Harvey dropped his satellite phone and raised his gun to the sky. He got two shots off into the blinding light before something came over him.

His arms were flung back and his shotgun was sent flying from his hands. He couldn’t move an inch of his body as a force pushed down on him from every direction and lifted him up into the air.

“No!” he gave a desperate shout. It echoed through the surrounding forest, but no one was there to hear it. While he was getting abducted, the sheeple were all back in their cities, safe and sound.

The power holding him forced him to look up. He couldn’t see anything other than the blinding white light.

Five voices spoke as one. “You’re making this harder than it has to be.” The voices were different from the Stranger he had shot.

The force holding him was removed from the neck up. That gave him enough control to look ahead. He found two more Strangers floating in the air in front of him. One was floating more towards his right while the one who’d spoken was facing him directly.

“What do you want with me?!” Harvey asked the Strangers. Just like the first, they were living embodiments of black holes. No light escaped their surface.

The Strangers ignored his question. Instead, the one in front of him looked down. “Get up here,” it said.

Harvey looked down and saw the alien that he had thought he had killed, or at least incapacitated, floating up to join its partners. It took up a position floating on by the lead alien’s side to Harvey’s left.

Harvey shook his head. “Don’t kill me.” There was still something he wanted to live for. Even if he wasn’t accomplishing anything meaningful staying out here and just taking care of himself, he still wanted to live.

“We should probe all his cavities,” the revived alien said. “Teach him there are fates worse than a quick death.” A black rod formed above the alien’s hand.

“That shall not be necessary.” The lead Stranger said. “As long as he cooperates.”

“I will,” Harvey said. He’d given up. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I will.”

The aliens didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Harvey asked. He couldn’t handle the silence. The silence was bad. It was death. “Come on. Just tell me.”

“Open the black box,” the lead Stranger said. “Follow the instructions.”

“Okay, I can do it.” He shook his head back and forth as he spoke. Almost like a bobble head. “As long as it doesn’t kill me, give me the box and I’ll open it. I won’t even ask what’s in the box.”

“Keep your word, human,” the third alien finally spoke, “And you shall keep your life.”

Harvey nodded. “I will. I will. I— Ah!” he shouted as the force holding onto him vanished. He fell, rushing to the ground with his arms flailing. Before he felt an impact, he blacked out.

===

“Harvey?” a voice called out to him. “Harvey?”

He opened his eyes. Ranger Laura was knelt down over him covered in a white light. She had a worried look on her face.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said with a sigh. There was plenty of relief in her voice. “Are you okay?”

Harvey looked around, becoming more aware of his current situation. He looked right. The white light covering them was coming from the headlights of Laura’s truck. He looked left. The door to his cabin was still missing from its frame.

He turned back to Laura and grabbed her wrist. “What did you see?”

She placed a tender hand on his. “Nothing, but the mess that’s in front of me right now. What happened?”

“Laura, I—” He tried saying something, but he got choked up. Tears started flowing from his eyes. Illusion or reality, whatever he had just experienced, he had survived. He was alive.

“It’s okay, Harvey,” Laura told him. She helped him sit up, then gave him a hug he didn’t know he needed. “It’s okay.”

===

Late June

Three Days Later

Thursday, August 23rd

Harvey stayed at Laura’s lodge for a couple days after that. When they talked about the incident, Laura revealed that she had rushed to his cabin in her truck and had gotten there in less than fifteen minutes after he’d called her. She didn’t end up seeing anything other than Harvey laid out in his yard with his cabin door broken down.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Harvey didn’t tell her anything about the Strangers. Whether they were real or he had just gone insane, he didn’t think any good would come from telling her about them either way.

Late in the morning three days after the incident, Laura drove Harvey back to his cabin to drop him off. She walked with him from her truck to the front of it once they got there.

“You're sure you're okay being here by yourself like this?” she asked. They were standing on his porch on opposite sides of his doorway.

“Positive,” he lied.

She took a second to eye the broken hinges on the door frame. “I know it’s the summer, but it can still get mighty cold out here when you don’t have a door.”

“I’ve got the tools to fix it,” Harvey told her.

“Handy,” Laura said. She showed him a smile before showing him a frown. “You sure you don’t want to tell me what really happened out here?”

“I already told you what I knew,” Harvey said. He’d told her that he couldn’t remember anything between making his preparations to go to bed that night and her waking him up in the yard. Laura had them come back the next day to check the recordings after he’d said that. The footage of the time period covering the incident had been erased.

