The Volunteer

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That is what Violet thought the first moment she woke up from her dream. This was the third night in a row she was having the same dream. She remembers herself screaming as she entered a dark black tunnel. But she remembers not being alone the entire time. She simply remembers a bright blue light held to her forehead and being called Niel. Violet, a 30-year-old woman, reluctantly got up and walked to her bathroom. She washed her pale-like complexion and combed her messy curly dark blonde hair. She looked into the mirror with her abnormally large blue eyes and thought maybe this was real. She felt as if she was hungover from a night of drinking. Violet was a strange socially awkward individual that often said the wrong thing at the wrong time. She knew she did this, so she kept her social outings to a minimum. She put on an oversized sweatshirt with her favorite black pair of bike shorts and went to her kitchen to pour herself that cup of coffee she has been trying to quit for seven years. It was 5 am usually not a morning person but these lucid dreams kept waking her up. Suddenly a strong headache and ringing in her ears began. The hypochondriac as she is wanted to google her symptoms but they were too overwhelming. She went back into her bedroom to grab her watch and noticed some bruises as she began to put it on. “What are those?” They were long finger marks as if someone grabbed her wrist forcefully. She suddenly started panicking and looking around her apartment. “Did somebody drug her? That would be impossible.” She just watched television all night and didn’t go anywhere. “I feel crazy.” She recently felt like someone was always watching her and she wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. It was the feeling as if a ghost or something was in the house. It was still partially dark outside because the Pacifica fog was strong on that day. She lived in a small cottage that was no more than 600 square feet and sat near the beach. Sometimes the home scared her a bit because at night it looked like it was floating on fog. She went to open the curtains which were glowing. While opening the curtains she was suddenly blinded by the bright blue light. “Jesus what the hell is up with these idiot guys who decided to leave their brights on!” She saw an outline of a man who was tall and slender. He looked as if his hair was long and white but his skin was so pale she could see him in the dark sky. Startled, she opened up her window and yelled, “Dude park your truck somewhere else, now!” There was no response, just the man standing there doing nothing. She was confused but didn’t want to go outside since she had a weird feeling in her stomach. That feeling that you know something is off but you should listen to it. But Violet decided to go against that feeling and she stormed outside. She was exhausted and fed up with having a dream that was so vague and making her lose her sleep. Sleep was precious to her because her biggest pet peeve was waking up at 7 am for school all those years. “We had to do that for most of our lives!” She would always say to her very few friends. She stormed outside and realized that this wasn’t an ordinary truck. This was a long metal ship with a pointed nozzle. It almost looked like one of those fighter jets but more futuristic. The man standing next to the ship was so pale he was blue. He was handsome and had a very stoic look on his face. Violet froze as he started walking toward her. He said in a deep kind voice, “Are you ready?” She tried to run but she couldn’t move her body. Her body was stuck as if she was in sleep paralysis. “Maybe this is a dream.” She tried to wake herself up but her body couldn’t move. He looked at her and blue light from his forehead touched hers. She suddenly went into a trance. Everything that ever existed entered her thoughts at lightning speed. Everything about the creation of the earth. She saw animals becoming extinct, she saw every evil and every good that was happening in our history. She started pouring out tears, becoming overwhelmed. She even saw the future. But not just one future, two futures. The earth splitting in two. One was beautiful and one was complete destruction. “Do you know why I came here, do you remember Niel?” Overwhelmed and shaking, she replied, “I can’t understand, I am going to be sick. Why are you calling me Neil? Who are you? Why are you making my life a living hell?” He replied sternly, “Niel what is going on why aren’t you remembering? I have been trying to get you to remember for the past three days. I am not supposed to be down here this long. We are running out of time and you signed up for this. Earth is running down the wrong timeline. We are about to lose Earth and you volunteered with many other of our fellow galactic alliances to come down here. You aren’t waking up to who you really are. I know you are in there. Neil, please wake up!” Violet looked at him still terrified, unable to comprehend what he was saying. He started yelling “I can’t stay here on Earth any longer. My body isn’t adjusted to be down here. I need you to come with me now!” Violet looked at him and saw that he had more fear than she did. She was confused and upset. She replied, “Where are you planning to take me?”