humanity.

It was right at this point I felt the owner of this body trying to return. One of the crystals on a belt I was wearing produced a sort of vibration. That was it. It used this crystal to take my body while forcing me into its own. I snatched the stone from the belt and tossed it across the room. The tug trying to force me back into my own body ceased.

Without the device, the being in my body could not return. I knew, whatever the extinction event was, it was going to happen soon. In the display along with the skeletal remains was a carving of what it once looked like. The granite statue was an almost perfect image of me.

I stood there looking at the preserved remains of my own body. It was no coincidence my possessor chose me. It was looking into how the owner of those remains lived.

I did not want to go back home. I would let that being who violated my body remain to face the extinction level event. I stayed in this underground network. In time I learned to act exactly like the others.

The Orchard

By Mychal Wilson

On August 24, 2019

In Aetet 1, First Triad

Word Count: 2,674

I became a source of disquiet unease for my parents at a very young age. It troubled Mother and Father that I appeared incapable of interacting with other children. I did not act like a ‘normal’ child and this greatly disturbed the people who brought me into this mundane world.

I was the first and only child. My parents did not bring me any siblings for fear they would turn out like me. Mother and Father did not understand me; they did not know how to communicate with me and this made them afraid of me.

It was not that I had and inability to interact with other children; I simply shared no common interests with them what-so-ever. I could not enjoy the company of children my age because they saw me as an oddity. As a general rule, I paid them no mind. I preferred the company of my other friends instead, for they understood me in a way no one else could.

My parents tested me for autism when I was a toddler. Of course the results came back negative. Enduring a multitude of tests over a period of several years, I proved to be normal in every sense of the word. None of the doctors Mother and Father carted me off to found anything wrong with me.

Simply because I had an uncanny ability to discern and detect patterns in the mundane ignorant people missed, the parents of my birth thought surely I was somehow mentally disabled. They almost seemed disappointed to find out I was not mentally challenged. It was as if they hoped something to be wrong with me.

As the years progressed and other children my age went off to Kindergarten, my parents decided to keep me home. They were undisputedly sure I would not be able to assimilate into the close social environment school provided. Truth be told, I didn’t want to waste my days learning at the slow pace of the dull dimwits who would be my classmates anyway.

Before my mother began to home school me, I spent most of my time out in the pecan orchards. The trees there were hundreds of years old, the land being passed down through several generations of my family. That was where my true friends made their home.

They were so joyful and performed beautiful dances accompanied by the sweetest of music just before each sundown. Most of the time, I simply watched them, clapping my hands with the beat of the music. The dances sometimes being very intricate, they were too difficult for me to perform. I was satisfied plenty simply being in their presence.

During their holidays, my beautiful friends insisted I join in on the gaiety of the festivities. Every night was a celebration for them, so their holidays were over-the-top. I felt very awkward attempting the dances of my friends. I knew I was in the way and looked so out of place, but they did not mind in the least. They only wanted for me to share in the joy and happiness filling their lives.

My excursions into the orchards many times did not go uninterrupted as my birth parents sometimes snuck into the woods prying on my happenings. Were they to catch me clapping and dancing, they would think me insane for sure. Luckily my friends noticed my parents long before my parents noticed me. I never went unaware of their approach. When they found me I was typically reading a thick book for the duration of their eavesdropping. After my parents departed the orchard, I rejoined the festivities.

Several years passed and my education accelerated. At only age seven, I surpassed the materials typically given to seniors in high school. The concept escaped me that other children were not equally as smart. I could not understand how others demonstrated such difficulty in learning. Mother home schooled me because my parents feared what the people of our small community would say about their freak son. The town developed enough gossip of its own concerning me and my lack of friends, much less if others observed me on a daily basis.

I returned home following one joyful sunset celebration to catch some exceedingly disconcerting news. A large corporation was buying up all of the land around here. It planned to develop all of the beautiful orchards and farmlands into apartments and shopping malls. Dad said, when the representative from the corporation returned, if he got a good enough offer, he was selling the orchard. First he planned to cut down all of the pecan trees to sell for lumber. The developers did not want the wood, only the land. Pecan lumber caught a substantial amount of money, and he planned on making a hefty profit from this.

