Expect Us

I had been in the studio for nearly twelve hours.

Anonymous Sound Studio in Jacksonville had become my second home. The walls carried the echoes of countless songs, broadcasts, and late-night conversations. Coffee cups littered the console. Guitar cases leaned against the walls. The glow of the mixing board was the only light left in the room as another song rendered through the monitors.

It was 2:47 a.m.

I saved the session, shut down the speakers, and stepped outside into the humid Florida night.

The parking lot was empty.

Almost.

At the far end sat a black SUV I’d never seen before.

Its headlights remained off.

The engine wasn’t running.

Yet somehow…

It hadn’t been there when I’d walked outside only seconds earlier.

As I locked the studio door, a man stepped from the shadows.

He wore ordinary clothes.

Nothing about him stood out except his eyes.

They carried the look of someone who had witnessed far more than a single lifetime should allow.

“A, I presume?”

I nodded.

“We’ve been listening.”

I laughed.

“If you’ve heard my last mix, I hope you’ve got constructive criticism.”

He smiled only slightly.

“I’m not talking about your music.”

The humor disappeared.

Without another word he handed me an old brass key with no markings and pointed toward the SUV.

Against every instinct of common sense…

I climbed inside.

No one spoke during the drive.

Jacksonville’s lights slowly disappeared behind us as we traveled south. We crossed bridges, turned onto highways, then eventually onto roads that became narrower with each passing mile. The GPS froze. Cell service vanished. Even the dashboard clock began flashing random times as though it could no longer decide what hour it was.

Nearly three hours later we entered the Ocala National Forest.

The pavement ended.

The vehicle continued along a sandy trail that should not have supported its weight.

Spanish moss hung from ancient oaks like curtains hiding forgotten secrets.

Then…

Every sound stopped.

The frogs.

The insects.

The wind.

Even the tires rolling across the sand seemed to make no noise.

The SUV came to a stop before what appeared to be an abandoned wooden building nestled among towering pines.

Except…

The building wasn’t abandoned.

It was waiting.

There were no security cameras.

No guards.

No fences.

No visible source of electricity.

Yet the front porch lantern illuminated the darkness with a soft white glow.

I held the key with a grip of uncertainty. Time seemed to slow as I watched the key advance towards the brass lock.

The front door opened before I touched it.

Inside waited seven individuals seated around an old cypress table.

No introductions.

No names.

One elderly woman simply gestured toward the empty chair.

“We’ve been expecting you.”

I sat.

Another individual placed a small object onto the table.

It was about the size of a pocket compass.

Its surface shimmered like liquid metal, yet it felt solid beneath my fingertips. Strange geometric patterns moved across it as though they were alive.

The woman spoke calmly.

“There are technologies that humanity has never been permitted to possess.”

She paused.

“Not because mankind lacks intelligence.”

Another pause.

“But because mankind has not yet learned restraint.”

She slid the device toward me.

“If this falls into the wrong hands, civilization ends.”

I reached for it.

The instant my fingers made contact…

The room vanished.

Stars stretched into glowing rivers.

Space folded inward like paper.

There was no sensation of movement.

Instead, reality itself seemed to collapse and unfold around me.

One moment I stood in a Florida forest.

The next…

I stood beneath an unfamiliar sky overlooking crimson mountains taller than Everest.

Seconds later…

Another world.

Then another.

Oceans beneath purple clouds.

Cities that appeared grown rather than built.

Moons orbiting gas giants so immense they filled half the sky.

None of it felt like science fiction.

It felt…

Normal.

The device wasn’t transporting me through space.

It was bending space until every destination existed in the same place.

Distance no longer mattered.

Neither did time.

When I returned to the cabin, less than twenty minutes had passed.

The elderly woman smiled.

“You’ve traveled farther than every spacecraft humanity has ever launched.”

Then her expression became serious.

“There is one condition.”

“You tell no one.”

“No photographs.”

“No demonstrations.”

“No evidence.”

“The day humanity is ready…”

“…it will no longer be hidden.”

I agreed.

Or at least…

I thought I could.

Weeks passed.

The heavens seemed unusually active.

Astronomers tracked powerful coronal mass ejections racing away from the Sun.

Planetary alignments filled social media.

A blood moon stained the night sky.

Meteor showers illuminated the darkness.

Space agencies continued sending missions deeper into the Solar System.

Everywhere people looked upward.

It felt as though the heavens themselves were trying to get humanity’s attention.

The promise weighed heavier every day.

Then one thought refused to leave my mind.

We may be silenced by governments.

We may be silenced by corporations.

We may even be erased from history.

But we will not be silenced by anyone except God.

If this technology truly existed…

Humanity deserved to know.

Humanity needed to question

Even if only through fiction.

This would keep my word intact.

So one moonlit evening I activated the device once more.

Reality folded.

The Moon filled my vision.

I stood upon its silent surface for less than a minute.

No flag.

No footprints.

No monument.

Instead, using the impossible energy contained within the device, enormous grooves were carved into the ancient regolith. They stretched for miles, as though written by the hand of something unimaginably large. From deep within those trenches came a brilliant white light, shining upward through the carved letters themselves.

Two simple words.

EXPECT US

Then, just as suddenly as I had arrived…

I was back in Florida.

Standing outside Anonymous Sound Studio.

The song I had left rendering inside had only advanced a few seconds.

Coincidence?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

If you own a telescope…

Take a long look at the Moon.

Study its surface.

Not because you’ll necessarily find anything.

But because history has always favored those curious enough to look.

And if one evening you think you see two impossible words carved across the lunar plains…

Well…

Sometimes the best fiction is the kind that makes you wonder.

As for me…

I think my next destination won’t be another planet.

I think I’d like to stand quietly in the corner of a small hospital room and witness my own birth…

Back when five generations of my family still walked this Earth together.

Not to change a single moment.

Only to see the faces whose lives became the reason mine began.

~Anonymous