Alex Mercer, a 32-year-old janitor, woke with a start. as though reaching for something he could no longer grasp. Just like the last few nights, his dreams had been a hazy fog of cryptic warnings and disorienting images.
With creaking protest, the sun peeled back the tattered curtains of morning, dragging its long fingers of light through the dense clutter and shadows that filled the worn room. He winced at its bright and warm embrace, wishing he could just fall back in bed.
Alex blearily blinked, trying to shake off the sticky tendrils of sleep. But his mind was still trapped in the emotions of the dreams - surreal mixtures of feelings that had haunted him for days, though he could never quite remember them when he woke. Even the vague ghost of their intensity he was left with afterwards haunted him.
His body still thrummed with an unfamiliar energy, a raw instinct that anyone who had survived this far into the invasion must have long buried deep within themselves. The urge to resist, to fight back against the cruel oppressors who sought to subjugate humanity. The over powering urge to rise up and unleash the fury that had been dormant for too long.
He smothered the feeling deep into his core, and pulled on his mundane janitorial uniform - a dreary gray jumpsuit that failed to conceal the tiredness ingrained in his features. Abruptly he abandoned his minuscule, dismal residence; any enthusiasm for regular day-to-day hygienic rituals had long vanished. Resigned, he left into the alien-infested streets of Austin's suburbs. A foreboding stillness coated the place which had once bustled with life - everything too tidy, too perfected, giving off an aura of desolation. No human presence survived.
Alex's mundane drudgery left his soul completely drained, like sandpaper abrading away any semblance of hope. Every day he performed the same duties; sweeping the floors, emptying waste bins, and mopping the hallways of the government building where he toiled. Interaction with his fellow workers was sparse; grunts and nervous glances were exchanged in passing between janitors, maintenance workers, or even the mailroom clerk. They silently accepted their fate, robbed of their dignity and ambition by an unending cycle of thankless work. But it provided just enough sustenance to keep them from starving, so they kept their heads down and trudged along each nightmarish day.
Alex scrubbed vigorously around the edges of the counter, wiping away any trace of dirt that had accumulated since his last cleaning. He'd come to accept the constant surveillance he was under, but it still grated on him - every corner of the room suspect, a potential hiding spot for a camera or informant. What infuriated him most was not knowing how he was being observed. Cameras in plain sight? Human spies selling secrets to his masters? He had never seen any evidence of outsiders' prying eyes, yet their presence seemed ever-present and punishing. No act of disobedience went without consequence.
He continued to work with robotic efficiency: a vigorous swipe with the sponge across the counter, followed by a steady slathering of cleaner from side to side, and then an exacting scrubbing of each tile until they shone like new. As he worked, his mind drifted back to those terrifying times in the camps. The aliens had forced humans into different groups, their purpose inscrutable, their authority absolute. Anyone who dared speak up was vanished almost instantly, leaving fewer than half of those that had been there before. These days, disappearances were much less common, but they still occurred. Just last week the former mail clerk muttered something while passing by – by the time Alex had turned around to ask her what she meant, she had already vanished.
Alex knew the aliens weren't all knowing though, because despite his best efforts every morning, the desire to push back was still there--the instinctive drive to defy them that burned deep in his bones.
Alex's meetings with the aliens were rare. He'd often get a strange sense of presence in the room, but it was hard to tell for sure if he was looking at one—their skin seemed to somehow absorb or reflect light, making them almost invisible. It wasn't until he heard one speak that he knew what had been before him.
There was no mistaking when they spoke. The aliens words were marked by a jarring sense of otherness. Their strange dialect buzzed and chirped around him like a million agitated crickets. His body seemed to quiver with each syllable uttered, as if his skin itself was crawling away from the terror of it all. His chest tightened with dread at each word they spoke, a primal response he couldn't control.
Alex trembled with fear and humiliation. As his terror swelled, so did his shame - a destructive force, igniting a burning desire to defy the oppressor. His shame and rage fed off one another like a drug, spurring him on to reckless action. He stopped, wiping away the sweat beading down his brow. He scanned his surroundings for any sign of the alien oppressors, knowing full well that he'd never spot them. No matter how badly Alex yearned for revolt, he had no choice but to endure this mundane life if he wanted to survive.
Alex's life was a never-ending cycle of toil and oppression. After each long day of scrubbing for his alien oppressors, Alex returned home to his dreary apartment with nothing but the sound of creaking floorboards to keep him company. He ate his tasteless rations alone while his eyes lingered on the faded yellow wallpaper that had seen better days. In these lonely moments, Alex's mind strayed away from reality into those strange dreams that plagued his nights. The sun set and with it, Alex was plunged again into the roiling mass of his dreams, filled with secrets and a twinge of hope that seemed to hint at some sort of purpose in this world overrun by aliens.
The relentless cycle of days persisted as the sun rose and set. Every moment was a blur of drudgery and despair, each one more oppressive than the last. But something stirred within Alex's soul; an unwavering hope that kept him going in spite of his bleak existence. As he trudged on through hundreds of days, Alex was convinced that something lurked just around the corner—a senseless spark of hope that refused to extinguish itself. It made no sense to him, but he could feel his determination building, every party of his mind searching for a way to cut his binds and rise up against the tyrannical forces that had robbed him of his liberty.
As he lay down to sleep each night, Alex prayed that the answer would come to him in his dreams. Perhaps then, he could finally make sense of the cryptic messages that haunted him and find the strength to resist the alien regime that had taken over his world.
Alex collapsed into his bed each night, a silent plea for any help that he could get. He refused to speak to any God or be beholden to anyone in particular. Instead, he begged for any force that may be listening to send him an answer in his dreams, something that could give him the power to stand against the growing tyranny of his world. Every night he was answered with the dreams, and for now, it was enough.