Definitely aliens

*beep beep beep

*beep beep beep

Reaching over to the side of his bed John slapped his alarm clock until it shut up.

John rubbed his eyes before quickly jumping up and shouting.

“Aliens!”

He wondered if it was all a dream.

“But it all felt so real. And scary…”

Looking down, right beside his alarm clock was a small black rectangular device with several unmarked buttons from top to bottom. The side of the device was adorned with a glowing green battery icon running the length of the device.

‘It wasn’t a dream!’ John silently exclaimed as he examined the [Alien Device].

“Those aliens sure were odd but in the end they gifted me a nice device with some unexplained powers.”

John’s motto was ‘no harm no foul’ so he left the bizarre incident at that and picked up the device.

Scratching his head, John turned the device over in his hands and examined it closely. The glowing green battery icon was completely full which probably meant it was fully charged. Each button on the device was a different color so once he figured out what they did he should be able to remember their functions easily.

Shrugging “I suppose I should test this thing out!”

John walked over to his window and looked out. Being on the second story of his house meant he could see the whole block from this vantage point.

“What did that damn shadow say again? ‘Some changes and consequences can be difficult to undo once done.’? I guess I should be careful then.

Looking across the street John saw his neighbor doing some yoga stretches on top of a pink mat on her porch.

‘Test subject #1!’ John silently pumped his fist in the air.

Her name was Laura and she was somewhere in her mid-40’s but looked 10 years younger. All that yoga made for a tight body judging by the form fitting exercise clothing she was currently wearing. Her long dirty blonde hair was done up in a ponytail and swung back and forth as she shifted position. As she stretched John couldn’t help but ogle her moderately sized chest and ass. John didn’t know much about her. He’d seen a guy or two go in and out of her house occasionally on his way home from work or when he was outside doing stuff, but he didn’t think she was married and she didn’t seem like a one-night stand type of woman with the few interactions he had with her.

Pointing the device across the street John pressed the first button.

‘I hope this thing has a further signal range than my TV remote.’ he thought.

Laura who was stretching in a t-pose with her right leg up suddenly went slack, dropping her pose and standing straight. She vacantly stared in front her.

Puzzled, John watched her for a minute before throwing on some decent clothes. ‘Did it work? Is standing in place considered a ‘change’? What if I just mind-wiped my neighbor and turned her into a vegetable? What if my neighbor thinks she’s a tree?’ A million thoughts were running through his head until he finally crossed the street and was standing right in front of her.

John waved and greeted her. “Hey Laura!”

She was standing straight and blankly stared at nothing in particular and didn’t respond.

“Hellooo?”

Still nothing.

John stared quizzically at her and ran his hand through his hair. He was at a loss for what to do. He could try pressing other buttons but he was afraid of making the problem worse.

“Come on Laura, just respond to me so I know you’re all right.”

“Okay.” she responded flatly.

‘She said something!’ he inwardly said.

“Huh? I mean, you’re okay?”

“Yes. I am fine.”

She was still unmoving and had an expressionless face but this was definitely an improvement even if she sounded like a robot.

“Can you explain what you’re doing, Laura?”

“Yes. I was doing yoga but I suddenly stopped and now I am standing here.”

“Do you know why you’re standing here, Laura?”

“No.”

She only responded to John’s questions and did nothing else.

Thinking about what to do next John pointed the [Alien Device] at her and pressed the first red button again.

Laura immediately began blinking and looking around with a questioning gaze. Then she let out an “eek!” and jumped back in fright.

“W-what’s going on?! You’re my neighbor, John, right? Why are you here? What happened?! How did you appear in front of me all of a sudden?!”

John pressed the button red button again and Laura returned to her previous state.

“Laura.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

John thought about all the movies he’d seen and stories he’d read throughout his life and began to get excited and list out variables in his head. ‘This appears to be a trance-like state. [Alien Device]. “Some changes and consequences can be difficult to undo once done.” The evidence from this first button’s power could only be one thing if his hypothesis and experience reading fictional stories was correct.

John grinned and did a little dance. “Hypnosis baby!!”

He had to be sure so he decided on a little test.

“Laura, I am your private yoga instructor that you hired recently. Forget that you were shocked to see me a moment ago. You are completely comfortable around me and not surprised that I am here, understand?”

“Yes.” she replied flatly.

I pointed the [Alien Device] at her again and pressed the red button.

She blinked a few times and cracked a beautiful smile when she saw me.

“John! I’m glad you’re finally here! I hope you don’t mind that I got started without you? When I arranged for you to be my yoga instructor I forgot to tell you when to come over. It was stupid on my part.” She playfully smacked her head

“Oh, that’s totally fine. I saw you practicing and ran right over. No problem. By the way, can you tell me when you hired me?”

“You don’t remember me asking you a few nights ago when you were outside practicing your handstand?” Laura asked.

John picked up on an important detail. It appears as though whatever change he makes to the person while they’re in trance will cause them to rationalize the change in whatever way their brain can make sense of, going as far as implanting fake memories in their head. After all, John has never done yoga in his life let alone a handstand. He could also see this getting tricky depending on the change he makes. False memories could work in his favor but could also cause some problems if he messed up some details or phrased a command poorly.

“Oh, I was just testing your memory, silly! You’re the one that forgot to tell me when to train you.” John laughed.

Laura laughed too. “I guess you got me there!”

John lifted the [Alien Device] yet again and hit the red button putting Laura into a trance.

He didn’t want to put up with the yoga instructor act any longer and began to think again. What did he want to do now? He could do practically anything he wanted and this was only first of many buttons on the [Alien Device]! Should he try more hypnosis? Experiment with the other buttons? For that matter, he didn’t even need to stay with Laura when there were so many other people in the world to use this wonderful [Alien Device] on.