Hamptonville, North Carolina - Route 421
August 9, 2030 | 9:37 PM EDT
The night was thick with sweat and smoke. Stars barely pierced through the haze above, and the world was cast in a deep, sickly blue from the flickering fires still burning along the shattered highway. Flashlights and headlights cut through the dark in erratic cones, bobbing and shaking as people moved in jerks and grunts, dragging, lifting, pushing.
Bryan planted his hands against the bumper of a twisted sedan, boots grinding into gravel as he heaved. Beside him, three other men strained with everything they had, their faces twisted in exertion. Muscles bunched. Teeth clenched. Groans of effort filled the air, rising over the distant pops of fire and the hollow clangs of shifting metal.
Behind them, others used a battered pickup to nudge through a cluster of wrecked vehicles, slowly carving a path through the chaos. Tail lights flickered, tires spun on debris, and commands were barked in frustration.
"Come on—one, two, THREE!"
The car gave a screech as it shifted slightly, then stuck again.
Bryan exhaled sharply, arms trembling. "Alright," he called out between breaths, voice hoarse. "That's good for now—take five."
The others dropped away with grateful nods, collapsing beside whatever solid object they could find. Some sat on fenders. One leaned back against a traffic sign now half-sunken into the earth. They unscrewed water bottles with shaking hands, the crinkle of plastic barely audible under the distant din.
Bryan took a seat on the front bumper as he cracked open a half-full bottle of water. He drank deeply, then tilted it back and let the rest pour over his head. He let the warm water sit longer then wiped his face with his sleeve.
Rivas approached with quiet steps. Bryan reached into his pack and handed him a full bottle.
Rivas shook his head. "I'm good."
"You sure?" Bryan asked.
"Yeah. You need it more than I do."
Bryan didn't argue. He set the bottle down beside him, letting the quiet fall in around them as Rivas sat nearby, elbows on knees, breathing steadily.
Rivas swallowed hard, his breath catching. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, strained—like it had been dragged out of him. "Simon—from earlier…" He hesitated, eyes glistening under the firelight. "He didn't make it."
He blinked hard, jaw tightening as he looked at the sky. "He bled out. I tried—God, I tried everything. There was nothing I could do."
Bryan looked down, hands resting on his knees. He exhaled through his nose, slowly. His gaze drifted toward the ground, then toward the line of wreckage still waiting to be cleared.
Another one dead.
His eyes closed briefly. He gave a shallow nod. "Still no signal?"
Rivas regrettably shook his head. "No."
For a moment, they stood in that silence together. A moment too quiet, too empty. And in that emptiness, desperation clung like smoke. Tight in their throats. Hollow in their chests.
Then Bryan finally spoke, voice lower, tired. "I gotta get my family out of here."
Rivas glanced at him, not surprised, just listening.
"Maybe a cell tower went down after the quake." Bryan continued, staring at the flickering glow in the distance.
"Could be," Rivas said softly. "Or the grid's fried. Power's been patchy for hours. I wouldn't count anything out right now."
Bryan nodded slowly, his jaw flexing. "Feels like every hour we sit here, the rest of the world's slipping further away."
Rivas didn't have an answer to that. He just watched the smoke, watched the way the embers danced in the dark.
After a moment, Bryan reached over and clapped a hand on his back. "Thanks for helping, man. I mean it."
Rivas looked at him. "Don't thank me. You're the one keeping this whole line moving."
"We're not out yet," Bryan said, standing with a slow groan as he rolled his shoulders. "Still got a hell of a lot of work to do before we can get the fuck out of here."
Rivas stood too, brushing dust from his pants. "Still. You didn't have to do all this. You kept people calm. Helped me keep moving, too."
Bryan gave a tired smile. "Wasn't gonna sit around waiting for rescue. You want something done, you get up and do it."
They stood there a moment longer, side by side, the heat of burning cars warming their faces, the cool night air tugging at their sleeves. The smell of ash and oil hung heavy, but so did something else.
Laughter.
Not much, not loud—but faint chuckles carried from a small group behind them, where someone had made a joke while passing around a half-melted protein bar. A kid was giggling in the back of a pickup, drawing with a chunk of charcoal on cardboard. Someone strummed a few broken chords on a guitar missing two strings.
