It was dark. He heard strange, chittering voices close by. What happened? He remembered rain, headlights, a guardrail, and then . . .

He was still in the car. He wasn’t alone. Shapes moving, and those voices . . . words he couldn’t understand. Then a head loomed over him, eyes giving off a pale reflection in the night.

“You awake?” a reedy voice asked. “You come?”

Something was odd about the shape of that head, the shape of those words, the shape of his windshield. In his mental fog, all he could mutter was a hoarse, “Where?”

It seemed to suffice as an answer. A flash of steel in the night, and his seat belt fell away. He found himself outside a twisted heap of metal. Behind him, the low drone of highway traffic. Ahead, starlit darkness into which those small, strange figures were retreating. The last one stopped short, looked back. “You come,” they repeated. He wasn’t sure if it was a question or a command.

He followed anyway. Grass gave way to trees, the sounds of civilization faded. Occasionally, trees parted, allowing moonlight to revealed his companion plainly. Green skin, pointed ears, sharp smiles.

Thrilled and terrified, he continued into the darkling unknown.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox