I’m shaking, hyperventilating, confused, and feeling the heaviest dread I have ever felt before. I don’t know if I’m going to live much longer, so please understand… this is serious. All this shit started at college and just got worse and worse as it went on. Even after the discovery, it’s STILL pretty bad and is continuing to get worse.
Yestarday, I was sitting in class, writing an end of term paper. It was the end of my third year of college. As I was writing, a text to speech voice echoed from somewhere down the hall. It was difficult to make out, but it was loud enough for our professor, Professor Thomas, a man in his 40s, to stand up and walk out into the hallway. The voice went on, repeating a certain phrase that got easier to make out as it got louder, but the tone was so superficial that it began to unsettle me.
“Who are you?” asked Professor Thomas.
Some person was playing around with a text to speech AI in the hallway. But why use average text to speech when we have voice cloning now?
“Are… you okay?” asked Professor Thomas.
What could he be worried about? As I focused my attention back to my paper, I heard a sound like that of somebody squeezing a sponge, followed by the door being slammed shut, which was then followed by the sound of muffled screaming. I looked at Professor Thomas. He was squirming around on the ground with his hands covering his suddenly bloated dark purple face. None of his facial features were visible anymore. His face looked like it was about to explode.
The text to speech tone was heard once more. The pit in my stomach grew deeper at its uncanniness, even though the sight of my professors condition was more concerning.
Everyone was verbally concerned. What was happening? What made his face turn into a bloated mess? What was he trying to say? Who was out there? I was in pure disbelief, dreading going out there after seeing that. Something was out there, and I wasn’t willing to risk finding out what.
My friend, Ricky, told everybody no one should go out there. Some of the others verbally agreed. This situation was confusing. What WAS happening? I quickly got my answer when our professor’s face exploded, but all this gross shit flew in a straight line up to the ceiling, rather than in every direction like what you’d expect. Within seconds, a hole formed where all that face goop had struck. Professor Thomas’ head, meanwhile, was left slowly disintegrating all over the tiled floor.
I exchanged looks with a couple of my other classmates. They all had looks of shock and disbelief. Once more, the text to speech was heard again. It was still hard to make out, but it sounded clear at the same time. It was in a language I didn’t know. As I listened in, my classmates were talking amongst each other.
“W-what do we do?”
“I’m calling my parents”
“I’m calling the police”
As the voice got closer and louder, we recited the lockdown protocols and all hid in the corners of the room. I switched the lights off in a hurry, then found a spot to sit. We sat in absolute silence. The text to speech tone got louder and louder. It was speaking in some foreign language and was still heavily unnerving. Finally, it passed and got quieter and quieter. We continued to sit in silence. Hopefully the police were going to arrive soon.
A couple of minutes later, three police cars rolled by the window. Not even a minute after they arrived, I heard the sound of the front doors being busted open. I wondered what the police were going to say about the melting professor, but I didn’t need to worry about that when I heard more muffled screams. The text to speech tone got louder again. It was coming back. I covered my ears, but I could still hear it. The muffled screaming continued until two gunshots rang out.
The neighbouring doors creeked open, followed by some more muffled screams that were almost washed out behind the text to speech.
Some shouting began to echo from down the hall. That time, they were followed by painful screams, but they were silenced after a couple of thuds, followed by the sound of skin smacking the tiled floor right outside the room. I took out my phone and pulled up the local news. Nothing about this situation was being reported, which was odd considering stuff like this always makes the news.
Looking out the window, I noticed a thick fog. Not long after that, a blinding white light shone in. I covered my eyes. Oddly, it gave off this light warmth that kinda calmed me down. Once the warm sensation lifted, I uncovered my eyes. Outside the window was a sight I couldn’t believe. The building across the street was white instead of yellow, rounder cars were driving by without making a noise. A group of three people on the sidewalk across the street were staring in our direction with confused looks on their faces. A car slowed to a stop, with the driver sharing the look of confusion.
The sound of heavy boots marched down the hallway. All I could hear were voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Our door was opened by a man in a camouflaged suit, who gestured for us to follow him. I thought it was crazy the military had to be called in for something so not understandable that happened out of nowhere.
We followed the soldier out into the hallway, where the other students were following the same order. We were walked outside, which was when my eyes widened. In the distance were white and blue glass skyscrapers where downtown Toronto should be. Three of the skyscrapers had to be three times taller than the CN Tower. The others varied in height, but were all huddled near each other, surrounded by shorter white, yellow, and green buildings.