It wasn't peace. But it was something.
And in the middle of that wreckage, beneath a sky that no longer promised certainty, there was—if only for a second—a sliver of happiness in simply being alive.
Then they heard it.
The unmistakable sound of a helicopter hit like a distant heartbeat, slow and deliberate.
Bryan froze. His head turned slightly.
It grew louder. Closer. The sound quickened—multiple rotors now, overlapping, hammering through the haze.
"You hear that?" he asked.
Rivas lifted his head, squinting into the smoke-filled night. "Yeah… I do."
Bryan's bottle slipped from his fingers, landing softly in the gravel.
They both stood still, chests rising and falling, eyes searching the sky. Around them, others stirred, glancing upward, murmurs rising with the beat of rotor blades echoing against the broken concrete and steel.
Dark shapes emerged in the distance—dozens of them. Helicopters, pushing fast from the west, their formation slicing through the smoky skies as they thundered eastward. Rotors chopped the air, heavy and relentless.
Bryan stood still, his head tilted back, eyes tracking the aircraft as they swept overhead. He could see the details now—military birds, some with slung cargo.
Rivas joined him, shielding his eyes against the flashing lights and fine ash drifting down like dirty snow.
As every head on the highway turned skyward, drawn by the helicopters from afar, Bryan saw something else—something no one else had noticed yet.
High above them, far higher than the helicopters. A shape. Dark. Still. Too large to be a bird. Too steady to be drifting.
His breath hitched.
"I see something," Bryan said, eyes fixed on the shape. "Rivas. Higher up."
Rivas didn't look right away, still tracking the helicopters with a furrowed brow.
"No—above them," Bryan said, more urgently now, pointing upward. "Higher."
Rivas finally looked up—and froze. "Yeah... what the hell is that?" he muttered, his voice low with disbelief.
Both men's eyes locked onto the shape, barely a silhouette at first, gliding silently across the stars. It moved with slow, gliding purpose—unhurried, almost serene in the way it hovered far above the chaos.
Then it shifted.
A wing dipped gently, and for a moment its full span caught faint moonlight. Its form stretched impossibly wide—wings like sails, a long body trailing behind like a shadow born of the sky itself.
Rivas's lips parted. No words came out.
Others began to notice.
Across the highway, heads turned upward. One by one. First in curiosity, then in stunned silence. Conversations died. Movements slowed. Fingers pointed.
Murmurs spread like sparks on dry grass—whispers and sharp breaths and the beginnings of fear.
The shape descended slightly. Its wings adjusted, catching the air with ease as it passed high above the helicopters below, like a phantom drifting through smoke.
And now, it was unmistakable.
A reptilian silhouette. Vast, powerful. Its scales caught faint hints of moonlight, glinting along its back and tail. Horns curved back from its head. Its long limbs are tucked close to its body. The wings—so wide they seemed to blot out sections of the sky—tilted once more, catching an updraft.
Bryan felt his heartbeat in his throat. He had never seen anything like it before—not even during his deployment in South Korea.
It roared.
A guttural, thunderous bellow that split the night like thunder. A scream born from some ancient pit, primal and terrifying.
Rivas staggered back, eyes wide in horror. "WHAT IS THAT?!"
Bryan didn't answer. He couldn't. Some part of him already knew—something was wrong. Deeply, wrong.
Attention shifted toward the unknown shape, phones quickly pulled out and aimed skyward, recording.
Then, all of a sudden, it banked, wings tilting. And dove.
FWOOOOOSH!
Then, a torrent of flame erupted from its jaws, painting the night in orange and white. The road below ignited—cars, trees, everything—engulfed. An entire stretch of people vaporized in an instant.
Bryan's instincts kicked in. "GET DOWN!"
He tackled Rivas, the two of them crashing into a ditch as the inferno swept over where they'd just stood. The heat hit like a wall—scalding, blinding, devouring.
From the shallow trench, Bryan looked up, eyes squinting against the brightness. He saw them. The men he'd been pushing cars with.
