I don't know how you'll receive this message, but you need to wake up.

Those were the words I found plastered on my television screen.

I was mere moments from drifting off to sleep. My wife lay peacefully in my lap.

She'd already fallen into a peaceful slumber as we watched an old gangster movie that had

dragged on for a bit too long. Still, the words alone were enough to jolt me back to attention.

They just lingered there on a plain black screen. After a few seconds of staring, the text changed.

Please wake up, screen said. It was just past midnight, which was an issue all on its own,

as I had work in the morning. But on the other hand, I wasn't entirely convinced I hadn't fallen

into sleep. It might just have been an odd dream. But then the text changed again.

Wake up, Devon Larson. That wasn't my name. Nor was it the name of anyone I knew.

It was just a random bunch of letters thrown at my screen, interrupting my leisure time.

I looked over at the time, an old grandpa clock with hand-carved symbols had never been

able to decipher. It read 254 am, meaning almost three hours had passed since the first message

popped up on the television. Yet to me, only a single moment had gone by. By then,

panic had started to rise within my body, but gently shook my wife, trying to wake her up.

Mary, please look at this, I almost begged. She let out a quiet groan of resistance,

but didn't wake up. As I stared at her peacefully lying there, my mind started to drift back to

our first date. We'd met on the pier at the beach. Her hat had blown into the water,

and in a futile attempt at impressing her, I dove in after it. On my way back, I slipped on the rocks,

and she laughed as I tried to get back up. She thanked me, and we had a nice cream cone

together. It was a perfect day, almost unreal. Why that thought intruded my distressed mind?

I didn't know. In a way, it felt as if my mind was trying to repress what I'd just seen.

...