I opened my eyes. My face was covered in tears, my mind lost in a stupor. Everything was gone—the violet landscape, the ocean… the woman. Instead, four men in neoprene jumpsuits stood over me, chuckling, their presence anchoring me to my new surroundings, even as my growing wakefulness drained the memories from my bizarre out-of-body experience.

I was confused. I felt empty inside. Wherever I had been, I wanted to be back there. I belonged there.

I took a deep breath and smelled Susan. In the lucid dream, I had called her by another name. Lehanna. She had referred to me as Avi Socha. She had called the planet Charon. Was it a Nordic world? Had it survived the doomsday event we were talking about? Or was this a future event in a multiverse still to come?

No. Our conversation had been vocalized; there was nothing to indicate an evolved ability to communicate telepathically.

Try as I might, the memory of the dream dissipated too quickly to analyze. It was then I realized something was happening.

Dozens of crewmen were hovering by the windows on my side of the plane, many snapping photos with their iPhones. I raised the window shade and looked outside.

Sweet Jesus…

We were flying over water, the night illuminated by the patterns of light emanating from countless UFOs. Whether their intentions were to escort us to Antarctica or shoot us down, I didn’t know. But they were everywhere. Some flew in formations of up to a dozen, while others zipped close to our wing and hovered, only to accelerate out of view. Then there were those that preferred the cheap seats high above our altitude, their lights appearing like stars. One massive triangular craft the size of a small city dominated the heavens. Every so often it would execute an incredible end-over-end 360 as if just to show us it could do it.

It was a mind-boggling, humbling, and surreal spectacle, and I might have actually enjoyed it had I not feared they were only here because of me.

31

“There is a force/energy/consciousness/divine thread that connects us all
spiritually to something greater than ourselves.”

—Oprah Winfrey

Fear shuts down the mind and paralyzes the body. It unleashes thoughts that smother reason and strangle hope, reducing consciousness to a dying ember.

Sitting on the transport, I realized that I no longer cared whether I lived or died. In truth, it was only the need to save William and Brandy that forced me to take another breath. Yet, even in my state of anxiety, I knew there was zero chance of Colonel Vacendak ever releasing any of us. The only thing keeping us alive was MJ-12’s belief that my presence was needed to access the object in Lake Vostok. When the mission was finished I, along with my loved ones, would be disposed of as collateral damage.

Logic therefore dictated that in order to keep William and Brandy alive, I needed to escape.