Dark Skies

The Barrett family — Daniel, Lacey, and their two sons Jesse and Sam — are quietly unraveling under financial pressure in a tidy suburban neighborhood when strange things begin happening overnight. Food is found rearranged into elaborate structures. Hundreds of birds hurl themselves into the house simultaneously. Sam begins describing visits from a figure he calls the Sandman, who comes to him at night and tells him stories.

The incidents grow impossible to explain away. Security footage captures something moving through the house at inhuman speed. The family members begin experiencing blank fugue states — found standing rigid, staring at nothing, with no memory of the episode. Jesse is discovered outside in the dark, scratching marks into his own skin. Doctors find nothing. Psychiatrists find nothing. The family starts to look unstable to everyone around them.

Desperate, Lacey tracks down Edwin Pollard, a quiet, exhausted man who has spent his life documenting cases exactly like theirs. He tells them they've been chosen by an intelligence known as the Greys — beings who observe, condition, and ultimately take. He offers no real hope. Once chosen, the process completes. All you can do is decide who you want to be when it happens.

On the night Pollard predicted, the family barricades themselves in their bedroom — foil on the windows, shotgun in hand, each other held close. The lights go out. Something moves through the dark. When it's over, Jesse is gone.

In the weeks after, Sam seems different — quieter, older. A recording surfaces: Jesse's voice, distant and calm, as if he's somewhere else entirely. The Sandman was never a nightmare. Sam knew all along.