THE FOURTH KIND

Late last evening, shadows appeared, fiendish apparitions meandering under a starlit window.



Tiny shadows, ink black and swirling.

Alert and restless, I lay prostrate; sheets tossed aside, following feverish and shivering night terrors.



Then the first contact came, a touch, cold and alien, firm and insistent, plunging into my solar plexus.



Eyes appeared, as black as hell, and as large as eggs, hovering along the edges of my vision.



Unwelcome spectators bore silent witness to my abduction, as I rose to my feet, lost in some sort of mesmeric trance.



Silence and unconsciousness followed, only to return me to awareness, where I found myself bound to a cold, metallic, and sterile table.



Lights abounded, not bright or glaring, but multiple and varying, as though seeking to counter the dimness of light with the quantity of it.



I tried to speak but managed only a hushed whimper.



Three-fingered hands poked and pointed, gesturing over my bare body, pinching and jabbing me with maddening carelessness, all over my chest and abdomen, and groping me like a breeder marketing his wares.



Throaty sounds burst from the motionless, mask-like head hovering above me. From the blithering, alien gibberish, I gleaned that what came next would be excruciating.



Then it hit.



A startling and maddening agony filled my entire existence.



I screamed with all my…