Disoriented, I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes as I propped myself up on my left elbow. This cannot be right. I rubbed my eyes again but the six figures did not disappear. As my vision focused, six became three. Slowly, the details started to form. The texture of their skin was a leathery, bluish-gray. Their eyes bulged out of their heads, the size of golf balls and their fingers were long and knobby. It looked like they had a few too many knuckles but they were pretty much the spitting image of ET.
Terror wrapped its hand around my heart but I forced myself to calm down. What if they could hear it beating in my ribcage? It was so loud and persistent, like a Japanese taiko. So loud and persistent that I was scared my own heart was going to betray me. Yet the aliens just continued to regard me with what I slowly recognized to be curiosity. For a few moments that felt like eternity, we stayed like that, the four of us looking dumbly at one another.
Suddenly, the alien on the far left poked me with it’s knobby finger and I let out a surprised yelp that startled them all. They jumped back half a step but kept their gaze glued on what they must have thought was the strange alien in the bed. Heads tilted from side to side as we stared each other down. I was fully awake by now. So this really was happening. I glanced at the red, vintage clock with twin bells that I kept at my bedside table. It was 3 a.m. in the morning. God…think! I had absolutely no idea what to do. For the first time in my life, I was at a loss for words. Surely, I must be dreaming…and if I was dreaming, then I had nothing to lose. This was my narrative and I had full control of it.
“Ummm…hi,” I managed lamely as I sat up against the plush, cream headboard of my queen bed.
The aliens only looked even more…amused? The three of them regarded each other with those big, bulging, black eyes that reminded me of the eyes of a pug or a chihuahua. It looked as though someone had slapped them on the back of their heads and their eyes had almost successfully escaped their sockets. However, what worried me more was the look of knowing that passed between them. It looked as though they were communicating with each other telepathically.
“Greetings, human. We hail from the Andromeda Galaxy,” the alien in the middle said. Except, his lips hadn’t moved. I froze as realization dawned on me. The voice had abruptly emerged in my mind. How did he do that? How did I know it was coming from the alien in the middle? As if he could read my mind, the alien who spoke to me lifted a hand in an awkward wave.

Hope you enjoyed that little, whimsical piece I submitted for my ghostwriter application! When I was informed I would be getting paid $1 per 100 words, I decided I was worth more than that and promptly dropped the application process midway.