A panic filled my gullet with the receipt of the devastating news. What was going to happen to my friends? Cutting down the trees meant the death of them all. In a state of shock I began yelling “You can’t kill them! You can’t kill them!”

All reason left my mind and I began to fight them physically, but my struggle was a futile one. Dad was much bigger than me: I was still only twelve. I soon ceased my struggle and dropped hard on the tile floor beneath my feet. Balled up in the fetal position I continued to whimper the same words over and over, “You can’t kill them.”

The local doctor worked out of his home very close to our own, and he did not mind making house calls. Almost immediately after his arrival, the doctor gave me a strong sedative. In only a few seconds everything became an absolutely blissful peace. The next day I awoke in my room. My dream friends did not visit me that night; the manmade medications prevented them from doing so.

When I awoke the next day the clock was already close to striking noon. Quickly I changed into my outdoor clothes and ran out of the house. I saw my father working the pecan harvester, gathering the nuts off of the ground, and I mustered a slight gleam of hope. He worked since early morning, judging by the amount of completed work. That meant he had not yet been to town. At least for now, I did not fret over the sale of the land. I knew he did not speak to the corporate man yet, and he would not until the next morning.

After dinner that night, I cleaned and put away the dishes. I waited until everyone fell asleep and made my way deep in the heart of the manicured forest where my friends always awaited my arrival. I thought along the way about how to break the news to them. I did not know how to tell them we would never again cavort in the light of the full moon. We would never again celebrate one of their sacred holidays. I did not know how to tell them their world was about to be destroyed, their lives were about to come to an end.

Immediately the others knew something terrible was on my mind. It ripped my heart to find out I would never see my dryad friends ever again. On this night there was no celebration. No dancing and no joyous singing filled the cool night air. Tonight we mourned, for we knew soon all of my friends would be dead and I would be alone.

The elders and I sat for a serious discussion, something we never did before. The topic, of course was how to save the lives of these century old trees and those who resided within them. We talked until the sun began to set.

During supper that night I stayed quiet and took in every last word my parents said. Dad told Mom the men were coming to start cutting down the trees on Friday. That only gave me four days to figure out how to save the lives of thousands of innocent beings.

After my parents went to bed and had enough time to drift off into a deep slumber, I snuck out of the house. I had to climb down from the third story, which I did in the past with great difficulty. I walked toe to heel from my bed to lessen the noise of my footfalls and over to one of the windows. This was always the easiest to escape. I looked out to see a heavy mass of vines grown up the southern wall of my home in only a matter of a few hours. My friends were helping me escape the confines of my bedroom.

The elders and I discussed again our possible options to save their lives, but it always came back to one specific solution. However horrible it was, it was something that had to be done. Once we reached an accord I went to sneak back into my third story window. The vines grew to the thickness as a small woman’s wrist, which made it incredibly easy to climb back into the window.

The next morning I looked back out my open window and noticed the ivy retreated from the walls and back into the flower bed. I went down the stairs for breakfast and made it a point to act a bit odd. I would take a long pause before answering any questions my parents might ask me. I would make myself zone out on something just to bring to their mind something was wrong with me. I shoveled the food into my mouth rather than displaying at least a rudimentary etiquette.

Father went outside after breakfast and Mother commenced to cleaning up the dishes. I sat at the table ten minutes or so after I finished, just to arouse much more suspicion to the situation. Finally I rose from the kitchen table and shuffled my feet against the hard wood floor in the hall, standing in front of the door a good minute or two before I exited the house.

I found my father was already at work. He began to use the belt vibrator to shake the loose pecans from the trees, but he was nowhere close to my usual hangout. As I sadly strolled to that one single clearing, the dryads began to exit their trees. While they walked along side me, they spoke to me and I spoke to them. I hoped my parents would see this and come up to do one of their regular spying visits.

