A/N: had a random idea about a MiB story and this is what came of it. First MiB kind of story so feedback is very welcome.
Warnings: Talk of mental health in a derogatory manner. Paranoia. Drugging.
Listen to the narration by Campfire Tales here: https://youtu.be/Av1ahy6XzGw
I saw a UFO; an actual unidentified flying object. I only call it that because there were no reports of flyovers or weather balloons and where I live isn't heavy on military traffic and definitely isn't a flight path for commercial aircraft.
It was around three in the morning and I was on a late night walk; it's when I do most of my thinking and de-stressing. I live with four other people so the house can get noisy and claustrophobic - we all need our space.
I had gotten to a local field that I regularly go too to just chill. There were no street lights to pollute the sky and I had a great view of the stars and moon. Tonight there was no moon or stars to be seen due to heavy cloud cover; it was still a beautiful night.
Sitting on a large felled tree stump at the edge of the field I pulled out my smokes and swore as I realised I'd forgotten my lighter and didn't carry matches. My breath let out in a haze ahead of me as I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes. It was as I had rolled my eyes that I briefly caught sight of something in the sky over the broken down church to my right.
You know that feeling when you know something isn't quite right but you can't pinpoint what? You get that really-uneasy-pit-of-the-stomach-nausea because you can tell that there's something... but your brain just can't make the connection...? I had that.
I had that as I did a double take and let my eyes focus on the series of lights that were seemingly floating silently over the church ruins. I said quietly but definitely out loud that Jesus must actually be an alien. And then I sighed again because there was only me to hear it. Even when alone I was reminded of how socially awkward I am.
My mind raced trying to place the lights; Chinese lanterns? Flares? Drones? LEDs attached to helium balloons and someone was playing a joke on me? I thought any one of these could be true until they started moving closer to me and I was literally filling in the blank.... the large blank that filled the space between the lights. Even though there were no stars to be seen, I could still make out clouds - the sky wasn't pure black, there were breaks in its texture. Except the area between the lights was black. In fact, somehow it was darker than black.
As I was looking, I stand and take a few steps towards it but the lights suddenly disappear. They don't dim and turn off like a normal light; they're just no longer there and almost as I blink the dark area, the void where the lights had surrounded disappears and I can see the breaks in the dark sky again. I can see light peeking through the thinning clouds and I very slowly come to my senses. My watch, I find, has stopped working - being digital it's just... off. No more battery. Pulling my phone out my pocket I'm confused to discover the fully charged battery is also very dead now.
My walk home is quick as a strange anxiety and dread fills every part of me spurring me to just get home.
The hall clock tells me it's 6.07am. The last time I had looked at my watch was just after 3.21am as I sat on the felled tree. One of my housemates walks out of their bedroom and frowns at me then looks at the time but says nothing, heading to the kitchen to start their day. I make it to my bedroom before my legs become jelly and the reality of what I had just witnessed hits me with full force. I crawl to my bed and manage to plug in my phone before I pass out on the floor.
~*~*~*~
Work was quiet, my social life was quieter but I tried to get on with life. I told nobody about what I had seen; mainly because I didn't think anyone would believe me in any capacity but also because it didn't take me long to realise I was being followed.
I thought I was being paranoid at first or was dealing with deja vu but it's hard to maintain either thought process when it becomes abundantly clear that neither is the case.
It started on my drive to work two days after the lights above the church. A matte black SUV with dark windows and strange plates followed me on my daily routine. When I wasn't driving, a tall man in a black suit and sunglasses was always in my peripheral vision. He carried a briefcase and was often reading a book or a newspaper - or looked to be reading at any rate; I couldn't see his eyes behind those glasses. I continued with my days and didn't let on that I knew he was there but I took notes on plate numbers, dates and times. Within a fortnight I had a full notebook. Within that same fortnight I noticed my health beginning to deteriorate; I wasn't exactly the healthiest to begin with but now it was painfully obvious not only to myself but to my housemates and few friends. I played it off as work stress and eczema but I could tell by the looks on their faces they didn't believe it. I think I was trying to convince myself more than anyone.
I finally broke down and talked to the housemate I trusted most only to get told I was paranoid, crazy and needed to see a doctor about my "eczema"; they even used their fingers to make air quotes. I remember just walking away and shaking my head; resigned to dealing with this alone.
The other housemates started to act weirdly around me after that so I kept to myself, stopped going on late night walks of any sort and eventually stopped leaving the house when the matte black SUV appeared on my street and didn't move.
I called in sick to work after the weekend and played my best flu-voice but my boss told me instead that I was fired. When I asked him why he told me he was not at liberty to give full details however it was linked to my out-of-work hobbies and interests and that off the record it was a "bad look for such a high profile company to have a 'kook' on the payroll." I was wished luck and told to expect my final paycheck within the next two days.
I confronted all my housemates; I didn't give full details to them but I asked politely then demanded to know who had talked to my boss. They all denied talking to him or anyone to do with my workplace before suggesting I should see a doctor and get some sleep.
I couldn't sleep. It's not that I didn't want to and hadn't tried; it didn't matter how tired I was I had only managed a couple of hours maximum per night since the lights. No shower or bath made me feel clean, no amount of music or tv could drown out the constant white noise in my head and no amount of supplements was helping my greying skin. I had long since stopped using any kind of creams on the growing red marks.
