He’s not even in the courtroom yet and Kendall Atwater can feel the eyes of the snarky lawyers on him. He can’t help what his subconscious gets up to! Why should he be punished for his bizarre- and prophetic- dreams?

The first one came when he was only 14 years old. The most recent one was two nights ago. He knew the moment he woke up, sheets soaked, that he only had an hour until the VAPS showed up.

The Vision to Action Prevention Squad was ruthless. Even minor infractions like Dream Stalking, Imaginary Theft, and Sleep Arson, are grounds for a lawful arrest. Some scientist (before Kendall was even born) had found a link between dreams and crimes. If you envision something, it sticks in your mind, and will come to fruition.

He’d barely made it out of the shower when the VAPS, lead by Officer Cloke, knocked on his door. “Mr Atwater, you’re under arrest for-“, she began.

“Yeah, yeah. I know the drill,” Kendall waved them away and slipped on a plaid shirt. He went over the story in his head, memorising details. The VAPS love details.

He’d been in a field. Sunbeams sliced through the air, causing the bugs to sparkle. A breeze turned the field into an ocean of green and the waves washed over him. He was filled with a sense of peace. This was how they always started.

He opened his dream-eyes and the scene changed to an alley outside a bar. He was drunk in his dream. Through the stumbling, blurred vision, and smell of beer, he got the hazy picture. There was someone else- a teenage boy, by the looks of it- lying unconscious on the ground. At first, Kendall had thought he was there to save the boy, but he was wrong. He dragged the body into the bar and dropped it onto a table. There were at least five other presences around said table. They started eating the boy, tearing him apart.

“Another cannibalism?” asked Ramona behind the front desk.

“Yeah, downtown. Outside Darnell’s,” said Kendall, “I think they’d have a whole cabinet full of my files, if they still used paper.”

Ever since the Others invaded when Kendall was 14, certain people have had a connection to them. People like Kendall.

In their dreams, they’re able to step into the alien bodies. See what they see. Feel what they feel. It means they get arrested a lot by the VAPS for committing heinous crimes (cannibalism, rape, etc) but also means so much more. The Connected Ones can root out the shape-shifting aliens from whatever society they’ve snuck into.

Unfortunately, the Others also have access to lawyers. And this is gonna be one hell of a case.