“It seemed like you remembered a bit more than that when you woke up in the yard.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I remembered when I woke up. Don’t remember now. That’s for sure.”

“You know I could get a warrant, right? Plenty of probable cause with the mess you had me walk in on that night.”

He furrowed his brow. “Then you go ahead and get that warrant, Ranger. I certainly ain’t a friend of the Feds that I’d be letting you in here without one.”

“Darn it, Harvey.” Laura pinched the rim of her ranger hat. She sighed. “I just don’t want you treating me like a Stranger.”

A chill ran down Harvey’s spine. “What was that?”

She raised her voice. “I said I don’t want you treating me like a stranger.”

“Oh, I, uh— Right.”

She gave him a funny look. “I’ll run a few more patrols around the area and come by to check up on you more often. Don’t be afraid to call, okay?”

Harvey nodded.

“I’ll see you around, Harvey,” she said, turning around and starting towards her car.

“See you, Laura,” he said, almost whispering. He didn’t want to see her go. They hadn’t spent much time apart these last couple of days. She had been kind enough to let him ride out on her patrols with her and when it was time to call it a night, they both slept on couches in her living room.

It had taken him more strength than he thought he had after the visit from the Strangers to leave her lodge. There was a comfort there in the presence of another person. He’d definitely needed after what he had gone through.

And now it was gone. Ranger Laura got in her truck, drove down the path leading out from his cabin’s yard, and left him alone. His satellite phone had returned to being his closest line to comfort. Thankfully, it hadn’t been broken in all the mess that went down.

Being alone again was nerve wracking at first. Returning to the quiet of the forest. All this time he had appreciated it, but now it summoned a creeping fear. He was waiting for the silent killer to come get him.

Harvey took a deep breath. He had to do this. Staying with Laura would just bring her into his problems and put her in danger.

If he fled to where there were other people, he’d just be bringing trouble to them. He couldn’t truly escape the government and the comforts of civilization. He doubted he’d be able to escape the Strangers either. No, He had to do this alone, just like he had already been doing everything else for the past three years.

Now that Laura was gone, he got to work on his door. His door was still laid out on the floor along with his headphones and other things that had been knocked over when the Stranger had pulled a big bad wolf and blown it all down.

There was also the possibility that he had done all of this himself after the government injected him with some experimental hallucinogen. He could be as sure about one option as he was the other.

Putting what he couldn’t know aside, he took out his power drill and some screws, then put the door back in its frame. Fit like a glove once the drilling was done. After that, he picked up the books, the headphones, the weights, and everything else that had been knocked over.

There wasn’t much to pick up. He kept most things organized in storage containers. The real problem was all the dust that had been knocked into the house.

Harvey could stand the mess that was the outdoors, but he couldn’t stand it inside of his own home. He took out a rag and got to dusting the floor.

He was feeling a bit more like himself once he had finished cleaning up. The familiar process and promise of a return to routine distracted him from his feeling of unease. Unfortunately, for him, it came right back when he was startled by a knock at his door.

“Laura?” he asked.

He didn’t get a response.

Harvey checked the cameras. Nobody was at the front door and there hadn’t been anybody at his front door or in his yard in the last five minutes.

He found himself conflicted. He didn’t want to open his door, but the last time he didn’t, it had ended poorly for him.

Leaving his shotgun behind, he went to his front door, prepared to face his doom. When he finally opened it, he found a black box sitting on his porch.

He looked around the porch and his yard. Other than the box, the Strangers hadn’t left any signs that they had been there.

He took the box inside and closed the door behind him. Like the Strangers had told him to, he opened the box after placing it on his desk.

There was a black slip with instructions written in white text sitting at the top. Under the slip there was a black band, a pair of sunglasses, and a user manual. The user manual had a red tape wrapped around it that said, “Follow instructions first.” The letters were all capitalized.

Harvey read the instructions on the black slip.

Step 1: Slide wrist brain onto wrist.

Step 2: Put on display shades.

Step 3: FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS

Harvey assumed the wrist brain was the bracelet he was looking at and that the sunglasses were the display shades. When he put both of them on, a message was displayed to him on his glasses.

Congratulations! You have received Early Access!

“What?”

Welcome to the Gamify’s Early Access Beta Test!