The first thing Ethan Carter felt was a hum.
It wasn't a sound exactly. More like a soft vibration, thrumming in his bones and echoing in the pit of his chest. Cold metal kissed his skin, and a strange blue light painted the inside of his eyelids. His throat was dry. His body heavy.
And his memory—fog.
When his eyes fluttered open, he didn't see a ceiling. He saw a dome. Metallic. Curved. Lit with pulsing veins of blue circuitry that didn't belong on Earth.
Then came the voice.
"System initialization complete. Host: Ethan Carter. Stasis duration: 30 days, 3 hours, 11 minutes. Alien interface status: Stable."
His heart lurched.
Thirty days? He shot up—but immediately winced, clutching his head. The motion sent a wave of nausea crashing through him. His limbs trembled with unused strength. His body felt... altered. Like it didn't quite belong to him anymore.
"What the hell is going on?" he whispered.
"System Response: The unit you inhabit is a failed prototype of the X-977 Symbiotic Combat Framework. Original deployment canceled due to structural inefficiencies. Emergency activation triggered upon impact with terrestrial atmosphere."
The voice wasn't human. It spoke directly into his thoughts, emotionless and calm.
Ethan blinked. The memories began returning in flashes: the sky splitting open, alien ships descending in a thunderous roar, people running, screaming. Explosions. Military jets in the sky.
He had been running home. He remembered the moment—a flash of light from above, then the ground trembling. Something massive fell from the sky. A capsule.
Then—pain. Then nothing.
And now…
A metallic hiss echoed around him as the capsule split open. Blinding daylight poured in, and dust rushed to meet him. Ethan shielded his eyes and stepped out. His bare feet touched cracked pavement. He stumbled into the ruins of a city that was once alive.
Now— it was a corpse.
The buildings around him were torn open like old wounds. Cars lay flipped and rusted. Black smoke curled from broken windows. The silence was too loud. No sirens. No footsteps. No voices.
Just the wind—and something distant. Mechanical.
He wandered, cautious and quiet. Every few steps, a new horror greeted him: scorched shadows against walls, twisted steel beams, collapsed overpasses. Nature had already begun to reclaim what civilization had lost. Vines slithered through the concrete cracks. Moss covered the bones of buildings.
His body still ached, but the system hummed beneath his skin, guiding him silently.
"Status: Vital signs stable. Combat interface dormant. External sensors active."
It felt less like a tool and more like something alive. Watching. Waiting.
As he turned a corner, a high-pitched whine cut through the air. Ethan dove behind the remains of a taxi just as a drone zipped by. Sleek and silent, it scanned the street with a red laser grid. He held his breath until it disappeared.
"Recommendation: Remain undetected. Surveillance drones operate on a 24-hour cycle."
No kidding," he muttered.
Eventually, hunger and exhaustion drove him to shelter. He spotted a half-collapsed bookstore on 8th Avenue. Its windows were shattered, but the interior still held shape. He crept inside, scanning the shadows.
Then—movement.
A whisper. The creak of a floorboard.
Ethan gripped a splintered shelf, ready to bolt.
A whisper. The creak of a floorboard.
Ethan gripped a splintered shelf, ready to bolt.
"Stay where you are," a voice said.
A girl stepped from behind the checkout counter, holding a sharpened umbrella pole like a spear. Her eyes were wary, her clothes worn, dusty. Probably seventeen. Maybe eighteen.
"You're not one of them," she said cautiously.
Ethan raised his hands. "I'm not. I swear. My name is Ethan. I… I just woke up."
"Woke up?"
He nodded. "From a capsule. Some kind of alien thing. I was inside for a month. I didn't even know the world had changed."
She lowered the weapon slightly but didn't relax. "That's… insane. You were inside one of those alien pods?"
"Not theirs exactly," Ethan said, frowning. "The system inside said it was a failed prototype. A mistake. The capsule wasn't supposed to be used."
"You have a system?"
Ethan hesitated. "Yeah. It talks to me. Monitors me. I think it's helping me survive."
She blinked. "That's... weird. I've never met anyone like that."
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Skye," she said. "I've been staying here ever since the attack."
They sat in silence for a while. Skye eventually brought out a can of expired beans and two plastic spoons.
Ethan told her about the sky tearing open, the crash, the capsule falling from the alien ship after the U.S. fighter jets shot it down. He explained how the system had activated automatically, wrapping itself around his biology to survive.
"You're saying you've got alien tech fused into you?" Skye asked.
"I don't know what I am anymore," Ethanadmitted. "Human? Machine? Glitch?"
Then the system spoke.
"System: host memory recovering, host might suffer from serious pain"
Ethan's body jerked.
He screamed.
Skye jumped up, trying to help, but it was too late.
Visions flooded his mind: the alien ship spiraling out of the sky, its hull cracked by missiles.
The prototype capsule tumbling. Inside, a panel flashing red.
Emergency sequence.
Something speaking in a language he couldn't understand.
His body being scanned, copied, overwritten.
He collapsed, shaking.
Skye knelt beside him, her voice low. "Ethan? Are you okay?"
He looked up, his eyes glowing faint blue.
"I remember now," he whispered. "I wasn't chosen. I was just… nearby."
"What?"
"The system—it was meant for something else.
Something alien. But I was close when the pod hit the ground. It latched onto me because it had no other choice."
He stood, breath ragged.
"I'm not a hero," he said.
"I'm a mistake."
— to be continued.