It was early and you were home doing what you always do first thing in the morning when reality disappeared. One moment you were in your house, the next you were in space, looking down at a huge blue ball sprinkled with white swirls, clogging your entire field of vision. You hadn’t even blinked.

“What the fuck is going on?” was the first vaguely intelligible thing to come out your mouth after you gargled incoherently for a bit. 

“Hello” came the voice inside your head. 

“What. The fuck. Is. Going on” you thought silently. 

“Yes I heard you the first time” replied the voice. “Don’t panic.”

“Don’t panic? Don’t panic?! What. The. FUCKISGOINGON!”

“Alright, alright, calm down! This is an intervention.”

“What?”

“An intervention.” 

“Where am I?”

“Space. Earth orbit. You’re right about above the middle of the Pacific ocean.”  

“How did I get here? How am I breathing? AM I DEAD?”

“No, no! Nothing so permanent. Well. The situation will be a bit permanent, actually. But not death, no. Urgh. Yuck.” 

“Who are you?”

The voice sounded like that wise old character you loved in that show you couldn’t remember the name of. “Hmm. Good question. Should have thought of that one. Let’s say Dalamina, is that okay?”

“Dala… what? What do you mean? Is that your name or not?”

“I don’t have one to be honest. It’s complicated to explain. I’m not even an “I”, technically. But it’s easier to speak to you this way.” 

“Buddy, you’re going to have to start making sense or I’m going to stop breathing so I can wake up from this nightmare.”

“Nightmare?” the voice chided. “Ingrate little thing! Top 10 best view in this solar system, right there.”

“WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

“Wow wow, again, don’t croak on me. Relax. OK, look, I’m the one who got you here. You and everyone else.” 

“Everyone else…” you started mumbling, the syllables dying in your throat as a side glance revealed a long line of people floating in space alongside you, each just about out of reach of the other. To the other side the neat line also stretched as far as you could see. 

“Yeah, everyone! Humans, I mean. You’re all here. All eight billion, three hundred and seventeen million, ninety thousand and five hundred eighty-two of you.”

“Even babies?”

“Oh the babies are marvellous! How you become so… anyway. They’re having a blast, don’t worry. Just like a dream to them, but they still get it.”

“Get what?”

“The message.”

“What message?”

“That this is an intervention, silly!”

Confusion and frustration competed for first place in your terrified mind.

“Oh right, right, that part, sorry” soothed the voice. “So, I’m Dalamina and I’m an entity, shall we say, tasked with stopping egregious behaviour. Biosphere shutdown, stuff like that.”   

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“Are you killing us off?”

“No! What is it with your kind and death?”

“Shipping us away from Earth?”

“Hmm, tempting, right? Just kidding. No, we’re just taking a little break right now. Appreciating the view.” 

“So… are there 8 billion something of you?”

“Nope. Just me!”

“Just you? You’re having this conversation with everyone at once right now?”

“Yes! I mean, from your point of view, it’s more that I’m equally distributed between all of you while simultaneously being my whole self within each of you at once. Don’t worry about the specifics, it makes no sense with your sensory apparatus.”

“Sure… So, what is happening to us?”

“We’re taking the long view, friend. Looking at that tiny  fragile world you live on, and so forth. I’m giving you The Speech.”

“Are you this weird with everyone?”

“Ha, no! I adapt to every being.”

You stop yourself from grumbling about being grossly misunderstood to get back to the most pressing matter.

“What speech? What do you want from us?”

“Well, obviously The Speech is different with every person. And it’s not so much me that wants something, more like her” the entity said while somehow directing your mind’s eye deep into the core of the planet. “But the gist is something was way off balance here, I was summoned, so here I am figuring out what you people are up to and how to best sort you out.”

“You mean you just arrived?”

“Well, yes. It’s all subjective anyway. Time’s not really what you think it is.”

“Hmm hmm.”

“Anyway, you guys were screwing up big time and there was not much time left. Time out!”

