It was not.

I woke up in my bed, my head hurt horribly and I felt nauseous. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. The dream about an alien craft crashing into my yard felt very vivid; I'd never dreamed anything like it before.

I tried to get out of bed, but my foot hit something. It was square and light. I looked up to see what it was, and there on my bed was the strange device that emerged from that metal cylinder. When I touched the screen, several letters from the same unknown language appeared. So I carefully left it on my bed for fear of ruining everything by accidentally touching something, and I quickly got dressed.

Looking out my window at the backyard, my mind stopped for a second. There was no crater or metal cylinder, the lawn was untouched, and I could even see my mother's gnomes.

I hurried down the stairs, in disbelief at what I was witnessing.

But when I walked out the back door, it was true; there wasn't even a trace of damage to the lawn.

I quickly went back to my room to better understand what was happening; the alien device was still there.

But I couldn't study it much further, as I heard someone knocking on my door and had to go downstairs to answer it.

It was Mrs. Jennifer, a neighbor who lives across the street. It's hard to admit, but I usually spied on her from my window. For a 45-year-old, she was in very good shape. Her butt was quite large, her body had gained weight, but the flesh had certainly accumulated in all the right places. I feel somewhat guilty seeing her like that, as she always treated me like her son. She had a very maternal personality and came to babysit me several times when I was a child.

"Hello, Mrs. Jennifer, what brings you here?"

" Oh, hi Andrew, sorry for knocking on your door unexpectedly. It's just that your mom called me to come see you, to see if everything was okay. You know, your parents always trust me with things like this. I know you're a grown man now and can take care of your house, but I figured a little visit wouldn't be amiss, right?

I thought about telling her everything was fine and telling her to leave, but yesterday's events crossed my mind again, and I decided to ask her:

"Now that you mention it, didn't a loud explosion wake you up last night?"

"Explosion? Are you okay? Weren't you hurt?"

"Yeah, don't worry, I'm fine. I just think I dreamed it, but I wasn't sure if that happened or not."

She looked at me with a worried expression.

" Well, if you feel sick, let me know. I have no problem using my car to take you to the hospital. Take care of yourself, dear. I'll be back tomorrow if you need anything.

I went up to my room, a little annoyed. It certainly bothers me when my mother calls the neighbor to come check on me. I'm 23 years old, and I'm more than capable of surviving on my own.

When I got to my room, what appeared to be a notification appeared on the screen of the strange tablet, and I unconsciously pressed the only available button with my finger.

"YOU HAVE ENABLED THE LANGUAGE CHANGE TO ENGLISH. DO YOU WANT TO KEEP THIS SETTING?"

Wow, this is helpful. At least I can understand what this is all about. I moved my finger across the screen and pressed "accept."

The screen displayed a strange menu that read:

"Targets: Jennifer Daniels"

Under my neighbor's name, a rather unusual image of her face appeared. She was smiling like in a driver's license photo. I wonder how this device managed to get a picture of my neighbor.