Unidentified

Phineas Atkins stared out the window of the Chinese train car. His life was going to change, for better or for worse, the following morning, and despite being severely fatigued his mind still refused to drift into a state of sleep. He stared out into the starry sky and let his mind wander, letting the light bluish-grey clouds and the beautiful, nighttime Guilin scenery move his consciousness and influence his dreams. Dreamily, his mind brought him back in time to his second year of university, during a camping trip.

A bright and warm flame shone brilliantly in front of him. The soft crackle of the campfire slipped into his ears, and the lustrous Milky Way stretched over his head. John, Peter, Smith, and Christopher sat around the campfire. Phineas recognized these people as some of his dearest friends, and though he did not actively realise this, seeing them again made his heart beat longingly, a few beats per minute faster.

They were camping in a clearing in a local forest back home, in the US. His intuition reminded him that a road cut through the dense foliage a bit south, which was behind him. On the right of him were the four tents that stood proudly on the meadow – the fruit of their hard work. In the middle, where they sat, was a small and cozy fire —  one that cast a soft three-metre halo in the surrounding area. A bumpy, yet beautifully lush grass carpeted the clearing. 

At that moment they were having a hearty conversation about Peloton stocks when John randomly changed the conversation to something to do with Fortnite. His mind recalled that they were lucky that they had found flint and steel in the truck that had been sitting there for God knows how long. In the background, Smith, the photographer of the group, was setting up a camera behind the tents to film the astonishing sky.

The wind blew, the fire swayed, and the scene grew dim. And as if it was heaving its last breath, the fire finally extinguished, leaving behind a small puff of smoke. 

The hearty buzz of conversation continued for a while. Phineas pensively stared up to the sky and felt wonderstruck. He felt a sense of awe he could not quite describe. He felt free, in contrast to the monotonous city life he lived, and for once he felt euphoric. White dots, as many as grains of sand in a desert, were disseminated on a nebulous blanket as far as his eyes could see. The sky seemed to caress him. The smell of charcoal and the gentle, lofty smell of pine filled his nostrils. The grass was swayed by the wind as children do with their hands on fluffy carpets. Slowly, he grabbed a handful of dry leaves and branches, stood up, and dropped them into the stone circle. Mindlessly watching the pieces as they left his hand, he sat back down, his mind at ease. 

Phineas picked up the flint and hit it, causing sparks to appear. He watched as one of the sparks latched onto one of the pieces of leaf and quickly dissolved the kindling like foam in acid. Then, when the fire was the right size, he placed a piece of firewood into the circle of stones.

Time seemed to fast forward in his memory. His mind and recollection transported him to a few moments later, where he was in the campsite talking and eating snacks. Enjoying a jovial laugh at some joke of John’s. It was too bad Christopher was already snoring in his tent. 

The wind blew; he shivered. It was getting colder. Utter calm and silence fell on the area. The fire had vanished without leaving a trace of smoke. Charred firewood lay motionless on the ground.  

Phineas bent down and felt the goosebumps on his arms. He sensed that something was wrong, and he slowly looked up and scanned the vicinity with the eyes of an eagle. With his pupils dilated, ears open, alarmed, he stared at the dark foliage. He felt a sense of unease slowly creeping up on him, causing his heart to beat a little faster. Shadows shifted in and out of the corner of his eye. He saw crimson fur… Was he imagining this!? There were no foxes in the area…

 He stared up in the sky. It was an endless void that held no answers. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he realised that John’s camping chair was empty. Looking beside him, he found Peter and Smith’s chairs empty too. He stared back at the dark trees and found himself unable to move. He had never felt so afraid and hysterical. There was no source of light and he wondered what happened to the lamps; his fear of the dark made it worse. Around him, not a blade of grass stirred. Small, dim dots were scattered across the inky sky. When he finally got enough willpower he glanced behind himself, towards the moon: the thing that would keep him sane. 

Pure awe and fear seized him. A giant, circular, glowing blue eye stared down -  replacing the moon. It looked like a portal to another dimension, yet the dirty circular copper plates that surrounded it gave it a very run-down steampunk look. Something from another dimension. Upon further inspection, it was a ship. The ship was opalescent, shifting colours when seen from different perspectives. This was the sort of craft that only existed in people’s imaginations. 

The odd thing was that everything seemed to revolve around the ship. The inky black sky seemed to warp around the entity. Things were getting weird, anomalous. Strange, powerful forces were at work, but his mind was too dumbfounded to understand them. The trees seemed to drift farther and farther away, and the clearing seemed to get larger and larger. As he looked around, he noticed that everything seemed to be moving in fast forward. The grass grew like it did in time-lapses, and the trees moved back and forth unrealistically. He felt hazy and dizzy. The machine was getting larger and he realised that the ship was getting closer. He could now see that a blue halo formed around the central circular light. 

