The Dream

The Visitor | Episode 5

Ethan Everest woke at 2:17 a.m.

He didn’t know why. He lay perfectly still for several seconds, staring into the darkness, hoping to fall back asleep.

Except for the rain tapping against the bedroom window, the house was quiet.

He’d been receiving several weird phone calls from self-annointed alien life experts who had been following his blog. Some of them were unsettling, if not downright disturbing. Ethan wondered if that’s what was keeping him from getting a good night’s sleep.

He reached for his phone on the nightstand.

2:17.

He’d only been asleep for a few hours.

The last thing Ethan remembered was sitting at his computer, staring at the conversation he’d just had with Visitor-7A9-Orion.

He had read the final exchange several times.

Tell me about Jesus.

Ethan had.

Then he’d shut down the computer.

He wasn’t sure what frightened him more: that he had been talking to someone that shouldn’t exist or that he was beginning to believe the Visitor might actually understand what he was saying.

Ethan rolled onto his back.

“Okay,” he whispered into the darkness. “That’s enough for one night.”

Then he heard it.

A voice.

Not in the room.

Inside his head.

“Ethan.”

His eyes opened as he sat up.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

He looked toward the bedroom door.

Closed.

The voice came again.

“Ethan Everest.”

His heart began to pound.

“Who is this?”

Silence.

Then—

“You asked a question.”

Ethan froze.

He hadn’t asked a question. Not tonight and certainly not out loud. But he had asked plenty of questions lately.

Questions about God and about Jesus.

He had wondered about why another civilization would care about something that happened on Earth two thousand years ago. And one question he’d been afraid to ask anyone:

What if Visitor-7A9-Orion is right?

The bedroom door slowly opened.

Ethan stared at it.

Beyond the door was the hallway, except it wasn’t his hallway. This hallway stretched impossibly far into darkness. At the very end stood a figure.

Ethan couldn’t see its face.

“Who are you?”

The figure didn’t move.

Then Ethan heard something that made the hair on his arms stand up—his own voice.

“You don’t really believe Him, do you?”

Ethan stepped out of bed.

“Believe who?”

The figure moved closer.

“Jesus.”

Ethan stopped.

The word seemed to hang in the hallway.

Then, somewhere behind him, a light came on.

Ethan turned.

His Bible sat open on the nightstand. He hadn’t left it open. He hadn’t even touched it. A page fluttered in the breeze before it stopped.

Ethan couldn’t see the words from where he stood. But he knew the passage.

He had read it hundreds of times.

“The light shines in the darkness…”

Ethan turned back toward the hallway. The figure was gone as quickly as it had appeared and the hallway disappeared with it.

His bedroom was exactly as it had always been. He was sitting upright in bed and no longer standing. The morning light was creeping through the blinds. Ethan stared at the clock.

6:41.

He rubbed his eyes. It was just a dream. He said it aloud.Then he noticed his laptop; it was open and its screen glowed.

Ethan slowly got out of bed and walked toward the desk.

The conversation with Visitor-7A9-Orion was still on the screen, along with something new.

A message Ethan hadn’t written. At least he didn’t remember writing it. He stared at the three words emanating from the screen.

DREAMS ARE DOORS.

Ethan didn’t breathe. Then, as he stood there, another line appeared.

SOMETIMES SOMEONE IS LISTENING.

Suddenly, the screen went black.

Ethan stood alone in the quiet room.

For the first time since the Visitor had contacted him, he wasn’t sure which side of the conversation was asking the questions.

To be continued…