Old Town, San Diego. October 13 2018

It was past midnight when I cut through Old Town Park, taking the same shortcut I always used after a late shift at the diner. The summer air was thick, heavy with the smell of damp earth and the faint sweetness of flowers that only seemed to bloom after dark—honeysuckle, I think. The park was usually quiet, a place of familiar comfort, but that night every sound felt amplified. The crunch of gravel under my shoes sounded like footsteps behind me, the distant chirp of insects was a frantic alarm, and the rustle of leaves overhead felt like a whisper I couldn't quite decipher.

Still, what unsettled me most was the feeling. It wasn't just a sense of unease; it was a physical weight, like the air itself had grown heavy and static. From the moment I stepped onto the path, I knew I wasn’t alone. The sensation of being watched pressed down on me with every step, prickling the hairs on the back of my neck. I kept glancing behind me, expecting to see someone lingering in the shadows near a bench or a tree. I saw nothing. The benches were empty, the swings creaked only from the wind. Yet the feeling never left. I told myself it was exhaustion. Twelve hours on my feet, my body aching, my mind clouded. But then I saw them.

Above the treetops, a cluster of glowing orbs hung in the sky. They weren't stars—too close, too deliberate. They were a milky, pearlescent white, casting a soft glow that didn't seem to belong to our world. They drifted in silence, shifting into patterns that no aircraft could manage. They would dart apart, then snap back together in perfect unison, like a school of jellyfish moving through an unseen current. My mouth went dry, a sudden, panicked thirst. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat in my chest. I froze in place, watching as one of the lights seemed to break formation and drift lower, casting a sickly pale light on the treetops. It moved in a way that defied physics, a smooth, impossibly fast glide that ended just above my head. That was when the world snapped out from under me.

A sudden jolt coursed through my body, violent and electric. It felt like every nerve ending was on fire, a thousand tiny shocks all at once. I tried to scream, but the sound caught in my throat, a choked gasp. My vision flared white, a searing brightness that consumed everything, and then—nothing.

When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the park. I was lying flat on a cold, metallic table. The surface beneath me hummed faintly, a low, resonating vibration that seemed to run through the entire structure. The air was sterile, tinged with something sharp, almost metallic, like ozone after a storm. The room was dimly lit by a soft, diffused light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, illuminating a space that was both vast and claustrophobic. I could see enough to know I wasn’t alone.

Figures surrounded me. Tall, impossibly slender beings with elongated limbs and smooth, pale skin that seemed to shimmer under the faint light. Their movements were fluid, silent, as if they were gliding instead of walking. Their faces were expressionless, their features minimal, with almond-shaped eyes that were black and endless, reflecting me back at myself like two deep pools of ink. My chest tightened with a fear so profound it was almost a physical pressure. I tried to move, to thrash, to simply twitch a finger, but nothing obeyed. My muscles were like lead, my limbs glued to the table. I was frozen, trapped in my own body, an observer in my own nightmare.

They began their work without a word, a chilling, efficient ballet. Strange instruments descended from the ceiling, their joints clicking softly as they hovered over me. One of the beings pressed something cold and sharp against my arm. A sting, followed by a fleeting warmth. Then another at my neck. I could feel them sliding something cold beneath my skin, probing, testing, extracting—but dulled, as if my nerves were wrapped in cotton. The pain was distant, muted, but the violation was stark and clear. Their touch was clinical, impersonal, like a surgeon working on a cadaver, utterly detached from the living thing before them.

Time unraveled. Minutes, hours—there was no way to tell. My mind screamed, but my body remained silent, paralyzed. Their long fingers traced over my ribs, pressing, measuring, as if cataloging me like an object, a specimen of some bizarre new species. I caught glimpses of vials filled with blood that pulsed faintly, a living crimson light. I saw tissue sealed away in containers that shimmered like liquid glass. The worst part wasn’t the pain or the fear. It was their silence. No words, no explanations, not even the faintest acknowledgment of me as a person. Just the cold efficiency of beings who saw me as nothing more than a biological sample.

At one point, a shadow loomed closer. One of them bent over me, its eyes so near I could see strange patterns shifting deep within them, like ink swirling in water. It felt less like a look and more like an intrusion, a silent, all-encompassing gaze that seemed to peel back the layers of my consciousness. I don’t know if it was studying me—or if it was letting me know, in that terrifying, silent way, that I would never understand. And then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.

I was back in the park. Flat on my back in the grass, staring at the familiar outline of the lamppost above me. My body shook violently, a deep, uncontrollable tremor. I scrambled to my feet, stumbling home as if in a dream, the cool night air a shock against my skin. My clothes were damp with dew, and a strange, faint smell clung to my skin, something like sterile metal and ozone.

When I told my family and friends, they dismissed me. Some laughed, some looked at me with pity, others told me I must have been dreaming or hallucinating from exhaustion. But the faint, perfectly symmetrical bruises on my arms told a different story. The soreness deep in my muscles was too real, and the strange, three-pronged mark on my neck, barely visible, would not fade.

In the weeks that followed, I couldn’t sleep. Every sound outside my window made my heart race. I kept the blinds shut tight, but I swore I saw faint lights drifting in the sky above my neighborhood, a ghostly echo of that night. I started reading everything I could find—books, articles, accounts from people who claimed to have experienced the same thing. And I realized I wasn’t alone. The stories matched mine too closely to dismiss. The cold tables, the paralyzing fear, the silent, terrifying efficiency of the beings.

Still, what haunts me most isn’t what they did, but what they didn’t do. They never told me why. They never explained what they wanted. They never even acknowledged me. To them, I wasn’t a person. I was a thing. And sometimes—when the night is too still, when the air outside is too quiet—I feel it again. That same weight pressing down on me. That same sense of eyes watching from just beyond sight. I know they’ll be back. And next time, I don’t think they’ll let me go.