Copyright 2017 It had been happening for a while now. I would wake at 2:23AM every night. My dark brown eyes would look fiercely at the red numbers on my alarm clock to verify. Sighing, since this was getting old, I always knew that the weird star outside would flash bright. It never was too bright. Just a quick flash like a camera. Then the clock would announce it was 5:49AM. Every night. I never felt myself fall asleep. I don't even know if I blinked against the bright star. I just know it happened. It has been happening for years now. This all started when I was 17. I just had my 23rd birthday yesterday. I also am exhausted. I feel like I haven’t slept in all of those years. My parents were becoming more concerned as medicine and doctors haven’t helped. Therapist have brushed me off. No reason for the insomnia nor the exhaustion. Now, here they were taking me to a different one. A hypnotist was my final choice before an extensive sleep study in a hospital bed. Doctor Hyuka is nice looking. She is short, but then again I am tall at 6 foot ten inches. She is probably only five-four. A little woman from Japan, if I can go by her pictures on her desk. The office is decorated in that fake calm of trying to be a friend's living room. She even has a television off to the side in view of the couch. Next to the couch was a recliner. I chose that as my seat. Her choice of chair was her rolling desk chair. Her first warning was that it would be recorded. She explained that a copy could be given to me and she liked to review things for her paperwork. Then she explained how she would put me under. I just shrugged. At this point I didn't think I would be in any trance. Probably will just accidentally fall asleep and ruin the whole session. After my file was reviewed, I reclined the chair as instructed. Her voice came through counting down, “Ten… Nine… Eight…” “Eight,” she said again. Her voice was slightly agitated. Almost fearful now, “Nine…and ten.” I felt rested now. I knew I would fall asleep instead of this working. She was paler than when I started. She stood up quickly toward her computer. From inside a deal drawer a small flash drive was grabbed. She made a copy of a file off of her computer and handed it to me. “Please, listen to this alone.” Her voice held a terror plea back within only the confines of professionalism can. She was very scared. I left there with my flash drive and my parents asking how it all went. I explained the process and how I don't remember even going under. We drove home. I didn’t know whether to start listening immediately, or wait. How could I? I turned on my laptop, and sat there for a while staring at my back screen. The ocean on the back screen wasn’t very calming. I still felt very rested after the experience, but something had made that doctor spooked. I gathered up all my courage and plug the device into my laptop. The device didn’t were like the old days back when they use tapes to record everything in those rooms. I could hear the air conditioning going on in the background though. Her voice went over the muffled sound of the machine, and I heard her count me down into sleep. Her voice was relaxed as she asked me to go into my bedroom, of course in my dream world, and begin the night at the exact same time that I usually woke up at. I began to describe to her the numbers on my alarm clock. Then I told her about the bright flash outside my window, and how I was sure it was a star that was too close to the Earth. She questioned me about the star. That is when the true horror of what I was going through started to come out in my voice. I began to speak of things I never wanted to hear myself talk about. Of spaceships and beings. These people, according to me they look like us but taller, we’re taking me every night while I was supposed to be in my bed. If I had gone for the hospital study instead who knows what they would have done? Listening to myself talk about the aliens that was scary enough, but then she asked me if they would come back again tonight? Of course. Could I handle that I knew now what was going on? Would I be here in my bed waiting for them now? I didn’t stop the tape playing, though. “Why do they look like us?” she asked. My voice was calm as it came through the speakers in my laptop, “We are them. We are them. And now, we are at War.” They had been training me. I had always been athletic. But now this time they had been training me. They had been training all of us. A war was going to break out in just a few days. Her voice stopped me there, I heard her sob, and she brought me out of the trance. A war? That is what they had been taking me for every night? They would come for me again tonight. Where they taking my parents? Only one way to find out. Tonight we all need to be vigilant. That is why I wrote this to you all. Tonight, you need to watch for them before they take you.