“Chris! Chris, where are you? Chris!” The shouting woke me from my dreams, blue eyes in the mist. The image sticks with me as my eyes open to the bright violet sky. The fresh breeze, full and heavy with the scent of apples. Yawning, I stretch out the kinks of sleep. “Chris! Where are you?” Something was happening. It took a moment for me to remember everything. The vision, the lights, the plants. The world ending last night. It looked okay now though. Why where people looking for me?

‘Oh right.’ Remembering the night before, running away, getting zapped by _something_, then…the blue eyed man. Getting my bearings, I take a look around. Laying down in the middle of a mountain trail, the large gravel stones digging into my back. The sky stretching out above me and the green hills surrounding me. ‘What am I doing here?’ I had to ask myself. “Chris!” The calling was louder now. My grandmothers voice, hoarse and strained echoing through the trees.

“I’m over here!” Finding my feet, I try to brush the cobwebs from my mind. ‘Was the man real, or a dream?’ Checking myself over, I couldn’t find any injuries. A strange musky scent still clung to my skin.

“Where the hell have you been all night!” She fusses over me, the stern tone in her voice creeping back now that the worry was over.

“I don’t know. I was on the phone with you and I think I got hit by lightning. But that can’t be right.” I pat myself to make sure that I was uninjured.

Raised eyebrows and disbelieving expressions met my gaze. “Never mind, we should get back to the Manor.” Grandmother gathered my arm in hers, lest she loose me again.

I was feeling so much better today, ‘should have been struck by lightning years ago.’ I felt energised and alert. A bird fluttered onto the path ahead, a strange creature, almost transparent in the sunlight. The animal flapped its wings, giving a shrill whistle as it pecked at the gravel. “Wow, what is that?” I stop in my tracks to look at the animal. It almost looked like it was made of glass, or crystal.

“That’s nothing, you have to see the news.” Helen stops at my side. “A lot happened last night.” She smiles at my questioning gaze, stubbornly refusing to elaborate.

The world, that had looked so normal upon my awakening, became twisted. Everywhere I look there was something _other_. A giant tree, of a genus I could not decipher, stood towering into the sky. It’s branches ancient and gnarled. Strange, almost alien, sounds permeate the air, the calls of foreign animals. Colours appeared brighter; some even shifting in the light of the morning sun. The world as I knew it was gone, but I couldn’t help but feel that this world held promise. Linking my arm with my grandmother and aunt, I made my way back down the mountain, with a new spring in my step.

“It was awesome! The sky was like cracked, and the lightning was like _krish_. It was so scary, and granny said to stay away from the windows, but I looked out and wow!” My cousin Tommy delighted in regaling me with the tale. Animatedly acting out the storm.

“Sounds super scary, I’m sorry I slept right through it all.” Smiling down at him, I tussled his hair.

“You slept through it!”

“Must have, I missed the whole thing!” The look of disbelief on his four year old face made me laugh.

“You’re crazy Chris.” Tommy left me to go and play with the others by the unlit fireplace.

I turn on the tv: every channel dedicated to the breaking news. Reporters played clips of the storm, the sky splitting open, until it popped like a bubble. The journalists screaming over the noise, “the solar flair is ripping our atmosphere away, leaving us vulnerable to the background radiation of space, this may well be the last broadcast of my career. Stay at home, away from windows. Stay safe.” They were all reading from variations of the same script.

All fell silent when the people appeared from the epicentre of the raging storm. The people looked human, were it not for the light emanating from their hands. Waves of light crashing through the storm in a shockwave that ploughed through the reporters, sending them to their knees.

I watch with rapt attention, the scene playing out on the box. It was my dream acted out in real time. By the time that the storm passed, the world had changed forever. The television cut to anchors inside studios, their made up faces terrified and confused. “There seems to be people coming out of the _rifts_, is this some sort of military action?” They reached for any explanation to sooth their audience and themselves. “We are getting word that the army is coordinating an offensive. These beings are to be considered unfriendly for the time being. Stay inside and do not open your doors. Keep them locked.” A pretty blond announcer spoke clearly, despite the tremor in her voice.

Switching off the news I patted my pocket for my phone, only to find that it was smashed, the screen must have broken when I had fallen the night before. It wouldn’t turn on. “Gran? Can I borrow your computer?” I called out, even as I got up and rounded her desk.

“Sure thing love.” Gran was in the kitchen, probably making breakfast, or lunch? I really didn’t have a good handle on the time. A quick glance at the clock told me that it was eleven am. Switching on the computer, I wait impatiently for the desktop to whir to life.

I scroll through my social media feeds, the news of the _aliens, wizards, superheroes_, was posted on every timeline. Speculation running rampant, conspiracy theorists spouting off about _shadow governments _and _lizard people_. There seemed to be nothing concrete on what these people where, or what they wanted from us.

“So, what happened to you last night?” Uncle David leaned on the door frame of the office. His arms folded.

“I’m not sure. I think I might have fallen or something…I just can’t remember.”

Rolling his eyes, he replied, “you had everyone worried, and all you can say is ‘I don’t know.’ I thought you were an adult?” He crossed the threshold while he spoke, leaning on the desk to crowd me.

Something was missing. The anxiety that I had lived with all my life, was finally quiet. I didn’t feel anxious at all as David stared me down. “David. I am an adult, and as such I have no obligation to tell you my whereabouts. Now, please. If you have nothing constructive to say, leave.” Surprising myself with the bluntness of my words, I was on the verge of apologising before David turned on his heels with a huff and walks out of the room.

‘Where the bloody hell did that come from?’ I had to ask myself. Clearly without the anxiety to hold me back, I was somewhat of a bitch! Returning to the newsfeeds, I flick through the videos taken the night before and earlier in the day. The changes in the world were a pandemic, videos from Australia to Scotland, China to America. They were all showing mysterious plants and animals. Snakes with wings, slithering on the roadways. Enormous rays and whales with bioluminescence, big cats with scales prowling the countryside. The entire planet had become _the island of Dr Monroe_. Perhaps the mysterious beings from the sky, were all mad scientists, let loose on this planet.

I was about to click off from my media feed, when a pair of eyes stopped me. A brilliant blue flash, pierced me through the screen. ‘The eyes from my dream!’ That was him, the man that had been giving me the erotic massage last night. My gut twisted as I watch him exit the ‘rift’ his blue eyes, wide mouth and long dark hair. “Who are you?” I question aloud, the twisting in my gut shooting lower as his eyes jump out of the screen, and I remember the feel of his hands on my vulnerable body only the night before.