I saw the orange light.

About a week and a half ago I was walking my dog.

 I don't sleep at night, for all I keep trying. So I've this habit of walking my dog somewhere between 3 am and 6 am on occasion. It really depends on how much I have to do - just because I'm not sleeping at night doesn't mean I'm wasting my time tossing and turning or watching TV. My broken sleeping mechanism is one of the reasons why I'm self-employed, so basically I work graveyard.

 This time when I left I was pretty sure I left at 5 in the morning. I remember expecting the sun to rise at any minute, or perhaps I was under the impression it was already rising. The thing here is I can't really remember my mood when I left the house, that some vague idea of my feelings on the matter.

 I decided to only walk around the neighborhood, so around and around I went. It was still dark out, so at one point I happened to stop and look up to the stars. That's when I saw it: the orange bright object coming down at a direct vertical angle from the sky. It wasn't directly over me. It looked like it might have been over the neighboring town, which is about 15 minutes from my house.

 I remember a sense of panic when I saw it, because I knew it wasn't an airplane and there I was outside and completely vulnerable. But the panic was iced over with a plastic calm, as if I wasn't supposed to feel that panic. But it was there.

I watched the light descend for about thirty seconds and started walking back to the house. I rounded a corner and looked at the sky again. The light was gone.

 When I got home, I was very disorientated about what time it was and this annoyed me. The clocks read 3:30 or so, and I felt like they should have read after 5. It was still dark and I couldn't get it out of my head that this was wrong. It should have been light outside.

 Two days later - probably last Saturday (a week ago) or so - I woke up very very dehydrated with severe vertigo. I had to go to the hospital. Two days after that I noticed the yellowing bruises all over my body. They were fingertip shapes, but way too small to be from my hands.

 I told my husband. But beyond that, who am I going to tell?