On both sides of the street, the power lines were long grey tubes connected to grey poles. I couldn’t understand what was happening. It looked like we had traveled to the future. Or were we all subject to gassing and were taken somewhere I just hadn’t been before. I knew it couldn’t be the second one due to the skyline, but if we were really in the future, why were we taken here? I was in disbelief of the first theory as well. Where in the hell were we?
Walking along the sidewalk was like walking on rubber, which wasn’t a bad thing. It was just something that felt very different. The bad thing was that whenever anybody stopped for any reason, they were given an electric shock by the nearest soldier. I experienced it first hand when I got too exhausted to keep walking. It was like one deep pinch on every part of my body at the same time. I chose to keep walking, that was for sure.
Soon enough, we were escorted through a gate into a walled complex. A base by the looks of it. There were camoflogued jeeps and trucks parked to our right and a long two story peach coloured building to our left. There was a bridge connecting the roof of the two story building to a neighbouring two story red building to our right. Once under the bridge, the soldiers stopped, and so did we.
A tall man in camo walked onto the bridge. His suit included dozens of badges. Once at the center of the bridge, he spoke into a megaphone, in a language I couldn’t recognize. When he was finished speaking, a second group of soldiers in marched towards us. They stopped feet away, then pulled out these handheld devices they pointed right at us for a minute before marching back inside the two story building.
The camo man walked back to the center of the bridge and spoke into the megaphone again. When he was finished speaking, the soldiers in front of us gestured towards a light brown cylindrical structure probably eight stories higher than the two story building. As we neared the structure, five doors slid open. I ended up walking in through the third door.
The interior of this thing looked like a hotel lobby. We were all huddled beside each other in this lobby that couldn’t have been bigger than three school gyms. Some soldiers were handing out cards without saying a word. Once I got mine, I attempted to read it. There was a two character symbol on it I couldn’t understand. It was like a mix of Roman and Japanese. Luckily, it was in the center of an image of a door. Beside the door were arrows pointing towards the door, implying it was the room I had to go into.
I was shaking. Was this some sort of military invasion? Were we being drafted? Who were these soldiers? Why weren’t they speaking English? Why did they just scoop us up and take us?
We were escorted to our rooms. Once I reached mine, I took a look around. It didn’t look that bad. It looked like one of those modern middle class livingrooms, but much smaller. I was originally expecting a jail cell to be honest.
I found what looked to be a TV remote. The buttons all had odd symbols on them, so I pressed the buttons I assumed were the power button until the TV turned on. The channel that came on was showing footage of lights circling the Moon, which then transitioned into a woman speaking. She too was speaking in that unknown language. I could only assume it was a news channel. I pressed one of the buttons, which brought me to a list of different thumbnails. Some showing animated characters, others showing real people. Below the thumbnails were those symbols. I pressed each of the buttons until I made it back to the news channel.
A humming noise began to hum from below. Glancing out the window, I noticed we were lifting off. We gently levitated off the ground until the view from the window looked like that of the view from the CN Tower observation deck. I could see the entirety of the sprawling city, along with a lake that stretched from east to west much like Lake Ontario.
As I stared at the reporter, my peripheral vision focused on the door as it was opened by a man who walked in and sat down beside me. He was about my height and looked to be in his 30s. I looked at him in confusion. I wasn’t expecting him to understand me, so I remained silent. He pulled out a card with a picture of a person speaking to him. Assuming he wanted me to speak to him, I mustered up something to say anyway.
“You probably can’t understand me, but, hello,” I said.
The man’s eyes lit up in a bright green glow, making me jump on the inside.
“Hello,” the man said.
“You… speak English!” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I detected your language through my algorithm. I’m an AI.”
An AI? He looked like a pretty convincing human person until he did that thing with his eyes. We greeted each other, then I asked him what the hell was going on. He explained to me my college was randomly selected to be used as a bribe against an opposition force. When I asked him who that force was, he told me he wasn’t allowed to answer. I asked him who the force who kidnapped my classmates and I was. Once again…
“I am not allowed to answer that question,” he said.
“What’s happening to my friends?” I asked.
“It depends on what group they were selected to be in,” he said. “The sacrificial bribe or the onlooker bribe. You were selected to be part of the sacrificial bribe.”
“What is that??” I asked, feeling on the verge of puking.
“If the opposition doesn’t back away, this ship will have hundreds of creatures dumped into it, and the opposition group won’t know if we’re okay until they have given up their weapons,” said the AI. “Look, they’re showing the creatures on TV right now.”
