Hysteria by James D. Irwin

The gathered crowd didn't seem very excited. In fact at least one man seemed to be yawning. Everyone else was gazing at little tiny screens in the palms of their hands. He thought maybe the site of an alien from a distant planet might provoke some hysteria, but nobody much seemed to care.

The unearthly traveller wondered around for a while, and tried unsuccessfully to get into this Game of Thrones show everyone seemed to be talking about. After two weeks he got bored of waiting for someone to show any interest in him, gave up and went home--- taking the secrets of life with him. He was halfway to Jupiter before he realised he'd been under a cloaking device the whole time.

Hysteria by Sara Travis

They’re coming. You’ll see. They’re coming. And when they come, you’d better be prepared. Who knows what sort of technology they’ll have. Stun guns and laser beams and zappy weaponry that will make humans just evaporate. We’re so behind, they’ve got billions of years of experience on us. We think we’re so forward thinking, so technologically minded, so smart, it’ll never happen. That’s what you think, isn’t it? That it’ll never happen. Well, let me tell you something. It’ll happen. It’s already happening. Can’t you see it? It’s everywhere, all the time. They’re watching us. Always. We need to get preparing, we need to protect ourselves. I won’t let them take me. I won’t. They’ll creep into our houses in the middle of the night and take our children, our women, and torture them, experiment on them. I know, I’ve read about it. We need to start now, before it’s too late. Arm ourselves. I’ve built myself a bunker in the garden. There’s a secret doorway in the floor, underneath my – I shouldn’t have told you that. I shouldn’t have told you that. Pretend you didn’t hear that. If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you. I’ll sneak up on you and rip your heart out. I mean it, I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t, because I will. Unless you’re one of them. My God, you’re one of them, aren’t you? You can read my thoughts, can’t you? You’re making me tell you about the door to my bunker under the rockery, aren’t you? Jesus, you’re good. Oh-ho-ho, you’re good. I could be good, too. I could help you. I’ve believed in you my whole life, even when people told me I was mad, even when the boys at school kicked my head in, even when Mum had me stay in that hospital for a month for evaluation. I knew. I’ve always known. I’ve got a sixth sense, I think. I could help you. We could be great, you know. I know things. I know loads of things. Take me with you!

Hysteria by Lesley Whyte

"Did you know that the word hysteria comes from the Latin for woman? Because it was thought that only women could become hysterical? Something to do with their menstruation or lady bits, I didn't fully understand that part. But it's interesting, right? And it must be some comfort to you, I suppose, knowing that none of this is your fault. That you're only hysterical because you're a woman."

I lunged across the table and tried to throttle him. Not because I was hysterical, but because he was being really fucking obnoxious. And he was wrong. Hysteria does not come from the Latin for woman, it comes from the word for uterus. And, actually, I think it's Greek. But whatever. Apparently you can't try to throttle your father and then bite the orderly that tries to restrain you and still have people believe you're sane. What a fucked up world we live in.

Day Twenty-Six

And today's prompt is...

Hysteria