Lethargic and powerless were words that now described Phineas Atkins. He felt like a turkey on Thanksgiving day. He forced his body to crouch down, and take deep breaths. What was happening?

His first decision was to get away from this chaos. Yet, subconsciously, he suspected that more weird things were about to happen.

Slowly, with his legs still numb, Phineas crawled clumsily toward the foliage. The glowing eye was still the size of a person. His body refused to move at regular speed; leaves and branches physically scratched him but he didn’t feel a thing. Dazed and severely determined, he had not noticed that the tents were missing. 

He was now in the forest and he was getting faster and faster. Adrenaline pumped through his arms and he quickly wondered if this was what people felt like in times of peril. Unbeknownst to him, the ship landed behind him gracefully, without any sound. Multiple complex mechanisms moved simultaneously to reveal 360 degrees of bright light that shone into the dark forest. The ship cast a light, revealing the detail and meticulousness in the greenery around. Worst of all there was a soft rustling behind Phineas.

Fear filled Phineas's soul. He would not dare imagine what was behind him. His gasping breath echoed off the forest wood, and the eeriness of all of this reminded him of all those horror video games and movies he used to take interest in. He heard sirens wailing in the distance, and he was not sure if he should have been relieved or worried. He was still tired but adrenaline allowed him to borrow strength from his exhausted energy reserve. With his newfound strength, he broke out of his daze and pushed off the floor with gusto. The shadow stalking him stopped for a moment. His limbs suddenly responded, and he dashed, flitting gracefully between the thorns. 

Nothing mattered to him. He did not hear the sirens getting nearer.

He put at least another mile behind him; he had never run so far, so fast. He did not know where he was. He heard voices chanting in the distance, perhaps to him in an indistinguishable language. He stopped, out of breath. He had never been so tired. He wanted to vomit. Mist swirled at his feet, and it magically dispersed, clearing an oddly perfect circle around him. Crimson shadows flitted in the dark and this time he was sure he was not hallucinating. Something howled in the distance. He tried to move his limbs, but as they were already pushed to their limits, they refused to move. His head suddenly throbbed, he just wished this was all a dream. He felt truly hopeless now. He thought he had been so clever, that he could escape this…reality… 

But he failed. He was about to become the stuff of legends, the victim of the urban legend, a conspiracy theory. Grass and leaves twirled, moss ruffled in the shadows. His hair bristled, and suddenly, out of the blue, he heard rustling behind him. He abruptly turned 180 degrees and stared into the ghastly light, accepting whatever he was to face. 

Curious and desperate, he watched as a dark figure emerged, producing a strange whistle while advancing. This felt uncannily like a deja vu. It came closer but still not close enough to be able to distinguish any features. It seemed pale like it was stuck in a black and white picture. Leaves rustled yet again behind him. His mind was blank, he felt emptiness. He turned around to see a more human-shaped figure. It was wearing a silver suit and sunglasses. 

What?!

Still unable to distinguish any features, Phineas turned so that he could see both figures out of the corner of his eyes. The human whistled in a sequence of complicated, mellifluous tones. The highs and lows, which mimicked the previous whistles in a different “accent ” were recognized as the refrain from The Girl from Ipanema. Girl and Ipanema, Thing and Agent, Unidentified - all these worlds swirled around as he moved back and forth in the dark forest. His knees buckled and he toppled to the ground like a sandbag. For Phineas the world seemed to become white, slowly getting darker until it was the shade of the darkest dark – until it was no longer a colour but void. 

Void. The wind rustled softly against the pine trees. If one looked close enough they would see crimson shadows darting from tree to tree. 

Phineas woke up in the Chinese train car, his face glued against the bright window. The lights on the train were on and it was all very, extremely bright. He had a sense of confidence he did not normally associate with, and he had a feeling - just a small one - that the future held great things ahead of him. 

However, on the day of the camping trip, Phineas woke up to the sound of crows right after dawn, feeling energised and unlike his loudly-groaning friends, not irritated by the squawking crows and ravens. He got out of his tent. The sun was already at 45 degrees and it was radiating its energy in the clear blue sky, and beaming its rays through the trees. A weird, soft mist hung from his knees down, and from far away it made people in the vapor look like they were walking on clouds. It was truly a photogenic scene. Letting his eyes indulge in the panorama, he remembered the dream he had last night. It felt like a distant haze. Something like seeing a giant spaceship. He did not remember much from the dream. Just…happiness, fear, confusion, hysteria, hopelessness… 

 It wasn't too clear and he decided that it was just one of those weird dreams. Moreover, there was no point in remembering a nightmare. John was already groggily poking his head through the two entrance flaps, and he knew it was going to be a beautiful day. What he did not realize was that his camera that was taking the time-lapse was gone.

FBI Case 3478

Location: [redacted]

Time: 0100 hours

Status: Highly Classified

Risk: Extremely Dangerous, Code Red

INTEL

Description by eyewitness:

[redacted]

- John Mackenzie