I fell onto my bed and stared at the ceiling until my eyes became dry and itchy. I rubbed them and reached up to turn off my bedside light; my hand hovered and stopped when I noticed something that shouldn't have been there. Sitting up and removing the shade I see a small round pea-sized thing with a couple of wires poking out. I don't know how I hadn't noticed it before. I smashed it under a glass and spent the next three hours going through my room looking for anything else. I found nothing else but that one bug; a listening device maybe, was enough to put me on edge.
I heard a heavy knocking on my door and an angry housemate "it's like two in the morning stop the noise!!" She called.
"S-sorry!! I uuh.... saw mouse!"
I hear her squeal and pad off talking to herself about getting mouse traps and an exterminator first thing in the morning; meanwhile I go back to my thoughts.
I peaked out my curtains and saw the SUV still parked outside the house; it had been there for at least three days at this point.
Had those men in suits been in this house? In my room? If they hadn't, who put it there? Were my housemates spying on me? Had they been tricked into putting it there? Or had it been attached to the light the whole time and I really was just paranoid?!
I rub my face and catch sight of myself in a small mirror, seeing properly for the first time how bad I was looking.
Tired; no, more than tired, more than exhausted. I looked ill and not just flu-ill. The dark circles under my eyes were threatening to take over my face, my lips had become dry, my skin was pallid, my eyes dull, my hair was thinning and the patchy rash that only days ago was pale and an annoyance was now angry looking, threatening to break my skin.
Opening my door I start slightly as I'm greeted by my trusted housemate.
"You need to see someone..."
I relent and nod "I do. I don't feel so great."
~*~*~*~
The drive to the hospital was silent and we were tailed. At a distance but I could still see the SUV; I pointed it out but he didn't listen and just rolled his eyes so I gave up and closed my eyes instead and leant my head against the window.
I was prepared to be sat waiting for hours in triage; I wasn't exactly urgent but instead I was rushed through and admitted. My housemate was ushered away by a nurse who started talking in hushed tones to him; I followed him with my eyes, turning my head and catching sight of a tall man in a dark suit and sunglasses making his way to intercept them.
I started yelling. I remember shouting and screaming at them to stop the man, that he was following me and I had proof. I remember the sting of a needle in my skin before everything got hazy and then I finally fell asleep for longer than two hours.
I woke to the beeping of a machine, my eyes felt gritty and I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to move but found I was unable; attached to the bed by my neck, wrists and ankles. The straps were soft against my skin but felt like they were rubbing away at me at the same time.
A nurse came into my view, leaning over me with a tight smile "glad to see you awake." I try to reply but only croak instead.
"Don't try and speak, you'll just do more damage."
I frown and look to the door when a doctor walks in followed by a tall man in a dark suit and sunglasses. I try to let out a cry of panic but again, fail. My throat feels raw and dry, I have a strange metallic taste in my mouth. The doctor and nurse don't react to the man in the suit who keeps his view on me as he moves to the corner of my room.
"......I suggest you don't try and speak, we still need to do more tests...." my hearing fades in and out as I half listen to the doctor. "...for your own safety as we think the radiation has affected you mentally..." as he continues and the nurse takes readings and writes more notes it dawns on me that they can't see the man.
They can't see the man in the suit and sunglasses.
"..I really would like to know how you got so irradiated. Where were you when it happened and such..? I think the government would be interested to know too..."
I look at the doctor and he places a pad and ballpoint pen at my hand. I write as best I can.
"Man. Suit. Sunglasses."
The doctor reads and nods "yes, your friend told us you had been seeing a tall man? I dare say I would be hallucinating too with that amount of radiation in my system... how you're not dead is really beyond us."
"Radiation?" I scribble.
"Indeed and we can't figure out the type or cause. It's almost like the radiation used in therapies for cancer but not exact... where have you been?"
"Field. Work. Home."
"What field?" The nurse frowns.
The man in the suit makes no moves but keeps staring at me. I get this feeling, a sense, that he wants me to tell them. So I write down the approximate location and directions from my house. The paper is swiftly removed and the pen taken from me, the doctor and nurse hurry out and the man in a suit takes a step towards me.
I hear the machine beside me beeping quicker as the man moves towards me but with a single look from him it falls silent and I'm left unable to look anywhere but at his face. For the first time I realise his skin is so very pale; not quite white like a paint, it has a dewey look to it like when my housemate used a highlight under their foundation only this was all over. His lips look slightly waxy and as I continue to stare I notice that they don't open; not that he doesn't open his mouth but that he can't because there's no opening - the lips are cosmetic only to look real but not function. His nostrils are much the same; where there should be openings there isn't, it's as if his face had been moulded out of clay and painted with shadow to look as if there were openings where they should be.
I knew I was hyperventilating, I knew my blood pressure and heart rate were through the roof into the stratosphere and that the machine should have been going crazy notifying the main desk but still, nobody came. Nobody saw me terrified and panicking as the tall man leaned over my bed and slowly removed the pitch black sunglasses from his face revealing his equally pitch black eyes; two holes filled with void blackness and in that moment I was positive that I had not been meant to see what I saw.
I knew, in that split microsecond, how my life would end and as I was mesmerised so completely by these two ink filled pits on a not-right face I knew that humanity was doomed.