The Horton Dilemma [ONC 2022]

LIZARD PEOPLE HAVE INFILTRATED PORTLAND

A few days later, I'm walking around Portland. Every day since the trip, I've been trying to make sense of what I saw, but I can't seem to come to terms with it being a product of altered brain waves.

The details of my trip are hazy, but the ones that remain continue to permeate my thoughts:

There was a reptile. He lived in a world beyond ours. In a universe beyond ours, if you could even call it that, which you can't, not really. Levels above us. Another plane of existence.

He took my curiosity. I gave it to him.

Was that a good idea? What will he do with it?

My hand goes to my stomach, where my palm and fingers rest. I can almost feel something inside—something made of red strands, the essence of me, something that has been torn apart by my own hands, plucked and sucked, a piece now missing.

Maybe I need to eat.

My legs glide me along to my favorite ecotarian restaurant, when I hear a voice saying, "The lizard people are here in Portland! Make no mistake: they have infiltrated—"

"What?" I say a bit too eagerly, approaching the woman speaking, who is holding a stack of papers. Fervently, she hands me a flyer and begins talking a mile a minute.

"They've infiltrated our president. Make no mistake: President McAnderson is a puppet of the deep state reptilian society. She's been possessed, she has. Drank the plasma of children as part of her ritual. Keeps her beauty youthful."

I quickly skim the flyer's contents:

Reptiles from the Alpha Draconis star system continue to wreak havoc on Earth by possessing or posing as humans. With their shapeshifting abilities, these creatures have infiltrated the elite rungs of humanity: the powerful, the wealthy, the seemingly "intelligent," and the famous.

For more info, go to learnthetruetruth.com. Don't be a puppet of the reptilian deep state—learn to live above reptilian influence.

My eyes look up from the flyer at the woman, who is looking at me intently, probably gauging how much I am eating this up. Sudden embarrassment hits me.

"They're everywhere," she says, nearly screaming. "The wealthy—the powerful. All lizard people. It's not just the president. Ashley Dicaprio. Loren Gates. Gordon Goby."

My right eyebrow rises at the mention of my future employer. "Gordon Goby?"

"His upcoming mission to Mars is a disguised attempt to bring humans to Alpha Draconis, where the lizards can consume them."

I nearly burst into laughter. This isn't new information to me—I've heard before that people think Goby is possessed by one of these shape-shifting lizards; I've just never entertained the idea for more than a second. And in those brief, disconnected seconds, I've always thought the Mars theory sounds ridiculous. Why wouldn't the lizards just eat us here on Earth, since they're apparently already here? Do they really want to eat astronauts, who are known for being lean and probably chewy and less flavorful as a result? If their end goal is to eat us, why not just travel here and enslave the lot of us? Through enslavement, they could farm us, raise us, reproduce us for their nutrient pleasures. God, I can't believe I'm listening to this woman! 

Thank goodness she hasn't recognized me, or else she would probably be trying to convince passersby that I am a reptile. Would she think I was a woman possessed or a lizard in disguise?

You're losing your shit, Izzy, I tell myself. You just allowed yourself to be taken in by a conspiracy theorist on Market Street spouting age-old theories about Lizard people. I nod to the woman so she might think I buy this bullshit and thus won't try to convince me further, and then I walk away, throwing the flyer into the nearest garbage can and hoping multiple people can see me so I stop feeling so embarrassed for looking so gullible. I can't believe my desire to learn about them made me think some person on the street—some person who thinks our president is being controlled by some reptilian overlord—was worthy of my time.