Extrasensory Perception

She awoke to the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance. As her brain slowly adjusted to being awake, the only noise she could hear was the soothing rain sounds that played softly on the Google Home device sitting on the nightstand beside her. She glanced over at the dimly lit screen and saw that the time read 3:16 a.m.

She knew the barking hadn’t come from one of her dogs. She had Chihuahuas, and the bark she had heard was much deeper than any sound their small vocal cords could make. Everything seemed quiet, so she figured it was either a dream or nothing too concerning. She pulled her blanket back over herself and closed her eyes to fall back asleep.

As soon as she started to drift back into her dreams, she heard a shuffling noise coming from the corner of the room closest to her side of the bed. Her eyes shot open again. Her head barely lifted from the pillow as she searched the darkness in the direction from where she heard the noise. She reached over to see if her husband had perhaps gotten out of bed, but he was still there, sound asleep.

“I’m sure it was nothing,” she thought, wanting to believe it really hadn’t been anything.

Not even a minute later, she heard it again. The same slight shifting sound as though something or someone was attempting to be quiet but had instead shuffled a foot too loudly on the carpet.

She lay there frozen. Her eyes burned as she stared into the darkness without blinking. Listening. The once lulling sounds of rain were now not a relaxing sound but one that interfered with her ability to properly hear what was happening and where exactly, or more specifically, what exactly that sound was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She thought for a moment that it was just shadows playing tricks on her paranoid mind. Then she heard a different sound. A small voice that wasn’t her own echoed inside her head. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“What? What was that?” her own panic-stricken voice responded in her thoughts.

“I am not here to hurt you,” the same voice as before swirled inside her brain.

“Umm, no, this isn’t happening,” she thought as her body automatically shot up into a sitting position with one foot dangling over the side of the bed. She immediately wished she had stayed under the safety of her blanket. Those are the rules she learned as a child. The monsters can't get you as long as you stay under the blankets.

Once she sat up, she saw it. A strange-looking figure standing barely five feet tall with large oval eyes and light, almost translucent skin that glistened in the tiny bit of moonlight that managed to seep in through the small gap in her bedroom curtains.

She was frozen. Her mind was a complete blank. Her heart beat so fast she felt like it could leap out of her chest at any moment. The figure moved closer and held out its long, slender hand.

Both deathly afraid and curious, she watched as her hand automatically reached out to grasp the hand that had reached out for hers. She didn’t even know why she had done it. She wasn’t an overly brave person. She was actually quite afraid of the dark and wasn’t a fan of all the potential things that could go bump in the night.

As soon as the long fingers of the mysterious being wrapped around her much smaller hand, she felt like she had been submerged in a warm bath as a calm washed over her entire body. “What do you want with me?” the words formed in her mind.

“Come,” the being responded entirely inside her head.

In a flash, the darkness of her bedroom disappeared and was replaced by a vast nothingness and complete silence. Within a few seconds, stars began to emerge, and before her eyes, a blue and green sphere that she assumed was Earth appeared below.

“It looks so beautiful,” she thought as she watched the sphere floating amongst millions of tiny lights.

Before turning her head to see what else she could glimpse from this unique vantage point, she saw a flash of light as it raced across the top of the blue and green ball. A few seconds later, the flash of light grew and mushroomed across the surface.

She looked at the being floating beside her, still holding her hand with utter confusion. The being looked back at her with a hint of sadness in its large, oval eyes. A sadness that she could feel in the pit of her stomach. She thought about everyone she loved as she looked back at her planet, refusing to believe what she thought she just saw.

The scenery changed again, except her feet were on solid ground this time. She was surrounded by total devastation. There were no trees, just burnt embers where trees once stood. There were no animals, no sounds of birds chirping, no cars, no people - just silence. In the distance, she saw what looked to be a child-sized shoe and the remains of what looked to be a charred doll in the middle of what had probably once been a family’s home.

She tried to speak out loud, but words wouldn’t form. “No, no, no. Why are you showing me all of this?” She screamed in her head. She tried to release herself from the being’s grasp, but it held onto her hand without answering her question.

The scenery changed again. She was now looking at a line of people. Their gaunt and almost lifeless faces filled with so much pain and hunger. Many wore scars across their arms, legs, and faces from what looked like past burns. She imagined those scars probably existed beneath the tattered and dirty clothes that covered their frail bodies as well.

She watched as each downtrodden individual progressed through the line. Each person seemed barely able to hold up the weight of their thin arms while their shaking hands reached out to receive what little food was on the plates they were given.

She felt the cool wetness of her tears as they streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks. The hand still holding onto hers tightened - a tightening that was an unspoken gesture of support and understanding.

“What are you? Are you an angel? An alien? Am I even awake? Why can I only hear you in my head?” she projected her thoughts as she desperately looked into the dark oval eyes before her.

The scene changed again. A pasture full of grass, a rickety and worn wooden fence in the distance, and horses that chewed upon the ground now stood before her. Had something survived, she wondered.

“You can only hear me in your head because that is the only way I can communicate in your language so that you can understand me. If I were to speak out loud, it would sound like a series of low and high-end pitches that you wouldn’t understand,” the being responded in a whisper that gently floated in her thoughts.

“To answer your other questions, we are both, and we are neither. It depends on who is defining us. You are our children. When our own home died, we pushed along your evolution. We have stayed by your side, and we have also ventured off to seek out new life, but either way, we have always watched over you. We had hoped that you would do better than we did. We tried to leave the traits we didn’t like within our own species out of yours to give you a better chance, but we weren’t entirely successful.

“Your species' ability to love far exceeds our own. It is your strongest trait and one that we are probably the most envious of,” the voice echoed between her ears before the scenery in front of her changed once again.

She now found herself surrounded by a series of rapidly changing images from different periods. The first of which looked like a scene of an early man hunting and then building a fire surrounded by his clan, the next featured a woman giving birth, then a couple kissing and holding hands, a man and a woman crying as she held a newborn in her arms, a woman feeding a child at her breast, a child crying in a man’s arms, two children laughing, two adults laughing, an older woman reading a book to a child, a younger woman reading a book to an older woman, a family crying and holding the hand of an older man, and so on. So many images flashed before her eyes, all depicting some form of love and human companionship.

“This trait, your capacity to love, while strong, isn’t always strong enough to combat the hatred that seeps into your heart. A hatred that breeds wars and violence far beyond what we could foresee. We tried to keep knowledge from your species, but it was embedded in your DNA. The weapons you have created and the violence you inflict upon one another saddens us.

“What you have seen is just a tiny glimpse and only one possibility. A possibility we are sharing with as many who will listen. It isn’t too late to change that future. However, the more that things such as famine, diseases, and emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy, and lust for power take over, your overall capacity to love will be lost.”

“But what can I do? I am no one. I don’t have any control over these things.” she responded with her thoughts.

“You have a voice, and your voice matters,” was the last thing she heard echoing in her mind before being surrounded by complete darkness again.

“No, wait,” she screamed as loud as she could inside her own head, but she didn’t receive a response. She felt so confused and helpless that, once again, the tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes.

She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. She could feel him shaking her, urging her to wake up. She could hear her husband as he gently hushed her. Neither of them said a word. She just lay there in the safety of his arms, still quietly sobbing. The love between them swelled within her heart. She wondered if it had all been a dream and, if it wasn’t, what difference she could possibly make.