The stars tell us our future. They’re rarely correct, but yet there they are, blathering on, night after night. Welcome to Night Vale.

###

At the foot of a sandy hill, a woman explains to her son what a flower is. She's pointing at an orange starburst atop a squat, bulbous cactus. She says "Flowers are beautiful, aren't they?"

I cannot hear what her son says.

She answers "Because bees like beautiful things, and flowers want the bees to take their pollen - that little bit of yellow powder, right down there, inside - and give it to other plants, so that they can grow up and be beautiful, too."

There's a long pause, and then she says "Nature wants to make more and more beauty all the time. That's all it wants to do. If it is not beautiful, it cannot live."

She is upset at her son's next question.

"Humans wish to make beauty too, but not for nature." she snaps. "They want computers and airplanes and factories. Oh! Benny, don't touch...."

She sighs. Then she says, "The cactus hurt you, didn't it? The cactus knows you are human, and it does not want you to touch it. And now it has let you know that. You won't touch it again, will you? No, Benny. You won't."

Underneath the scant shade of a dilapidated wing of an MD-90 aircraft, a middle-aged man tells another middle-aged man about a time he went to New Orleans. He thought the French Quarter was too crowded, and the jazz scene overrated, so he drove east, along the upper neck of the Mississippi Delta to a swamp shack, where he paid a man 50 dollars to take him on a hovercraft to look at alligators. "Such majestic and hideous creatures," the middle-aged man says to the other. "You know, when I was little, I cried thinking about how I would never see a real life dinosaur. All the world had left were bones. But right there in southern Louisiana, lay dozens of living dinosaurs.

"It's an extraordinary world, when you finally realize that all life is magic," he says.

The other middle-aged man had heard the story dozens of times, but still he replies, "I hear you. I hear you."

A young woman thinks about a job interview she never attended. She is happy without that job, yet she feels regret for what could have been. "I cannot imagine myself behind a desk making spreadsheets and memos," she says to no one, "But I cannot imagine a 5-dimensional horse, nor the width of the void, nor the language of whales. I cannot imagine a lot of things. But the pay. The pay would have been pretty good."

Behind a blighted Palo Verde tree, hidden between lush acacia shrubs, two teenage boys kiss for the 50th time or so. It is brief, as one stops to look around, on alert for overbearing parents. They kiss for the 51st time or so, and then laugh, their fingers clumsily fumbling over each other, trying to decide on the perfect grip, the perfect touch. They melt like marshmallows in the flame of inexperienced joy. This moment in their lives is as pure and powerful as they have ever felt, and may ever feel again.

My mind is crowded with voices, with people living their lives. All day, listeners, these are their stories. They are eating fruit and playing cards. They are arguing about who said what and when. They are meditating and conversing, retelling old shows and books they remember from when they had such things.

A copy of Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants was found in a suitcase 7 years ago, and everyone in the group has read it at least once. Someone mutters that they used to have a copy of Karen Russell's Swamplandia. It was in her purse when they landed here, but someone won't own up to stealing it. Another says the book might have been used to make a fire one night, because whoever made the fire might have thought the owner was done reading it. Hypothetically.

It's been several days since the voices came into my head, and at first it was new and interesting, but already I have grown tired of it. I do not know how Amelia Anna Alfaro lived her whole life with these sounds in her mind. It's unceasing, and I've not gotten much sleep. The teenage lovers sneak away each night to hold hands and talk big dreams underneath the moon. It's sweet and romantic, but at 2am? Give it a rest, boys.

I try to talk back, but none of the voices can hear me. It's like asking the rain to return to its cloud.

###

But when I talk to Carlos, the voices go away. Thankfully, I have my greatest peace when I am with my favorite person. I can't keep Carlos awake at all hours, or have him skip work to be with me, so I have to learn to make peace with the voices, as they are noisy but permanent roommates in my brain now.

I do have news to report, but it's mostly stuff you already know about. The high school baseball team has tryouts on Saturday. The Library is doing open mic poetry nights on Tuesdays at 7, and we know it's a trap. Don't do it unless you're well-armed. And the Opera House is extending it's run of Verdi’s 2 Fast, 2 Furious, starring Renee Fleming and Brynn Terfel (Brinn TURF-ull), through the end of the month.

It's hard to concentrate on reading these news stories with so much other language running through my head.

