Everything happened in slow motion and all at once. The back of the truck started swaying back and forth like it was trying to come off of the rest. I pulled to the side near a low rounded curb, pressed on the brakes and watched. I can remember the sound of the door starting to crunch in towards me but I can't hear it. I can only see glass breaking. The only part completely lost is the moment right after impact.

My neck muscles won't relax from the position my head was thrown in. Constantly craning, making me look to the right. The inability to calm down continues to plague me. I'm laying in the hospital room now after the crash. It won't stop replaying in my head and all I can do is lay here, waiting for a room of my own to open up. There's I think 3 of us left here now for the night. Hours have gone by, broken up by others being rolled away. In between losing numbers, the hasty footsteps squeaking and rushing on the floor outside help keep things feeling lively. The shadows briefly block out the light shining in from the door.

On the right, in the bed next to me, is a man with his eyes closed. His breathing is heavy and labored, some sweat is gleaming on his forehead. His hospital gown, like mine, makes small swishing sounds as it moves. Swish, swish. Swiiiish. Swish. Swiiish. Swiiish. Swish. There's no way he's sleeping through this. "Pssst, can you please breathe a little quieter?" I finally snap in a sharp whisper. I'm going to blame the TBI for the rudeness, I'd normally rather plug up my ears with my blanket or pillowcase instead of saying anything.

He gives no response, no eyelids fluttering or jaw clenching. His breathing remains labored. I squint my eyes in the darkness to get a better study of his face. The left side of his cheek is squished up from his hands folded under his head which makes his lips look like he's pouting. We're all stuck here in a shit position, I shouldn't make things worse. I try to roll my eyes up at the ceiling, to signal my head to turn. Big mistake. A Charlie horse like cramp sears down the side of my neck, into my shoulder, down the side of my ribs and back. I inhale quickly, ball up my fists and squeeze my eyes tight.

Breathing out aggressively, I try to relax my jaw and muscle spasms. When my eyes open, the man to my right is glaring at me. The labored breathing has stopped. "We all feel crappy, could you please be more considerate" he says monotonously. I don't know what to say so I just glare back, trying not to tense anything back up. This apparently works as a response. "The man in this body already died, I'm just trying to get some rest so I can heal it" he continues in a flat, almost bored tone. I let out an exhale from my nose and he laughs before continuing with, "you don't need to believe me, I wouldn't tell you if there was any threat to it".

"Can you prove it?" is the best response I can come up with and in return, I get a smile. He pushes the thin blankets off of himself and steps out of the bed. My chest tightens as he walks over to my bed- laying here with a stuck neck, TBI and cracked sternum has me feeling incredibly vulnerable. I tuck my hands into fists and bring them up to my chest, I can defend and kick at least. When the man gets to my bedside he places his hand on my neck and smiles softly before the edges around him start to glow with an almost white-blue light. The light stays human shaped as it distances itself from the man next to me, it pauses to seemingly look at me before walking to the window and disappearing.

The man next to me has had the color completely drained from his face and the monitor he's attached to begins to beep more rapidly as his knees buckle and he starts to sink. The nurses come rushing into the room and the man grips tightly onto the side of my face with surprising strength. "Bring them back" he began to gasp as the nurses pull him back into his bed. As he rolls away he keeps his eyes fixed on me. "Bring them back!" he yells one final time, the desperation in his voice causing a lump in my throat. My neck twists back towards the right. With the man gone, I have a clear view of the window.

The edges glow with that icy blue and I pause to stare at it for a moment, thinking of what to say. As I start to try and piece together what had just happened, the emotions started to bubble up with them. Like - what the actual hell just happened? My usually quiet heartbeat pumps loudly and quickly two times, the blood rushes through and heats up my face. I guess the light can sense this and the small rectangle of night sky grows brighter until the light takes the shape of a person again. I have never felt more human, looking at something like that. Someone like that.

Just like the man before, the light starts to walk over to my bed. "Wait"- I was beginning to wonder if there was a third person in here or if I had really hit my head harder than I thought - "you said he already died. He asked to bring you back", there's more confidence in my voice than I expect. It almost feels like an anger of betrayal, it may not make sense but that's how it feels. The light stops and my anger melts away into an amusement, I'm guessing this is from the light. Words from an unknown voice shoot through my head like a note tied to an arrow.

