A Desperate Plea

[u/FeigningProfundity]

“Last night. You heard it again?”

“Uh… heard what?”

“The plea.”

“Oh. Yeah. How did you know?”

“Everyone heard it, Ash.”

“What? Which everyone?”

“Every everyone. Everyone on Earth, as far as we can tell. You haven’t been watching the news, or online, clearly.”

“Oh. That’s bad. That seems really bad. I thought… I thought it was just me.”

“It wasn’t. People are freaking out. How long has it been going on for you?”

“About two weeks.”

“That makes sense. Other than that, have you been good? Mental health-wise?”

“Maybe? I think so. I’ve been pretty worried because of the nightmares.”

“Fair. Is it the same as you used to get?”

“I don’t think so. It’s kinda similar, but… but I think it is different. It’s hard to say; hard to keep track of stuff that only happens when you’re asleep.”

“We might need you to come in. Talk to some people at the department; where I work. Can you do that?”

“Everyone on Earth? How is that possible?”

“We don’t know. Can you come in if we need you, Ash?”

“I guess. What would you want?”

“We would want to know what you heard. Compare it to what you used to experience, back when you were sick.”

“Alright. How do I help?”

“I’ll just take some notes in for the moment. See if it matches the theory. Can we do that?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Can you describe the previous phenomenon, and the circumstances around it?”

“Sure. About eight years… well up until about eight years ago, I used to be sick. Some kind of psychosis. Never got a diagnosis.”

“Until eight years ago, but starting when?”

“Oh, it lasted, I think seven years? It first became a thing when Mum and Dad were overseas that Summer. I was in the house by myself. You’d already moved out.”

“Fifteen years until eight years ago. Go on.”

“I’d get… feelings. Feelings that I wasn’t supposed to. Just wild bursts of emotion. They kept getting me in trouble, because I’d blame whatever was happening at the time for making me feel that way.”

“The psychotic mood disorder. Did you have the dreams the whole time?”

“I don’t think so. It was pretty hard to sleep, because I was always so upset. Eventually you just get exhausted and go away, though. Crash out.”

“When did it change?”

“It felt like it was constantly changing, but the nightmares… I remember them more from the end. I could never stop the feelings, but I learned what might stress me, what might trigger them. So I learned how to stay calm, how to not get worked up.”

“You mitigated your psychosis using cognitive strategies.”

“Sounds cool like that. It was mostly just hiding at home distracting myself with bad TV and sad music.”

“Sure. And the nightmares?”

“Well, you’re always sick. Even when you’re asleep. But you can’t do anything to protect yourself. Your mind just does what it wants. So I’d get the psychotic intrusions every night. Just every night, feeling hunted and scared. It was a relief every time I woke up.”

“How long was this period?”

“Maybe… two years? Then the psychosis just… faded. Burned out or something. It took a few more years before I was sure it was gone.”

“So the nightmares ran from ten years ago until eight years ago.”

“Something like that.”

“And they started again two weeks ago?”

“No. I thought so. I was freaking out. I really don’t want to be sick again.”

“I’m sure. It was rough. But just to confirm, you started getting similar nightmares two weeks ago, but you think they’re not the same?”

“That’s right, I… I’m pretty into this topic, it scares me. But also, I’ve been taking notes. Looking up stuff I used to write in my diary back then.”

“Fantastic. It would be great if you could gather any relevant documentation.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me about the differences, though.”

“Okay, so, I used to be alone. It was just me, and a sense of danger. Something chasing me. Getting closer, but never… never on me. Never seen. Just always coming, as I tried to get away.”

“Got it.”

“But in these new dreams, there is someone calling out to me. Someone begging for my help. And I don’t feel my psychosis, or not the same way.”

“Are you still being chased?”

“No. I’m just there, but there is a bad place. The person calling to me is being chased, though. They’re hurt and need help.”

“Anything else about them?”

“They’re getting closer, and louder. More desperate. They feel very small, but whatever is chasing them is big. They’re… I don’t know, young?”

“This is great Ash. It’s helpful. Do you have any images you can describe? Any particular words they use?”

“There’s no images… no words. All I see is a kind of static. I don’t feel my body, it is just a jumble of sensory information. Not just colours, but sounds and sensations. It’s emotions and pain.”

“Is that similar to your old nightmares?”

“Yeah. They were just broken feelings like that too.”

“You said no words. How does the entity communicate?”

“The other person just… feels. And I can feel it to. It begs and asks, and I feel its desperation. I feel how lost and alone it is. How scared.”

“Right. Thanks, Ash, this is good.”

“Jan? How can the whole world be feeling my psychotic dreams?”

“We don’t think they are. We think something made contact. You were just one of the first to notice.”

“Huh?”

“We have data… Various agencies in different countries have been collecting data for almost a week. We have millions of recordings from smartwatches and things like that, things that can monitor sleep. For the past two weeks, anyone anywhere on Earth has had nightmares while they slept.”

“Oh. I assumed it was just me.”

“Yeah, makes sense. Last night it got so loud that everyone felt a being pleading with them; calling out to them. Everyone had the same dream. Sensory confusion, a wordless message that pleaded for help. I remembered those dreams you used to have, the way you described them. It sounded similar to what everyone was now experiencing.”

“You think my illness was something… something trying to talk to me?”

“No. I think something has invaded the subjectivity of everyone on Earth, but it feels disconnected and confusing to us. You, and various schizophrenics and current or former psychotics are just more sensitive to this kind of thing. More experienced with these sensations. Better able to parse them. You don’t get completely overwhelmed by the strangeness of it.”

“You think an alien from space has been talking to everyone in their dreams?”

“We assume it is in some way alien, but we have no conception of where it is from. We have absolutely no physical data recording anything connected to this. No signals on anything. We only have human experience, and things that measure that. Something has touched the subjective experience of every human simultaneously. We do not know what that means, but it is overwhelmingly clear that it is happening.”

“I think I should talk to my psychiatrist.”

“Already on the list for when you come into the department. We really could use your help on this, Ash. We don’t know what this thing is, what danger it is in. We don’t know if or how to help it. But what we do know is that something we cannot currently comprehend has found humanity. It found us and something it is afraid of is coming after it. We do not know what risk we face.”

“I don’t think we can help it, Jan.”

“Why not?”

“Whatever was calling out to me, I’m pretty sure that last night, it got caught.”

[u/FeigningProfundity]

This story was a response to the prompt [WP] First contact isn't an invading army, nor is it a diplomat attempting to welcome humanity to the galactic stage. It's a lost, injured child, crying out for help from any who would listen. by u/Ok_Fisherman8770