Like this. There's a guy who's complaining about metal scraps that haven't been cleaned, and the woman he's talking to is explaining that they are conserving water for drinking. And the guy is saying that it's unsanitary to make dining utensils out of dirty metal. And she replies that they're not making any more forks or spoons. They don't need any more forks or spoons. They need knives. But not for eating.

What am I supposed to do with this information? It’s been going on nonstop for days. You cannot possibly understand what it's like to listen to someone you don't know, who you've never even met, who you can't even see, ramble on and on about their boring personal life straight into your head. It's awful.

I can hear another person saying he found something. Good for you, pal. Way to find another rock or stick, or lizard or whatever. Wait.

[in Doug Biondi's voice] "We have found It," the voice says.

I know this voice. It's the first voice that's been familiar to me. Where do I know that voice? He is saying, "First we found you. You who are No Where. Now have we found It."

And other men are barking in agreement. Listeners, that voice is Doug Biondi, from the Asylum. And the voices around him are the agents from the National Safety and Transportation Bureau, all of whom escaped the Night Vale Asylum two months ago. They are in No Where, in an otherworld desert standing near a door, attached to no building, not far from a passenger jet, long since rotted away. A jet that has been home to 143 passengers and crew members. One of those 143: The Pilot.

Asylum Warden Charles Rainier warned us of this. He had been a passenger on that plane. He became part of a small commune that grew into an angry cult under the leadership and telepathic influence of The Pilot. Charles told us that The Pilot would find those who could help him find Night Vale, help him find the real world, and Doug Biondi knows the way back. The Pilot found Doug, and Doug found the Pilot. "I know the way," Doug Biondi says, laughing the laugh of a man whose smile is too big for his face.

###

At the foot of a sandy hill, a mother tells her son it is time. "Stop crying, Benny. Stop crying so that there will be more flowers, more beauty."

Underneath the scant shade of a dilapidated wing of an MD-90 aircraft, two middle-aged men argue over which handmade axe is sharper. At last they agree that the one crafted from the rudder flap and held together with a fan belt is the better blade. "No you take it," one says. "No I insist, you. I'm happy to use this smaller axe," the other says, "because it is easier to manage, what with my back spasms."

And behind a blighted Palo Verde tree, hidden between lush acacia shrubs, two teenage boys kiss the way you kiss when you think it may be your last. They whisper impossible promises, and raise high their rusty shovels: the spades’ tips having already been sharpened to deadly points. They race toward the gathering crowd.

A young woman who thinks often about the job interview she never attended shouts "Nature is beauty!" "We are beauty," replies another woman. They repeat these calls. "Nature is beauty. We are beauty." And now every voice in my head is chanting the phrases. Chanting and chanting and chanting. It's too.... It's too much.

[pause]

Silence. They are silent suddenly. My head is clear. I can think my own thoughts.

###

Night Vale, I'm getting word that Sheriff Sam is barring all known passages into our town. This includes roads, trails, sewer grates, even the dog park, which is not officially an entrance to the desert otherworld, but let's be honest.

We're on lockdown, Night Vale. No one enters or leaves. Good. This is good.

If the voices can reach me, they can reach any of us. In fact, if the voices can enter my mind, then the Pilot and passengers of flight 18713 may well already be here. Some of them anyway.

Or maybe the voices come and go. This is the first moment of silence I've had alone in nearly a week. Maybe the voices aren't always there. Like radio signals as you leave a city, or a cell phone in an elevator, maybe the voices can't permeate us under certain conditions.

Or maybe... or maybe the voices are silent because they are listening. Maybe they are listening to their leader. Their pilot. Who is giving instructions on what to do next, when and where to attack.

I don't know, but I must use my moment of clarity to tell you some news.

###

Nope. The voices are back. A single voice is back. I know without knowing that it is the voice of the Pilot. He says:

[was thinking of this as formal but friendly "pilot voice," like seatbelt announcements]

"HI THERE. THIS IS YOUR PILOT SPEAKING. JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT NATURE IS BEAUTY. WE ARE BEAUTY. WE PROPAGATE OUR POLLEN. WE SPREAD OUR SEEDS. WE GROW NEW LIFE OVER OLD LIFE. WE CLEANSE THE TOXINS OF TECHNOLOGY. WE DEPOSE THE HUMAN KING AND RETURN NATURAL INSTINCT TO ITS RIGHTFUL THRONE.