"That's not what he said. That man was dead already. He lost his children and he was facing his biggest regret. A beginning stage of the next cycle." The words are clear and calm, my body can't help but feel the same. My mind however, is frozen. The light begins to advance again and I push myself up closer to a sitting position, acting like the theory of "making yourself seem bigger to a predator" is applicable right now. Swish. Another arrow. "I will not hurt you". There's a sternness behind this that I don't understand.

The light is now beside me again, and this time it sits down and raises it's hand slightly. "May I please touch your sternum?" and I summon up the brain power to nod my head. There's no sense of malice or tricks here. The glowing hand moves over my chest, palm down with fingers opened wide. I feel a warmth sink in through my skin, into my ribcage. Slowly, one of my ribs begins to stretch like there's some hidden length in the middle. There's a subtle crunching and clicking sound before I suddenly take a deep breath in. The pain in my side never comes, but I still wince in a delayed reaction.

My mind briefly drifts to jokingly wonder, "what was in these pain meds?" before the pressure of the hand lifts and the reminder of the situation sobers my mood. There are so many things I want to ask. "Why did you leave and let him die if I was no threat?" I ask, letting the first coherent question that came to mind out my mouth. The light turns it's head towards the window, it doesn't physically sigh but the sensation of one washes over me and I let one, free of pain, as a show of gratitude and solidarity. Earlier today, I was worrying about how to get by financially while being out of work and before that-

Oh yeah. I was in a car crash.

I half expect the thought to cause the illusion to shatter. To confirm to me I'm just delirious with a head injury. But my doubt doesn't waver or even hiccup, and the light sitting next to me is still there. We are now face to face, despite there being no face for me to see. You can feel when somebody is looking at you.

"Any acknowledgment of my existence is a threat. But it gets boring. And people - it's very unique to be loved and cared for by people. Quite a few of us switch around bodies, to stay on the run and we get to continue the experience" the voice chuckles at the end of this. Like this is a normal and casual conversation. Why can I not freak out right now? I want to freak out, but I've had a period of anxiety induced psychosis before- if this is a hallucination, it's the calmest one I've ever had. I'm still holding out hope for memory loss after I finally fall asleep.

The words from the light keep echoing between my ears. I've never taken much time to consider what made humanity significant, or what really made us special. Sort of chalked it all up to: consciousness. There's some things with energy and space. Time and the ocean are pretty wild. And we're just learning stuff and keep learning stuff.

There are bad people. But that doesn't make humanity worthless, it's hard to think about. Again, there's so much that I want to ask but it still feels safer to stay on the defensive a bit longer. No giving away information. "So you're an intergalactic fugitive who's gonna stay on the run to keep hooking up with a different species?", as soon as it's out it sounds a lot more snobby than sassily self protective and I grimace as gently as I can.

An eye roll doesn't need to be seen, it can definitely be felt.

When you woke up this morning, did you prepare yourself for an emotionally intense encounter with a potential alien after a car wreck? No? Me neither.

I decide to shift gears. They're being nice so...I can be nice. "Thank you for this experience", it's said in a humble tone. "It feels nice to be loved by someone is not an answer to "what humans are here for", this is very unknown territory" I think to myself and the tension in the air relaxes. I feel like people have to give everything up and live in silence or isolation for these kinds of experiences and I understand why now. Unless we've got a genuinely healthy understanding of and good control over our emotions, we just can't handle too much of this stuff at once.

But we can't control our emotions, so we have to remove external stimuli. I am suddenly so venomously jealous of everyone who spent their day at or near the beach today except, but just like all the other negative emotions, it's quickly swept away. Like a tidal wave pushing it out of my system.

I'm also suddenly aware that I have no memory of what was just said, or if there had been a conversation. Goosebumps lightly tickle the backs of my arms and it almost looks like I can see the smile on the light's face. They raise their hand again and their gaze presses against the top of my head. Without thought, I lean forward to dip my head down towards the hand. The pressure again, comes with a warmth that sinks into my skin before going deeper.

The sensation reminds me of first submerging your head fully in warm water. I am safe and I am okay and I am clean and I am warm.

I don't remember moving, the light leaving, falling asleep or the rest of the night after that moment. I can see a hazy memory of the early morning sun colored hues beginning to peek through the window and I remember the doctors coming after breakfast to take me to my room.

This is the first time I got to remember my visit with the light. I'd find out later how many times I had forgotten. I went home 2 days later, they couldn't check my brain yet because the lights and sounds of the machines made me cry. Nothing was broken. I can't remember anything from that time. I didn't fall sleep for 3 weeks.