Rick and Martha drove up to the hilltop that they frequently used to go to in the days from when they were courting. It had usually been quite dark and mild on nights when they would have gone up there all those years ago as it also is on this particular evening. Yeah, it has been some time since they last came here. Recent reminiscing has brought about this special trip to a special place that holds so many special memories, how life had been back then, how it is now.

The city lights stretched out before and below them as they sat parked in the same spot in which they would have parked many moons ago. This night, however, would be such a different night to the ones they were used to having.

Rick’s hair may be a little shorter now, gone grey and receding a little, his tummy a little larger than it previously had been when he last had been on that hilltop way back when, but right at this moment, he couldn’t help but feel young once again. To Rick, Martha looked just as beautiful as she did the last time to which they were together in this place looking down over the city though in truth, she had gotten … older too.

Their time of remembrance would be interrupted quite early on by a low-level humming noise that would have them question their surroundings. This low-level hum quickly intensified to an almost defining hum, and just as this occurs, a large oval disk-shaped object travels in the sky at great speed from way out in front of them to come directly above them before slowly passing on behind them and coming to a halt.

Just like something out of a sci-fi movie, a blinding bright white light begins to emanate from the object hovering in the sky, and soon this light surrounds both Rick and Martha despite the fact that they have locked themselves into the car in fear of what may occur.

The light has come to be so strong, and it surrounds them so, that they cannot see anything other than the light itself. In the blink of an eye, they are somewhere else, and as the light settles a little, everything becomes fragmented from here on in until it settles completely. Something is happening, or has happened, hasn’t it?

With this light being so bright, it was difficult for either of them to see anything at all, but when they could see something, it would be something beyond anything they could have ever imagined.

What it was they saw, or thought they saw, were small dark silhouette human-like shadows, many dark silhouette human-like shadows, except whatever they were, they were not human. These silhouettes moved towards them in a manner as if they were preparing to perform an examination. Rick lay on a table-like slab looking across at Martha as she lay unconscious on another table-like slab only just ten feet away.

He tried to reach for her, though to move at all was a struggle. More dark shadows moved amongst them. If panic hadn’t already set in prior to this point, then it had now. Roaring, screaming, and calling out for Martha, were all too such a struggle. All that took place over a lengthy time that it felt like it may never end, but it had also only been a second or two, hadn’t it?

There would be another blink of an eye moment after which Rick suddenly found himself back sitting in the driver’s seat of his own car. Had anything happened at all?

The heavens had opened up, and a torrential downpour of rain would begin to fall. Alone in his car, Rick’s thoughts were with Martha, but where was she? Where was it that he had gone to? Something had happened, but surely it had not been real. What had actually happened?

‘Martha,’ spoke Rick quietly, looking around his car. ‘Martha,’ he spoke again, this time with more of a panic.

A digital clock within the car told him that ninety minutes had passed since the whole incident began. What? Ninety minutes? He gets out of the car, not caring for the weather, and he begins to search a search for Martha, which would ultimately prove to be futile. Where is she?

There was no oval-shaped object in the sky. Had it actually been there at all? There was, or is, no bright light. There were or are no small dark silhouette human-like shadows, and there definitely is no Martha. Minutes passed quickly; Martha is nowhere to be seen at all. Beaten and bruised by the onslaught of Mother Nature, Rick returns to the car and with no idea of what to do next other than to return home where he would discover that not only had minutes passed as the car digital clock had indicated but three days and nights had also passed.

This cannot be right. None of it can. It had only seemed like moments since he and Martha had left for the hilltop, and now, he is back at home and without the love of his life with the nightly news on television stating it is three days after what he was sure it should be.

Police had been called. With all that has happened, Rick needed to do … something. He did not know how to describe the abduction that resulted in Martha’s disappearance, though that is what he was sure all of this was, some sort of abduction. Alien or staged, Martha is gone.

At the risk of sounding insane, Rick described the events he witnessed exactly as he remembered and also explained that neither he nor Martha had been drinking or indulging in any kind of substance abuse, either illegal or non-illegal. They had never abused substances in youth, so why the hell would they do so now?

A week passes, and all involved were none the wiser as to where Martha may or may not be or as to what may have happened the night she disappeared. Police, detectives, family, and friends were all at a complete and utter loss for how to proceed. Rick has always loved his wife, family, and friends are sure he has not snapped in any way to a point where any wrongdoing could have occurred.

With no idea of what to do next, Rick returned alone to that hilltop. The weather was calm, and darkness had begun to fall. Just like the week before, not long after arriving on the hilltop, a low-level humming noise began to sound. Despite all the years his life had accumulated, Rick quickly got out of the car and moved onto its roof, getting himself into a kneeling position and throwing his arms high in the air, as if to say … ‘take me,’ or ‘give me back my wife.’

The humming intensified as a large oval-shaped object moved quickly from way out in the distance to move right over Rick’s head and come to a halt not all so far behind him. A blinding white light once again surrounded him, and like the last time, Rick soon found himself lying on a table in a bright white room.

When he looked over at the close-by table, Martha had been laying on a week earlier. Rick was shocked at what he was to see this time around. Martha once again was lying on that other table, but she looked just as Rick remembered she looked at the time when they were courting and not someone, who like himself, had come to be a senior citizen.

This is not possible. How she looks sop happens to be an actuality and not just a memory. With yet another blink of an eye moment, Rick all of a sudden found himself back in his car.

‘Martha,’ he said softly before turning his head to look to the seat next to him. She was in the car with him, still with the youthful look that she had in the brightly lit room. What she saw when she looked at Rick was the equivalent of what he saw in her. He too, had a youthful appearance. It was as if they both had physically become forty-plus years younger.

‘Rick …’ she speaks with delight. ‘I was so worried … you have been gone for a week …’

‘I’ve been gone a week? … What? Wait …’

Two lovers embrace … for they mean the world to one another. Soon they would move on and return home together, with their youthful look intact. As with before, another three days had passed since Martha had made her way back up that hilltop, just as Rick had a week prior, just as they both had a week prior to that.

Police and doctors were baffled … are baffled. Family and friends are baffled. Rick and Martha are in perfect health and in the prime of their lives. It was just as if they were granted a new lease on life.

They both have become as young and as strong as they had been all those years earlier. Every once in a while, from here on in, Rick and Martha return back to that hilltop, for who knows? Maybe in another forty years or so from here, the same thing may just happen all over again …