The blaze swept over them in a flash, faster than breath, faster than ordinary instinct. Their screams tore through the air. Then came the silence, as bodies blackened mid-turn, mid-run, caught in the act of fleeing with no time left to finish the motion. They collapsed in heaps, their outlines scorched into the pavement.
Bryan stared in horror, his body shielding Rivas. His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat dull and heavy as his mind fought to process the carnage unraveling before him.
All around them, people were screaming—shouts of terror, cries for help, panicked voices trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Rivas turned his head slowly, trembling. "Oh my god…"
Bryan's breath barely moved through his nose. His eyes stayed fixed upward.
Then, suddenly, he moved, grabbing Rivas by the arm. "Come on. MOVE!"
They scrambled out of the ditch, feet pounding the pavement slick with ash and debris, sprinting back toward their cars—toward their families—with each stride fueled by raw adrenaline.
Bryan ran.
He watched as the sky turned into a battlefield above him.
The creature's wings carved through the smoke like blades, sending gusts of wind and soot rippling across the wreckage. The helicopters scattered in all directions—rotors whining, engines screaming. One Chinook wasn't fast enough.
Bryan looked back just in time to see it—the monster's talons clamping around the slow-moving bird. Its jaws tore into the helicopter's belly like it was made of foil. Steel shrieked. Fire spilled from the wound. The Chinook pitched violently, tail rotor spinning like a broken clock hand before it spiraled downward.
It hit the ground in an eruption of fire and metal. The shockwave slammed into the ground with a roar that drowned out everything else. Bryan staggered mid-stride but didn't stop.
Behind him, Rivas ran too—arms pumping, legs pushing past exhaustion. He wasn't a soldier. He wasn't trained for this. But he kept up anyway, driven by the same force Bryan felt.
Bryan's eyes lifted again, drawn by instinct.
A Blackhawk. It was burning. Twisting midair, flames eating its frame, it spiraled violently, rounds still bursting uselessly from the door guns as soldiers inside made their final stand. The creature didn't even flinch as it let out another blinding surge of flame.
And then Bryan saw the trajectory.
No. No. No.
His breath caught in his throat.
The Blackhawk was falling—spinning, broken, dying—and it was coming down straight toward his car. His family.
He didn't feel his legs anymore. He just ran harder, faster. Desperately. Every muscle screamed, lungs burned, but he couldn't stop—not with that image burned into his skull. His wife. His daughter. Waiting in the car. Trusting him to come back.
Rivas was right behind him, just pushing himself past human limits. For his own family. For his reason to live.
The falling Blackhawk loomed closer, closer, like a final hammer of fate about to crush everything he loved.
As Bryan got closer, he saw it—his car. Jane was inside, shielding Natalie in her arms, crying.
Bryan reached his arm out. He shouted—loud, hoarse, instinctive—but the sound was swallowed by chaos. His eyes were wide as his world began to slow down.
CRASH!
Colorado Springs, Colorado - Cheyenne Mountain Complex
August 9, 2030 | 7:40 PM MDT
Deep within the secured wing of the facility, the lights hummed with a faint, sterile glow. The room—plain, reinforced, and safe—felt anything but comforting.
Emily paced restlessly across the length of the floor, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, phone clutched in one hand like a lifeline that refused to ring. Her eyes kept flicking toward it, willing it to light up, buzz, anything. But it remained silent.
Her children sat on the nearby couch—eleven-year-old Alex hugging a pillow, eyes tracking her every movement. Beside him sat his older sisters—nineteen-year-old Cindy with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, brows furrowed in silent worry, and twenty-one-year-old Ava, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, phone gripped tightly in her hand though she already knew it wouldn't ring. None of them spoke. They didn't need to. Their mother's tension filled the entire room like static before a storm.
Emily ran a hand through her hair, the edge of her palm trembling as her mind spiraled through worst-case scenarios.
Jane… Her sister. She bit her lip, trying to push down the tide rising in her chest.
Then, the sound of the door unlocking.
Her head whipped around.
President Reynolds stepped inside, the weight of a world on his shoulders—and still, when he saw her, his face softened instantly. The door shut quietly behind him.
Emily didn't wait.
She crossed the room in a heartbeat, rushing into his arms. Reynolds caught her without hesitation, wrapping her up tight just as the dam inside her broke. Her hands gripped the back of his coat as her forehead pressed against his chest, and then the tears came—hot, silent, overwhelming.