"IF YOU CAN HEAR MY VOICE THEN YOU ARE CHOSEN. YOU ARE CHOSEN TO JOIN. ALL WHO JOIN ARE NATURE. ALL WHO JOIN ARE BEAUTY. ALL WHO REFUSE WILL BE RECYCLED INTO THE EARTH, DESTROYED AND DISPERSED TO FERTILIZE NEW, MORE BEAUTIFUL LIFE.

"ALL THOSE WHO ARE BEAUTIFUL ARE CHOSEN. ALL THOSE WHO ARE NOT ARE A CANCER. BLIGHT. INFECTION AND DISEASE. ALL WHO ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL WILL BE CUT AWAY - AMPUTATED - SO THAT THE EARTH'S WOUNDS MAY FINALLY HEAL. SO THE EARTH MAY GROW BEAUTIFUL ONCE AGAIN.

WE HAVE BEEN FOUND AND WE WILL RETURN. OPEN THE GATES TO FREEDOM. END THE TYRANNY OF ARTIFICE.

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW. WE'LL BE ARRIVING IN JUST A FEW MOMENTS, NIGHT VALE. THERE IS GOING TO BE SOME TURBULENCE."

[normal Cecil]

I'm sorry listeners. I did not mean to do that. I did not want to do that. The voice of The Pilot overtook me, and... I need to lock myself inside the studio. I have to protect you from me. But first, the weather.

#WEATHER: “A Prayer for the Sane” by Danny Schmidt#

I brought Carlos to the studio. When I talk to Carlos, I don't hear the voices of the passengers from 18713. I don't hear the voices even now, as I look directly at Carlos while I am speaking. Like Charles Rainier's fishing hole or Amelia Anna Alfaro's puzzles, Carlos grounds me, lets me be wholly me. Thank you, Carlos.

I also had Carlos bring a pair of handcuffs with him... that he bought... at... Target... on his way to the station... and use them to shackle me to my desk. If Charles Rainier is correct, then once The Pilot can speak to you, he can control you. And if that should happen - it won't happen - but if it should, then now I won't be able to leave here and do harm to anyone else.

From my window I can see, far down the street, a spiral of black smoke. There are flashes of emergency sirens. Now I can see people coming up the road. They are long-haired, sun-scorched and nearly naked, wearing not much more than flat, wide-brimmed hats and short tunics fashioned from seat upholstery. These people are carrying large blades roughly honed from scrap metal. Some have whittled down pieces of plexiglass windows into sharp points and tied them to the ends of long sticks.

They're deliberately walking up the hoods of parked cars, smashing windows and caving in the roofs with their bare feet.

It is no doubt that the passengers of 18713 are here, Night Vale. If you can hear me, stay inside, and lock your doors. If you can hear The Pilot, then do as I have done, secure your position, so securely that not even your own mind can talk you out of it.

Sheriff Sam has stubbornly kept up all roadblocks in and out of town, so we have no choice but to stay. The long, unmoving lines of traffic at the edges of the city are easy prey now for the 18713.

The Pilot offered a choice of joining or refusing, but it is not a choice, not really. He either can control you or he cannot. Those whom he cannot control will be killed at the hands of those who can.

Carlos, you don't hear the Pilot's voice and thus cannot be controlled. But I do. And I can. I have been controlled. We're in trouble Carlos. I can't stay chained to this desk forever. Can I? And if The Pilot means to destroy you, he might make me do it myself. Just promise me you'll run? Leave me behind if that happens. Okay? Okay.

But for now, do not let me out of these cuffs. Not even if I use a safeword... which I hear is something quite a few people use in healthy, fun, intimate relationships.

The people of 18713 are climbing up store fronts and tearing off signs. I see about 10 or 15 in normal street clothes in the crowd now, which means the group is growing. They are recruiting quickly. But something else is eating at me. In the Asylum, in Doug Biondi's journal, and among the myriad voices in my mind, I still have not seen nor heard Amelia Anna Alfaro, the first person to make contact with the Pilot. She disappeared in 2012, and no one has heard from her since. I need to find her somehow. If anyone can solve this, it might be her. She was always the best at everything.

Stay tuned next for the sound of me talking to Carlos forever and ever.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

###

PROVERB: People who live in glass houses shouldn't hire that realtor again.