It gets so hard to keep my eyes open – even though I’m not tired. The lights make them heavy. I’m not afraid to sleep when the lights are on – I’m not afraid to sleep in the daylight, with the house lights.

Every night I hear it in the attic, or on top of the roof – running. I’m so tired of hearing it. So a few times I went out to see it – to make sure. I couldn’t see anything. I could only feel it watching me. It never stops watching me. It tries to lure me, so that it can watch. It won’t come inside though. The lights are always on and it doesn’t like to be seen.

There was a time, once, that I saw it, standing in the light – trying to experience what it couldn’t understand, what it feared most. But it never did again. It finally realized the light was strange, and warm.

It’s not a man, or an animal. But sometimes it copies a shape that peaks its curiosity. It takes a shape of something that might elicit a response.

“A response from what?”

From me. It once took the shape of a man, but there were no features. That was the first time I saw it – when I saw it in the light, looking at the light. I was interested, I wasn’t scared, and now, when it wants to be seen, it often takes that shape.

“Does it take any others?”

Yes. It’s taken many others as experiments.

“Experiments to produce a reaction.”

Yes. It took the form of a dog, after I had played in the yard with a one. It has taken the shape of children. But a few times, it takes a shape I can’t recognize. An unfamiliar shape, and those are the times –

“The times it’s not involved with you.”

I don’t think it’s a harmful thing.

“Then why does it scare you?”

Because it’s a sad thing, and I still don’t know what it is. I fear the unknown to me.

“And that’s what we all have a natural predisposition to fear. It’s what the world fears – it’s what the few of us gathered here are learning to coexist with. Society will not recognize our fractured truths, our gifts. We have all experienced something we may not be allowed to understand –“

A well dressed but tatter-haired lawyer interrupts her, “You aren’t trying to refer to a higher power are you? A God?”

“I wasn’t referring to anyone you don’t believe in – I was simply allowing you to come to your own conclusions. Why is it, we can’t understand the reason things are happening to us – even though they happen all the time? There’s plenty of room for us to evaluate our experiences, but for some reason, we are unable to come to any logical idea.”

“Per…perhaps because there isn’t any logic?” A sheepish finger lingers in midair finally forced calmly down by the man who holds it. He stares at the woman in unusual anticipation for an answer that is spoken almost instantly.

“Yes, Carl, you hit it on the nail.”

He smiles with a shaky exhale, “I thought so.”

A woman to his side smiles in pity.

“What Carl suggested is the only thing we can believe in.”

The fourteen year old Grete shows little emotion, “I believe in God.”

The lawyer – Grant – peers at her, “Why? Why could you believe that the God in the Bible, would let this happen to us. Let us be taken away repeatedly to places we don’t know – in utter confusion, and be experimented on?! No, God can’t exist, because these things are what rules over us! These things are horrible and they destroy lives! I lost my whole life! My wife, my daughters, my respect! I only believe in cruelty. There’s nothing natural but cruelty, and I’m like all of you – a nobody! A small week creature who couldn’t learn to be cruel fast enough, so I’m prayed upon – like all of you – by those who have overachieved the goal!”

“We’re not ‘nobodies.’ There’s just a darkness on us. And everyone has kindness,” the woman beside Carl replies.

Carl chuckles, “Don’t speak so kindly to him Nancy. He’s a lawyer, if there’s anyone that’s cruel, it’s him. It’s him, it’s him.”

“Shut up you bald freak!” Grant lowers his eyes from Carl’s shudder. “If I’m cruel, it’s still a far cry from the world’s cruelty. And then all that means is that I rule over the weakest – and I’m just the weak.”

“You rule over none lawyer! I think talk about God just get us nowhere.” An Indian man holds his wife’s hand and looks tiredly at the therapist. “I think we should not talk of Him anymore.”

“I will not make any decisions immediately affecting the discussions of the group,” Claire points out, “You will have to vote unanimously.” She turns to Grant expectantly.

Grant stares at the floor in thought as Carl diverts the concentration, “Nothing will change his opinion, we should stop talking about religion. It won’t do us any good, not at all.” He crosses his arms unequivocally.

Grant mumbles, “I won’t be convinced.”

Claire turns to Nancy, “What do you feel about the subject?”

Nancy shrugs, “I have no preference to it.”

Claire catches Gretchen’s eyes, carefully searching them. “How about you Grete? Does it make you feel excluded if we drop this topic?”

Grete placidly replies, “No. I don’t mind dropping it, right here.”

“Yes, right here. Drop it.” Carl strokes his bald head.

“Alright,” Claire concludes, “That discussion is over.” She notices the couple sigh, “But I want this group to realize, that everything that is said – even if it just seems like empty threats, or shallow insults – everything said is important. It will help us all understand what we need to understand about each other. You have all come together to support and relate to each other – and to gain support for yourselves as well. No matter how complicated it gets between us, the only benefit is to stay together and ride out the troubled times.” Claire sighs and stares at the coffee table in sorrow. “We all know these horrible experiences are not over. They will continue and remain something we cannot change, but we do have control over getting help; and getting help from true believers. I am not only a therapist. I am a therapist who has many times been abducted. And all these people who surround you, also have recurring phenomenon in their lives. It has only been an equivalent of two and a half weeks that you all have sat in this living room and shared your stories – it will take several more to get used to each other and remain supporters. You will find this community to be your sanctuary from the non-believers. And each time you have an encounter – remember the rest of us – knowing your fear, and desperately waiting your return.”