The Visitors... An Electric Dreams Story

"What if, all we have known all our lives are false...?"

"What if we've been living a lie for centuries...?"

"What if, all we have done is conform, simply because we lacked the ability to see beyond our immediate world...?"

"What if..."

Pixabay
The Visitors...

Charlotte watched with a mixture of pride and amazement as Mark spoke on and on about the supposed unknown, and the need to think beyond the many restrictions of the physical reality.

She didn't really understand many of the things he said, but she listened anyway. She loved him, and she would follow him to the unknown, wherever that place was.

In all likelihood though, they were much closer to being caught and executed by the government than they were to finding this possible beyond. The crackdown on the reformers had been stepped up in the last few weeks. And it was a truism; no one could successfully fight the government.

"We ought to pause and think. We need to ask ourselves not just how, but why?! Is it enough to believe these things just because our fathers before us and their fathers as well believed them?"

Charlotte raised her voice and echoed the shout of rejection alongside the others. She knew the reformers were almost certainly doomed for failure, but then on the other hand, she also believed in Mark. And she'd follow him through the pangs of hell if he so much as asked.

It had been ten years since they'd officially tied the knot, yet it still seemed everyday was somehow like that first day they had met...

She had first noticed him at the yearly gathering. The second one after the civil war had ended. He had seemed odd, unlike any of the others she knew. Yet there was something magnetic about his strangeness, something attractive, something which had somehow drawn her to his side.

"What do they know?"

He had seemed to spit out the words as he spoke. He most certainly hadn't approved of the declarations of the government right from the start.

"Well, they sure sound like they know a lot." She had responded, smiling. "But I presume you know something that they don't...?"

He had returned her smile, and had extended a hand to her.

" The name's Mark."

"Charlotte..."

"Charlotte..."

"Charlotte..."

She broke out of her reverie to find Mark staring amusedly at her. He was holding a tray containing left over cookies shared during the meeting. Everyone was gone. He was smiling sheepishly...

"Penny for your thoughts..." He chided as he placed the tray on one of the empty seats.

She returned his smile. Somehow, eleven years had passed since that first meeting. Yet he still held that same strong pull over her.

"Are we set?" She asks

"Well, if you're done with your meditation, I believe we are."

She hits his arm playfully, and gets up in readiness. But just as he's about to link his arm with hers, she leans towards the tray, reaching for the one remaining cookie.

"Those are not girl scout cookies" he teased her.

She smiled as she linked her free arm with his.

"And this here lady ain't no girl scout." She returned.

They both didn't bother shutting the door...

...∆...

"We need to get to the door." Mark muttered.

Panting and almost out of breath, Charlotte stood bent, with both hands placed on her knees. She didn't, or rather couldn't offer an immediate response.

The crackdown had finally happened, and it was as swift as it was brutal. Scores had died, but most of them members of the Reformers. No one had suspected anything, they had all been caught off guard.

Only the previous day they had all gathered at their usual meeting place, and Mark had again reiterated his, their beliefs that there was more to the universe than their own reality.

But then something had been different about that meeting. Mark had spoken about some strange sightings of alien beings around the town. No one had disbelieved him, but it wasn't like anyone had also paid any serious attention to the info. It had had the feel of just another theory to help solidify their ideals.

"What door?" Charlotte, now a bit relaxed, asks in confusion.

"Follow me" Mark responds.

Charlotte did obediently. She didn't ask any questions. But it wasn't like she didn't want to. The necessity of a helpful scenario to alter the events of the last hour superseded any curiosity or doubts that she could possibly have harbored at the moment.

Then as they approached the meeting hall of the reformers, she suddenly knew. Mark had always told her that the door was an architectural mistake; an error of planning. There wasn't supposed to be a door, but a wall. The door was simply a quick fix to the problem. A fix that was supposed to be temporary, but had lasted almost forever.

They pushed open the main door of the building, and they both went in. Despite being in a hurry, this time Mark remembered to shut the door behind them.

"But Mark..." Charlotte found her voice.

"Not now sweetheart." Mark cut in. "Just come with me"

They made their way to the inner circle, the room which doubled as a store for blasphemous objects, and as Mark's private study away from home.

Just behind Mark's reading table, a door stood covered in dust and cobwebs. Mark reached under the desk and pulled a latch. A key dropped to the floor.

Again, Charlotte watched, but now with a mixture of surprise and confusion, as Mark worked the lock on the door and pulled it open. A complex array of screens and buttons came alive, and Mark worked away.

After what seemed like an eternity, though hardly a minute, he turned to her...

"Now we wait..." He says in a surprisingly calm voice. "But I know you've got questions."

Charlotte could only muster a slight nod off her head. Mark took a deep breath..

"I'm not exactly one of you." He began. "I'm human."

Then he told her how humans had found life on the planet, and had sent him to go make first contact with them. How he had realized the rigid religious beliefs they held made it an impossibility. The only solution was to make them see the errors of their ways, and so he had slowly introduced the reformers. It had all culminated to today...

As the space shuttles began to penetrate the atmosphere, Charlotte could only think of one question...

"And me, us...?"

Mark held her hands..

"We're real. I promise you."

"But it makes no sense..." She responds. "You are.. are"

"I love you, Char." Mark cut in again. "And love doesn't have to make sense.. to make sense"

As the first of the humans descended, and as the government agents and the rest of the town watched their alien visitors, Mark held Charlotte in his arms.

And all she could think of was that she had a lot to learn anew.

She probably never really knew anything about Mark. Like does he truly age? Does he actually sleep at night? What really are snozberries...?

The unknown seemed to have suddenly become infinite...

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

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Written for @tygertyger's Electric Dreams Contest

For some reason, this was a difficult write...

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