A Failed Experiment

Flash Fiction February (Day 9)

Image: Kamran Abdullayev via Unsplash+

Harold Richardson had been having the same nightmare for a week straight. Every night, a new episode. Like a season of a television show where he couldn’t change the channel.

He had tried everything: no phone before bed, melatonin gummies, herbal tea, even some old sleeping pills his doctor had prescribed him. They were expired, sure, but he was at his wit’s end.

He went to sleep on that eighth night with a sliver of optimism left in his mind. Maybe tonight would be different.

It wasn't.

Harold was once again aboard a strange ship. The walls were silver and smooth, like metal, but they expanded and contracted like they were breathing. He was often a spectator, simply watching through the eyes of someone, or something that he couldn’t identify.

Over the last week, he had been privy to conversations in a language that he didn’t recognize. Strange syllables, odd consonants, and guttural clicks that didn’t sound like any noise a human being could make.

As the nights went on, the language slowly started to make sense. It was as if hearing it, night after night, somehow acclimated his mind to it. He started to get fragments. Whispers.

The experiment…

Failed…

Salvage them?

Too far gone…

The words he heard that eighth night would haunt him for the rest of his days, because when Harold woke up, the world had ended.

He and his family lived up in the mountains. About an hour from any major city, with a view to match. That morning, he went outside for a morning coffee on his deck overlooking the city below, and all he saw was rubble punctuated by a mushroom cloud.

Harold dropped his mug. It shattered on the stained wood beneath his feet, spreading expensive coffee across the surface. He ran back inside, heading for the phone as his wife and their two kids all emerged from sleep rubbing their eyes.

“What happened, is something wrong?” Harold’s wife asked.

He tucked the phone between his shoulder and chin, gesturing toward the view on the horizon. Harold’s wife gasped when she saw it.

“Kids, come back to bed,” she said, ushering them back toward their bedroom.

Harold’s hands were shaking as he pulled out a notepad and pen. The line kept ringing.

It rang…

And rang…

And rang…

Then, Harold heard a knock at the door. It was simple and polite. The last thing he expected to hear, given the circumstances. He looked down at the black bath robe tied with a sash around his waist and headed towards the door.

He leaned forward to look into the peephole as the door surrounding it shattered.

Harold was thrown backward, down the hall and into his own kitchen. A sharp pain echoed through his head as he climbed onto his feet.

He saw three silhouettes step through the remnants of his front door. They looked human, with a head, shoulders, two arms, and two legs, but that’s where the similarities ended. Their bodies were silver from head-to-toe.

Their faces were featureless. They moved like mercury sliding through a thermometer.

Harold watched as two of them headed down the hall toward his wife and children.

He grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and charged at the third. He wasn’t thinking, he simply acted on his most basic instincts.

He raised the knife above his head just as the silver figure’s arm shot out like a bullet.

It curled around his wrist. His entire arm went numb the second it made contact. His fingers involuntarily relaxed, dropping the knife to the ground with a loud clang.

Harold heard his wife and children screaming for help as the thing in front of him laid its hand over his eyes.

---

An unknown amount of time passed in the blink of an eye. Harold was no longer in his home. Instead, he was standing in a room. A small room, with trees and a lush forest surrounding him in every direction.

It was clear that the forest wasn’t real. It was a projection on the walls that surrounded him.

He looked down and saw his family on the ground. They weren’t moving. He collapsed onto his knees and checked for a pulse.

He found one, to his complete and utter relief. His next order of business was discovering where he was.

He stood up and walked over to one of the walls. The projection was impressive, like a stereoscopic 3D image. It had depth, color, all the things you would need to believe it was real, but his mind somehow knew it was fake.

Even so, it was a comforting sight. A familiar one.

A door hidden in the wall to Harold’s left slid open. He turned as one of the silver figures before approached. Harold positioned himself between the figure and his family, his fists balled up and at the ready.

“Don’t come any closer!” he shouted.

The figure paused. Strange syllables and foreign pronunciations assaulted Harold’s ears. They were strange, yet familiar. That’s when Harold realized…

It was the language from his dreams.

Apologies…

Scared, we know…

Necessary for safety…

Harold nodded, his head still spinning from the sound of the language.

“Yes, I understand. Why, though? What happened?” he asked.

The language resumed, echoing through his skull, like it was somehow circumventing his ears.

Observation complete…

Results…

Unsatisfactory…

Harold’s mind was starting to put the pieces together.

“Why save us, then? What’s so special about us?” he asked.

Cut down the tree…

Spare the seeds…

Failed once…

The figure turned to leave. Harold chased after it, but the door shut before he could make it through. He pounded his fists against the projection of the forest.

“Get back here, you owe me an explanation! Who are you? What is this?” he cried.

He stopped as two more words of the strange language echoed in his mind.

Try Again…

---

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