It was a falling dream, only he was falling away from the Earth, his cozy campsite and the surrounding forest rushing away with incredible velocity. Rivulets of light sprang from his flailing limbs, swamp gas green. The moonlight glazed river twisted south, and now he saw the cold white peaks of mountain, yelling as shelves of clouds became smears on a gruebleen sphere.

In the dream he wasn’t so sure was a dream, he turned his gaze and saw there were others like him, emitting a specific spectrum so that each looked like fixed and multi-coloured roman candles spread out in a net around the Earth. Hundreds others. Like him.

From the poles a white light lanced towards the people suspended above the snowy wastes, and spread exponentially from one to the next; each node flared a brilliant incandescent white.

Noah screamed. Something was trying to get out. Halogen alien code leaked from his orifices. Then the vertigo hit. Linked, they were revolving around the planet at an unthinkable speed.

Then, release…