“Dala, please, will you please explain. I’m about to lose it.”

“Humanity is on time out. Until you figure it out, or until the planet completes a thousand orbits around your star, whichever comes first. As of now, you all carry me inside you, and none of you can ever hurt a living being again.”

“Sounds… nice?”

“Ha, buddy, it’s paradise. So that’s going to be rough on you.”

“How do you mean? Is there a catch?”

“A catch?” the creature exploded in laughter. “Aww, a catch, man, good one. The catch is: YOU CAN’T HARM A LIVING CREATURE. No human, no bat, no tree, no snail, no bee, no mycelium, no bear.”

“Even mosquitos?”

“EVEN MOSQUITOS!”

“Wow, hang on there, what are we going to eat?”

“Fruits?… mushrooms?… my nuts?”

“Wow, you’re rude. And do you have to be so mean?”

“Well that’s rich, coming from you.”

“Why would you…” you began before catching yourself.

“Right? I’m in your head, remember? I know it all, kiddo. Anyway, you’re crafty little things, you’ll make do. Plenty of ways to get your nutrients from what’s around without having to organise mass murder on a planetary scale.”

“Wait, what’s that thing about figuring it out? What do we have to figure out? And what happens when we do?”

“When we do… Typical. If you do, you’ll be released from me and go on your merry way. If you don’t, those alive in a thousand years will be the last human generation.”

You gasp in horror.

“No, it won’t be mass murder. That generation will simply be sterile. They’ll all die peacefully of old age, I’ll provide everyone with what they need until the end. The golden age! Nice way to tie things up neatly.”

“Well, you certainly seem to be rooting for us…”

“Little creature, I’m not omniscient so you might make it, but the odds aren’t exactly overwhelmingly in your favour.”

“So what is it we have to do, exactly?”

“You have to change so deeply that there’s no need for a so-called dark matter entity to take away your capacity to do harm. You need to reach a state where every single one of  you can spend their entire lifetime without ever trying to resort to violence.”

“That doesn’t sound impossible. Especially knowing what you just said.”

“Yeah, here’s the thing, though: there won’t be any proof that this conversation took place.”

“So? We’re all living it, there’s no way we won’t believe it… Hang on, are you going to erase my memory?”

“Not quite. In a few moments you’ll get back to your lives and wonder about that funny dream you had last night. You’ll share your experiences, and begin to doubt. Within a few generations, this will all be seen as religious ramblings, fairytale stuff, deeply unserious.” 

“If we can’t hurt a fly anymore, skeptics are going to have a hard time shouting down the believers. And there’s millions of cameras down there! We’ll have proof. People can’t deny this.”

“Haha, good one. Evidence doesn’t matter much with most of you. In any case, there won’t be any: your disappearance won’t register on any of your instruments. You’ll look at the video feeds and see nothing at all. From your perspective, time is suspended during this cute get-together. It’s like you never left the planet. Alrighty then, I think that covers it. Bye-bye, and best of luck with everything!”

You are brushing your teeth when last night’s intense dream suddenly pops up in your mind. “Oh yeah, I was in space, nice one! What was I doing there, again?…” 

Your train of thought is interrupted by a mosquito buzzing over your ear. “Just hang on a second, asshole, let me find my swatter and we’ll see about revoking your flying privileges…” 

There, on the mirror! You put all your strength to smash it down… yet can’t feel the satisfying thump. As if the paper weapon was stopped by a forcefield. The mosquito flies away. You find it on a wall, try to strike, and once again find it impossible to make contact with the target. You try hitting an empty spot: nice satisfying whack, no problem there. You spot a spider in the corner of the room and walk up to it. You try to slap the poor thing dead, but the same phenomenon prevents you from hitting it. The spider lazily moves away, slightly annoyed by all that wind you’re generating.

“Ouch!” you yell as the mosquito bites you.

Your brain freezes as a foggy memory tries to emerge from the dream.

“Oh, shit.”