I looked at the TV. Images of various different hairy monstrosities with robotic claws were being shown. Some of them were shaped like worms, others were more circular in shape. Their mouths varied in size, with some being a quarter the size of the body, while others took up almost all of the side or head of the body.
Chills ran through me. Creatures? Great…. Why do I have to live a real life sci-fi horror story all of a sudden. I just want to go home and chat with my friends.
“They used a special one of them to help connect the building you were in to the military front,” the AI continued.
So that’s where that text to speech thing came from…
As my heart sunk, a soft eerie harmonic UAHHHHVVVV rang out, creating a vibration that rattled my bones like they were nothing. I looked out and saw a giant dark red cylindrical ship hovering over the downtown area of the city. I looked at the TV. There was a ground view of the ship. It was colossal. It’s hard for me to describe how big it looked from the ground. I looked the AI in the eyes and asked him why I needed to be part of this.
“You were randomly selected,” he said.
Screw that. Why did they need to be so cruel? I assured myself by assuming the creatures weren’t bad. That they were just a fake threat masquerading as a real threat. My hopes were crushed when I heard painful screams from the floor above, followed by ripping and tearing.
My heart dropped. I didn’t want to think anymore. I ran up to the window and jumped into it, attempting to get out of the ship even if it would kill me. I was thrown back onto the soft carpeted floor by sheer force.
“Are you okay?” asked the AI.
“No!” I said, furious. “I’m not! Are you okay with what’s about to happen to me?”
“As an AI learning model, I cannot yet feel empathetic or sympathetic emotions,” said the AI.
This was stupid. I was about to die for no good reason. I began to hyperventilate. The sound of painful screams starting to echo from down the hall only made the panic attack stronger.
“At least tell me what year this is,” I said.
“The year doesn’t match with the calendar you’re familiar with,” said the AI.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It would be inaccurate to what you may think,” said the AI. “Please rephrase your question.”
“What year is it on the calendar used here?” I asked.
“635,” said the AI.
“Why is there a different calendar?” I asked.
“Because the front arrived here 635 years ago and set up the calendar,” said the AI. “It’s the first calendar to be set up on this planet.”
“What?” I asked. “What happened to the Georgian calendar? The Sumerian calendar?”
“The Sumerian calendar won’t be set up for 533,001 years,” said the AI.
“Wait… what?” I asked. I was deeply confused about what he had said. 533,001 years? From the time I’m stuck in?? I sat up against the wall, shocked and confused as ever. Those soldiers were… aliens? They look very human. I thought aliens would look more… you know… alien, but there was one thing in particular I was most confused about.
“Wouldn’t there be traces of this front in my time?” I asked.
“The front leaves in 1006 years from the time you are in right now, making sure to take with it all traces of its presence, which will still be 531,995 years before the Sumerian calendar is set up,” said the AI.
“Why did they leave?” I asked.
“I am not allowed to answer that question,” said the AI.
“Are they coming back?”
“I am not allowed to answer that question,” said the AI.
I don’t have much time to think. All my classmates are being harassed by creatures by the sound of it. Soon, I will be going through the same thing. I’m still confused about this whole ordeal, but it doesn’t matter anyway. I won’t be able to understand the dominant language here anytime soon. Bottom line is, over 500,000 years ago, totalitarian aliens lived on Earth and wiped all traces of them having been around when they left for whatever reason. And AIs can tell the future… unless he just traveled through time to get his information from his future.
Oh god… what if the aliens were to return? They’ve been gone for so long by even the 21st Century AD, but that could mean anything… all my hairs were standing up. If I get out of here alive, I really hope I die before they come back. In my experience, they’ve risen red flag after red flag treating my classmates and I this way. I dread doing this a second time.
The AI just asked me who I was texting. I told him I’m writing about my experience. He offered to let me post to the internet in my time, through a sort of time traveling signal. I took the offer and will be posting this to Reddit in my present. r/nosleep specifically. I plan on submitting this at 3 PM ET on April 27, 2023. AD, of course.
One of the creatures just barged into the room. Seeing it in reality is far more terrifying than seeing a picture of it. This one is shaped like a worm with its mouth at its tip. What’s worse is it’s currently chewing one of my classmates up like a coyote. Their legs just fell out of the creature’s mouth… I just threw up in my mouth a little.
This sinking feeling might be the last thing I ever feel. I have no where to run to at all, so goodbye.