"I really—" she choked, voice cracking, "I really can't contact my parents, or Jane… or even Bryan. I'm getting worried sick, Dave, I—" her voice broke further, shaking. "What if she was hi—what if Jane was hit by one of the—"
"Shhh… shhh…" Reynolds cut in gently, holding her tighter, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other curling protectively around her back.
His voice was soft, trembling just beneath the surface. "It's okay. I'm here. We can't reach anyone right now—not even Bryan or Jane, the satellites are down. That's all it is.. It's not your fault. It's not theirs."
Emily clutched him tighter, burying her face against him as she gasped for air, trying to find something steady in a world that no longer made sense.
Reynolds gave her time—just a few quiet seconds to breathe.
Then, gently, he lowered his head to whisper in her ear, steady and low. "I already have a team on it. They're tracking their last known location. We'll find them. I promise."
They closed their eyes together, just breathing, holding on to each other like the world outside the room might vanish at any second.
Then, arms wrapped around them from behind.
Emily blinked, looking over her shoulder.
Alex had quietly crossed the room, wrapping his arms around them without saying a word, burying his face into his father's side. A moment later, Cindy and Ava joined—Cindy slipping in beside her mother, wrapping an arm around her waist, and Ava resting her head against Reynolds's shoulder, her hand lightly gripping his sleeve.
A family in the middle of the unknown.
Reynolds dropped one hand to rest on Alex's back, his fingers trembling slightly, while Emily pulled both her daughters in closer, her breath catching in her throat.
No more words were needed.
They just stayed there—five hearts pressed together in fragile silence, wrapped in a moment of stillness amid a storm no one had asked for. Holding on. Together.
Reynolds gently eased out of the embrace, his arms lingering for a heartbeat longer as if reluctant to let go. Then he drew in a breath and looked down at them all—his wife, his daughters, his son. For a moment, there was nothing else. Just them.
"I've still got some things to take care of," he said softly, brushing Emily's hair from her face.
Emily nodded, eyes still glassy but steadier now. "We know."
He leaned in and kissed her on the lips—slow, firm, like he was pressing everything he couldn't say into that one gesture. Then he turned to Cindy and Ava, placing a kiss on each of their foreheads—his hands briefly resting on their shoulders as their eyes met, full of unspoken gratitude and love. Finally, he knelt briefly and gave Alex's shoulder a firm, reassuring pat. "Take care of your mom and your sisters, alright?"
Alex nodded quickly, holding back emotion the way boys his age do—trying to be brave.
Reynolds stood, his eyes sweeping over them one last time before glancing toward the door.
"If you need anything," he said, voice firm but warm, "the agents outside are right there. You're safe. All of you."
Emily nodded again, this time with a small smile forming through the ache. "Go do what you have to do. We'll be fine."
He smiled back—just enough to light his face—and gave a final wave before stepping out through the heavy door.
The moment it shut behind him, the atmosphere shifted.
Two agents in dark suits fell into step beside him without a word, their movements fluid and practiced. The corridor ahead stretched long and quiet, polished steel and reinforced glass casting faint reflections under the cold lights. With every stride, the tenderness of a father faded into the sharp bearing of a commander-in-chief.
President Reynolds was back.
Outside the family quarters, General Davis stood at parade rest—his posture rigid, uniform flawless, eyes sharp with purpose. The moment President Reynolds stepped out, Davis moved with practiced precision, falling into step beside him without breaking stride.
"Mr. President," Davis said, his voice low and steady. "We've confirmed multiple unknown contacts in U.S. airspace. First track was logged twenty minutes ago—long-range arrays picked up anomalous signatures breaching the ADIZ."
Reynolds's expression tightened, though his pace never faltered. "Same ones from Illinois?"
Davis nodded once, curt and exact. "Heat signatures match. Same erratic vectoring, same low-observable characteristics. Nothing conventional. We've got fighters intercepting now, but visual confirmation is limited—thermal and optics are giving us the clearest picture."
Reynolds's jaw clenched. "Civilian airspace?"
