Keifern couldn’t move his limbs, head, or even his facial muscles. A crippling pressure enveloped every part of his body, clamping him in place. Panicking, his breath quickened in the dark.

Then a cold wave of calmness seeped in from the top of his head and trickled through his entire body. He was still unable to move, but his fear ebbed. Suddenly, it felt perfectly natural to relinquish control of his movements.

A door materialised within his view, light seeping through the gaps around it. Then, the door opened, and a silhouette emerged from the bright glow. Amorphous, vague, unthreatening. He locked his eyes on the figure.

The immobility is temporary. I won’t hurt you. The voice sounded in his head, startlingly clear. The tone evoked the serenity of a still lake at dawn.

He concentrated on the shadowy figure. It seemed to warp in his gaze, then took on a clearer form. The form was of an androgynous person whose features seemed familiar, yet unknown.

I’ve a message. The figure spoke. The voice seemed to come from his own mind, from deep within.

Something clicked in Keifern’s mind, and his skin tingled with electric awe. This is it. This is a vision. From the Ether.

It was happening to him. To him, Keifern, of all people. The visions of legend. The visions he had heard of always included the Ether’s explicit comment - I’ve a message.

Keifern blinked hard, and willed his eyes to focus on the features of the Ether. What did the Ether really look like? Was it really a humanoid being?

This isn’t my true form, the voice rang in his mind, as if the Ether had read his mind. It’s an aggregate of all humans in your world. My true form is hard to comprehend. Impossible for you to perceive, it continued, pre-empting his question. Keifern was unsettled by how the words materialised in his mind.

The Ether continued. I’ve a message. They shouldn’t fight it. The malfunctions are needed.

It took Keifern a few moments to understand what it was referring to. The malfunctions, the notorious blow to the Happiness Recode System. A sense of certainty wafted into his mind, confirming his guess.

The young are not protected, the Ether went on.

The malfunctions are needed? The young are not protected? What do you mean? Keifern attempted to direct his thoughts at the figure. He wasn’t sure if the telepathy went both ways. The figure’s lips pulled back into a thin smile, and it retreated back into the glow.

Keifern woke up in a cold sweat, his mind humming. He signalled for his communication device, which swung out to rest at eye level. With trembling hands, he scrolled to the Emergency Services icon and tapped it. The options rolled out before him. Impatient, he said aloud, “Make a vision report”, and the service was immediately activated.

The whole thing felt surreal. He had used the Emergency Services tab only twice in his life, and on both times, it was to Engage Immediate Support for Safety Risks. He had never thought he would ever use the Make a Vision Report option, which had been added nearly a decade ago.

His device’s camera came online. Looking straight into the viewfinder, Keifern made his report of the vision he had. It could just be a vivid dream, perhaps, but the experience had been too vivid, too intense. He knew in his heart that he had had a vision.

Over the next few days, Keifern became somewhat of a celebrity. Researchers reached out almost immediately after his logging of the vision, and examined his neural and digital activities. Within the day, they verified that his reported vision was authentic, and the news spread like wildfire. Journalists and onlookers showed up around his house, trying to catch glimpses of the newest vision recipient. Wherever he went, while he was not mobbed, thanks to the security team assigned to him, he was pointed at, whispered about, and openly gawked at. He was one of the chosen ones. He had received a message from that higher being. From the Ether. He was special.

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The head of the HRS Research team had reached out soon after. He had spoken to her, shared about his vision, and spared no detail. He knew how important the visions were. They had messages the people needed to know.

Lenn had given him her full attention, keeping careful, meticulous records of every word. The last vision had occurred around 5 months ago. The Ether had first made itself directly accessible, to be seen and heard by them, more than a decade ago. In the first vision, the Ether had identified itself, then informed the recipient of a few impending events. A blackout in Helios, a busy business district, an impending heart attack of a well-known politician, and a tsunami off the coast of Palae. When the first recipient reported his vision to the authorities and anyone who would listen, most assumed a mental affliction, or a bid for attention. Despite the ridicule, the recipient persisted in spreading the message received. He was certain, somehow, that the message was true, and that people needed to know.

Then, one by one, the wild claims described came true. The politician’s life was even saved as a result. Despite her understandable doubt when she heard about the vision, she had arranged for emergency services to be close at hand, just in case. She definitely did not regret her caution.

At first, the prevailing theory was that the recipient had planned and engineered the events that happened in the so-called vision. But after months of thorough investigation, authorities had to conclude that there had been no possible way the person could have orchestrated the events he described. There was no sign of related preparations, actions or financial activities. On the other hand, evidence supporting the recipient’s innocence stacked up. Officials even examined the recorded neural data of the vision recipient, and revealed significant abnormality in the recipient’s neural activity on the time and date of the reported vision. The abnormality, according to the researchers, was in line with what could happen to a person’s brain, if one’s consciousness was heightened, expanded, and placed in contact with an external consciousness.

The masses were intrigued, if still somewhat cynical. After all, if proven true, the existence of the vision would have major philosophical and theological repercussions.

As the years passed, the first vision was forgotten. It seemed a one-off incident, and given the lack of an alternative explanation, the authorities were eager to move past the incident.

Then, someone else had another vision. This was a little over three years after the first.

In the second vision, it was predicted that the Floral Globe would be destroyed. The woman who reported the vision was promptly arrested, and held in maximum security. All of her possible accomplices were similarly held for the time being. It seemed an overreaction to many, but the officials were not taking any chances.

Still, the Floral Globe was not spared. It turned out to be a freak occurrence, something the woman could not have engineered. A piece of space debris shot through the atmosphere and landed right smack in the middle of the Floral Globe. The sensor and response system that surrounded the planet, which had kept many a stray meteorite or space waste from coming close to the surface, had somehow missed it. The iconic Floral Globe of the city was hence magnificently demolished.

Lenn remembered the mix of anguish and awe she had felt as she walked through the devastation after it happened. They had cordoned off the area at first, but in just a few days, after removing the hazardous bits, they had reopened it to the public. At the re-opening, instead of viewing the exquisite intricacies of plants and flowers from all around the world, the public witnessed their awful demise. Lenn had looked out at the symphony of broken glass, metal pieces, burnt ashes, shredded and torn plant matter with a horrified fascination. This was tampered with a sharp sting of contempt for the theatricality of it all.

In an incredibly short time, the carnage had been repackaged as a brand new attraction. There were information boards that appeared when you paused at certain spots, dictating the sequence of events that led to the tragedy, the warning the Ether had given. The information boards also described what each spot of wreckage had showcased in the past, complete with images and video recordings of the impact.

They had turned the tragedy into profit. She understood, logically, that the profits would help with the rebuilding of the Floral Globe, that they were just making the best out of a bad situation. But that didn’t disperse the sour twang of distaste she felt.

Subsequently, there had been three other instances of visions reported by other individuals. Every vision was validated through the means of neural scans, and thorough investigation.

Keifern was the newest recipient, the sixth one. That they knew of, anyway. It seemed that the occurrences of visions were getting closer and closer in time. A little more than three years passed between the first and second reported cases, and two and a half years from the second and third. Keifern’s vision had occurred a short four to five months after the fifth vision.

Keifern settled down in the firm, high-backed chair, and closed his eyes. It was his fifth round of neural scanning, and he wasn’t sure what new questions and activities the researchers could possibly think of. It seemed an exercise in futility. But he obliged anyway.