It must not have taken long for Dad to see me apparently talking to myself. I could hear the belt vibrator stop some ways behind me. I could not resist the temptation not to turn around to look and found my father quickly making his way to the side door of the house. Just as planned, I slowly made my way to the clearing where all of the celebrations took place. My strange actions worked, and my parents thought they snuck up on me in my favorite place of that massive orchard.

The others began to sing and dance as they would on any other day while I clapped my hands and swayed my head with the beat of the music. Things progressed as normal and we all tried to ignore the presence of my prying parents. They could not see the dryads as their minds were too dull to perceive anything beyond their five limited senses.

Mom and Dad watched my actions and thought I was dancing and singing in the warm sunlight all by myself. This finally confirmed what they always believed about me. They thought I was insane and probably planned to institutionalize me. We anticipated all of this though, even counting on it as a crucial part of our plan.

They watched me engaged in my strange spectacle for over an hour before I heard them calling my name. I continued to ignore them and persisted in my joyful activities. My friends and I all hoped they would make their way up to me. When I failed to heed their calls, I knew they would come and drag me home physically. The eldest of the dryads, along with a few others, lay in wait.

When my parents were within their reach, the roots of the trees rose out of the ground like tendrils. Clumps of dirt fell as the roots coiled like pythons, holding my dim witted parents tight. The roots did not strangle them like the snake would. Instead the roots held them firmly in place.

They screamed out to me, begged me to help them. I paid them no mind. The only good thing they accomplished was blessing the world with my presence. I continued with the dryads in their nightly celebration.

The roots of the elder shook my parents violently sending dirt flying everywhere. What happened next should have terrified me; it should have horrified me to my very soul. Instead, I found solace in the actions of the elder.

The smaller roots burrowed their way into my parents’ flesh, digging into them as they screamed in pain. The elder drained them of all fluids in their bodies. The screaming weakened, and eventually it stopped. When he was finished their corpses were dry and stiff. They looked like mummies without the rags.

The elder opened a hollow in his massive trunk, depositing their bodies inside. Withdrawing the roots from their bodies, he pulled them back into the earth. Two large bunches of mistletoe sprouted from his branches. There my parents’ souls would remain. So long as the elder lived, they would live as well.

At the end of the celebration, four of the dryads walked into the circle of the others. They carried a large box by means of two long poles. The dryads set the ornamented box to the ground and turned it on its side. Precious metals, coins, and jewels poured onto the ground. The dryads dug all of this out of the ground; items lost over many centuries. Some of the coins were minted from a metal I never saw before.

I picked up one of the odd coins to examine it closely. It almost appeared to be glass filled with microscopic flakes of gold and platinum. Most of the coins I sold to collectors through a prestigious auction house. The strange coins sold for millions of dollars each, but the coins of common metals brought in a lot of money as well. I worked with the auction house to sell the jewels, jewelry and other antique items.

I hired an attorney to act as my proxy and to handle the recordkeeping. Through him, I purchased all of the land around mine, dozens of square miles. We created a tax fund, a banking account holding twelve million dollars. The interest alone would pay the taxes on the land for an indefinite period of time. There was no way I was going to let some corperation to come in and ‘modernize’ the area…

I protected my friends and insured their continued existence. I took their seeds, the pecans they dropped to the ground, and planted them all over the land I purchased. The seeds would sprout the next year, giving life to the dryads’ progeny. When they saw me doing this, the maples and the oaks asked me to spread their seed as well.

During this time and for several years to follow I planted trees, tended the forest and enriched the soil. This allowed the dryads to grow healthy and strong. To show their gratitude, the dryads promised to grant me one wish. There was no question of what I wanted. I did not have to struggle to find my greatest desire. My request was a simple one.

The next spring, growing near the elder, was a small vibrant sapling. One day I would grow into a big strong tree. For untold years to come I would celebrate nightly, living with my friends of the orchard.