"Already cleared," Davis replied. "We've initiated immediate reroutes and grounded all commercial and private air traffic. Combat air patrols are airborne, with intercept vectors locked in. ROE still holds—waiting on your word."
Reynolds drew a slow breath, measured but weighted. "Let's get to the floor. I want a full airspace overlay and squadron telemetry on screen."
"Understood, sir."
The doors to the Battle Staff Room hissed open, the sound of compressed air giving way to low murmurs and hurried keystrokes. Monitors buzzed softly under fluorescent lights, a dozen staffers still seated at their workstations, eyes locked to sensor feeds, thermal overlays, and filtered radio chatter streaming in through terrestrial networks.
President Reynolds entered briskly, General Davis just a step behind. Around the central table, only key figures remained—Advisor Collins, Secretary Mitchell, Director Holloway, and General Carter. The room had narrowed to decision-makers.
Without a word, Reynolds took his seat at the head of the table. His gaze moved swiftly across the dimmed screens, tension hardening the lines in his face.
General Davis remained standing at the head of the room, tablet in hand. With a flick of his wrist, the main display came to life—grainy infrared maps, analog radar returns, and layered flight vectors filling the screen. A soft hum followed as a staffer patched in the secure terrestrial uplink to display compiled tactical feeds.
"Gentlemen, ladies," Davis began, his voice even but edged with urgency, "what you're seeing is a composite of all ground-based sensor data—NORAD, CONR, local ATC, and mobile command posts linked via RF. It's stitched from every viable radar, thermal, and infrared feed we've got. Visuals are still limited, but based on the returns, we're tracking over a hundred discrete contacts across U.S. airspace—possibly more."
He paused, then gestured to the main screen.
The map pulsed—pale red blips clustering densely over urban zones. From Los Angeles to Chicago, Houston to San Diego, and across the Southeastern corridor, the distribution was deliberate. Red clusters glowed like slow-moving storms over population hubs. Smaller groups—three to five contacts—were scattered in less dense areas, but barely any activity touched wilderness or unpopulated terrain.
Reynolds leaned forward slightly, brow tight. "They're all over the country."
Davis nodded. "And not evenly spread. We're seeing low numbers—less than fifty per state on average—but nearly all are concentrated around high-density regions. No confirmed presence in national parks, deserts, or open farmland. It's as if they know where most people are."
A ripple of unease moved through the room.
Secretary Mitchell crossed her arms, jaw clenched. "Are we talking strategic targeting? Government? Infrastructure?"
"Negative," Davis replied. "There's no discernible pattern. No attacks on power grids, defense installations, or comms hubs. They're not looking for military targets." His voice dipped slightly, uneasy. "They seem… attracted to people. It's not random—but it's not strategic in the conventional sense either."
Reynolds's fingers tapped the table, his jaw rigid. "Any direct visuals?"
Davis motioned to a technician. A grainy infrared feed lit the screen—stitched from overlapping ground radars and a fighter's final uplink before it went dark. A streak of thermal bloom cut across the skyline of Atlanta, something with wide wings and unnaturally fluid movement. No lock, no return fire—just the blurred form slicing through a cluster of buildings before vanishing into heat noise.
"F-47s out of Dobbins ARB," Davis said quietly. "Pilot lost contact minutes after this clip. No ejection data. We're working on a debris field now—what's left of it."
The room fell into heavy silence.
"Losses?" Reynolds asked, though he already expected the answer.
"Five confirmed fighters down," Davis said. "Twelve helos—one during evac in Baltimore, the other over Sacramento. Multiple near-misses with civilian aircraft before we grounded them all. We're operating under hard VFR and RF only. Civilian air traffic is locked down nationwide."
"And casualties?" Mitchell's voice was clipped, tight.
"Unclear," Davis admitted. "911 lines are jammed. State EOCs are overwhelmed. We're getting unverified reports of disappearances, attacks, sightings... too many to filter."
Reynolds turned sharply toward Davis. "ROE is lifted. Confirmed. If any unit has visual or thermal contact, they have the green light to engage immediately."
Davis didn't flinch. "Understood, sir." He moved to a secure station and began relaying the order.
This wasn't an invasion. It was a hunt, and America had become the feeding ground.