The Stranger in the Bar

Adrian pushed open the creaky wooden door of “The Last Stop”, a small, dimly-lit bar in the heart of the city. The smell of stale beer mixed with cigarette smoke filled the air as he stepped inside. It was the kind of place where regulars sat nursing their drinks in the shadows, each lost in their own world.

As he approached the counter, a man stumbled onto the barstool beside him, reeking of whiskey. His eyes, red-rimmed and half-lidded, darted around the room before settling on Adrian.

“They’re watching us, you know”, the stranger slurred, his voice low and hushed, as if sharing a secret meant only for Adrian’s ears.

Adrian, barely glancing up, offered a polite nod, assuming the man was just another drunk telling tall tales. But the stranger leaned closer, his breath warm and heavy with the scent of alcohol. “The aliens”, he said, tapping his neck with a trembling hand. “They took me… ran tests on me. Right here, at the base of my neck.” He traced an invisible line along his skin.

Intrigued, Adrian couldn’t help but listen as the man launched into his story. According to him, he had been abducted by extraterrestrials who subjected him to strange experiments. They had prodded and scanned him, gathering “data,” as he put it, to understand humanity better. "They’re observing us… studying us. And nobody believes me," he added with a mournful smile.

The bartender and a few patrons chuckled, clearly used to his ramblings. But as Adrian listened, he felt a chill crawl up his spine. There was something unsettling about the man’s insistence, a hint of fear in his eyes that seemed all too real.

###

The Markings

As Adrian was about to dismiss the conversation as the ramblings of a troubled mind, the man’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the counter, unconscious.

In the stillness that followed, Adrian noticed something. On the back of the man’s neck were faint but distinct markings—small, almost geometric shapes that glowed faintly in the bar’s dim light. They looked like scars, yet their shape and placement were disturbingly precise.

The bartender, noticing Adrian’s stare, smirked and wiped the counter where the man had slumped. “Charlie here thinks he’s special,” the bartender said, half-

laughing. “Claims those marks appeared after he was ‘taken’ or whatever. But if you ask me, it’s just a story he keeps spinning for free drinks.”

But Adrian couldn’t shake the feeling. That strange symmetry, the slight glow… something about it felt out of place. "Could they really be scars from some kind of… experiment?" He found himself lost in thought, staring at the stranger as he lay motionless.

###

The Encounter

Later that evening, as Adrian left the bar, he heard a low voice calling out from the alley beside it. He turned to see the stranger from the bar, now awake but visibly shaken.

“You’re the only one who listened,” the man whispered, his face pale in the dim streetlight. “They come at night… they take people no one would notice. They mark us so they can keep track. And once they have what they want, they... they make us forget. But they’re not perfect,” he added, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected something to appear from the shadows. “Sometimes… things slip through.”

Adrian felt a pang of sympathy, but fear too. “Look,” he said gently, “maybe you should get some rest. There are people who can help you.”

The man shook his head frantically. “It’s too late for that,” he whispered. “They’re everywhere, Adrian. They’re watching, and they’re learning.” He turned and melted into the shadows, leaving Adrian alone under the flickering streetlight.

###

The Dream

That night, Adrian went home, feeling unnerved and shaken. He lay in bed, thoughts spinning, until he finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

In his dream, he found himself strapped to a cold metal table under a harsh white light. Strange, shadowy figures moved around him, whispering in a language he couldn’t understand. He felt something cold touch the back of his neck, sending a jolt of pain through his body. He tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Adrian woke up in a cold sweat, his hands instinctively reaching to his neck. The feeling was so vivid, so real, that he spent the next few minutes checking every inch of his neck in the mirror, half-expecting to find the strange markings he had seen on the stranger.

“they take people no one would notice. ” This is what the strange man said. Adrian lived alone - He thought - in a small, dimly lit apartment on the outskirts of town, a space that seemed to reflect the emptiness inside him. His once vibrant social life had withered away over the years, friendships drifting apart like leaves caught in a slow, inevitable breeze. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called just to check on him, or even to make idle conversation.

As for love, that door had been shut firmly behind him. His last relationship ended painfully—she had left, tired of his endless silences, his inability to truly let anyone in. The breakup felt like a confirmation of the isolation he’d felt creeping up for years. Now, he went through each day as if on autopilot, waking up to the hollow quiet of his apartment, eating his meals in silence, then returning to an empty bed at night. The thought would sometimes strike him, as he lay there staring into the darkness: "If I died tonight, would anyone even notice?" His absence would pass

unnoticed, like a shadow slipping away in the night. The thought should have frightened him, but all he felt was a dull resignation, a numbness that had taken root deep within him, rendering him a mere ghost in his own life.

###

The Revelation

The next day, as Adrian tried to shake off the strange dream, he noticed an article in the local paper: *“Man Found Unconscious, Markings on Neck Baffle Doctors.”* The photograph showed the stranger from the bar, lying in a hospital bed, with close-up images of the strange markings on his neck.

Adrian felt his stomach drop. It wasn’t just a drunken story, and it wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Someone—or something—was leaving their mark on people. And as he touched the back of his neck, he couldn’t ignore the sensation that his dream might have been more than just a nightmare.

Would he be next?

###

The End