Arrival

ADIRA

I lost everything that day.

Everything that mattered.

Family.

Friends.

Me.

I lost myself.

Who I was…

Who I am.

What do you become when everything you know is ripped apart?

What do you do when an unbeatable enemy comes to destroy everything you’ve ever known?

We tried to fight.

For once, humanity had a common enemy and all other human problems seemed minuscule in comparison.

We were miniscule.

Governments got on the ball pretty quickly.

Missiles.

Bombs.

Air raids.

Nuclear bombs.

All for…

Nothing.

Nothing we did worked.

Whole cities were leveled.

Bathed in death.

Blood.

Destruction.

Nowhere on Earth was safe.

At least, that’s what I heard before the phones stopped working. Before radio stations were cut off. Before communication was lost.

New York fell.

Los Angeles.

Paris.

London.

Sydney.

Berlin.

My own city was leveled…and then, no more help came…

The fighter jets slowly reduced in number till there were no more.

Tanks lay abandoned in the streets.

The sound of fighting slowly died.

In the recesses of my mind, I want to imagine there’s somewhere safe out there…but even as the aftermath settles in my consciousness, I know this isn’t true.

The orbs…their huge metal legs…they trampled…everything.

And they just kept on going.

It seemed their only purpose was to destroy the single planet we call home.

We were like ants to the metal beasts—for that’s all we know them as.

Giant, metal beasts.

No one knows what’s inside them.

No one knows who controls them, or if the orbs themselves are sentient.

They have no faces. No one has gotten close enough to see inside them.

At least, no one has gotten close enough to survive and tell the tale.

These…machines.

All we know is that they kill us all.

One way or the other.

But maybe those who died in those first few moments were the lucky ones.

They didn’t live to see the horror of what life has become.

It must have been days that I’d been hiding, but it felt like weeks.

Hiding anywhere I could. Alone.

Cellars were the best bet. They were underground.

If the building above crumbled, there was a chance of survival.

But when you find a good shelter, the next thing you have to find is food.

Resources were scarce; it was everyone for themselves.

The other humans I managed to come across, those still surviving, those still free, they were usually only looking out for themselves.

So I did too.

By some miracle, I survived.

I was going to survive.

Again, I was wrong.

It happened one night.

I was sleeping.

The machine…it found me.

I still do not know how.

Something woke me from my sleep.

A noise.

Nestled in the cellar, wrapped in some poor child’s old blanket, I squinted into the darkness.

It only took a second. One second for me to see the reflection of starlight against metal.

But it was too late.

It took me.

A scream tore from my throat as the metal arm closed around me.

I was whipped from my hiding spot, the feel of the ice-cold metal chilling my bones as I was pulled from my hiding spot and brought high into the air.

I’d always known the orbs were huge.

Tall.

Taller than towers.

But being lifted by one sent newfound terror through me.

There hadn’t been any orbs close by when I’d fallen asleep.

They were so big you could see them for miles.

But somehow…this one had found me.

The wind was knocked out of me as it swung me, my body flailing like I was a ragdoll.

It lifted me high in front of itself, as if it was looking at me, and for a moment, I stared back at it.

Tears blinded my vision but hatred burned through.

Pure, raw, hatred.

A scream filled with frustration left my throat as the orb swung me downward.

This was it. It was going to trample me.

Squish me like it did that man in those first few moments.

…but it didn’t.

Instead of killing me, the orb brought me toward itself.

Maybe I was dreaming… Maybe the blood loss had affected my perception of things…but the metal softened and I went right through it.

The machine let go of me and my head hit something hard as I fell.

Soft bodies broke my fall. Some with sharp edges I vaguely realized were bones sticking through skin.

Where was I?

I had no idea.

All I knew was that I should be dead…but I wasn’t.

For some reason, the universe was sparing me.

Or maybe I was being punished.

For what? I do not know.

That’s when I heard it.

Someone talking beside me…to me.

I heard the word “breeder,” but I had no idea what it meant.

My head was hurting now, but as the blood rushed to my skull and I lost consciousness, I heard the words again.

This time, they registered into my reality.

“It’s found another breeder.”