[Earth, 506 years after first successful colony, 148 years after first contact]
Lila opened her eyes calmly as a chilling sensation washed over her face, causing her to unexpectedly wake. As usual, she was wasting time in her bed, not doing her homework, nor even bothering to watch anything on her phone. And yet, despite her lazy demeanor, she remained sharp enough to remember her own room.
"Did someone open the window?" Lila mumbled to herself as she turned around to look at her plushies, as if somehow the circular pillows with smiles on their faces had committed the crime.
She knew more than most how rarely she would bother to open her stuffy room, its size barely large enough to contain one set of closed blinds.
"I am tripping?" Lila spoke more loudly, staring at her blue-painted wall with wide eyes.
After some time contemplating nothing, as she usually did, Lila's gaze shifted over to her computer, its monitor showing an indicator for no internet access. Checking her phone revealed the same; every form of connection Lila possessed was gone. Scratching her head, she began to slither her way out of bed as she reached for the window.
"Uh huh." Lila squinted, brushing her short hair away from her eyes as she peered out of her blinds. "Nice."
Realizing her eyes had yet to adapt to the light, Lila surrendered herself to leaving the room for a better look. It wasn't a far walk to the front door; her single-story home never was known for its grandeur. But what she could take pride in was the silence of her neighborhood, which made the situation all the more alarming as a slight rumble shook the wooden floor.
"Don't follow me out pupper!" Lila yelled as she opened the front door. "Nothing-ever-happens-bros always seem to be right during times like these."
Refusing to wear socks or shoes of any kind, Lila hobbled into the front yard as she turned to see her neighbor, their face transfixed on something in the sky. In their hands was an old set of binoculars, clutched tightly in their hands. Around the same time, several more of Lila's neighbors appeared outside their front porch, many of them staring silently in the distance.
"Hey Diane! What is it!" Lila waved, coming to terms with her lesser eyesight as she tried to get a good look. "Space aliens?"
"No uh," the young woman waved back without shifting her head, her blonde hair gleaming in the evening sunlight as she spoke. "I think it's the Air Force."
"Awesome! What branch?"
"You know I'm not into all that like you, Lila." Diane shrugged. "But I think it's all of them?"
"All of them?" Lila laughed. "Yeah, that's not likely. They wouldn't just-."
Just then, another set of aircraft flew high above Lila's house, their presence nearly as subtle as the last, albeit far more visible. It wasn't long before an entire convoy could be witnessed with the naked eye, their tightly-packed formation sailing in an almost unprofessional manner. It was then that Lila became considerably more alert.
"Oh."
"Is that bad?" Diane asked loudly as the rest of the neighborhood began to audibly voice their concerns. "I mean, maybe it's just a drill. My husband says sometimes they like to pretend we're in an emergency for practice."
"No, that has to be reserved as well. National Guard, too. It's all of them. All at the same time."
"Well, they're flying pretty high. That's nice of them."
"Yeah...Lila muttered to herself. "They're booking it."
"You should call your mom Lila," another neighbor shouted in a masculine voice. "My money's on a meteor."
"Oh yeah, you'd love that, huh Fred. Just like the movies?" Diane retorted. "Yeah, not on my Friday."
Lila ignored the rising tide of voices, her eyes fixed on the fleet of aircraft as she fumbled around for her phone. She wasn't nearly arrogant enough to assume what was really going on, and yet such activity still put her on edge. The young girl had always loved speaking with cadets and officers alike online, sharing theories and hearing about all the absurd protocols post-colony humanity had implemented. But never before did she think one of them might be in play right in front of her very eyes.
"At least cell is working," Lila motioned with her phone as she sent a call to her mother. "That's money."
"Hey Lila," the same neighbor asked loudly, much to the annoyance of Diane, who was about to walk back inside. "You're a military nut. What's going on? Has your brother said anything?"
"Uh, not yet, Fred," Lila stumbled over her words as she listened intently, waiting for her mother to pick up. "But it's not a drill, I can guarantee you that."
"Lila? Are you okay?" A feminine voice spoke gently to Lila through her left ear, causing the young girl to press her phone even closer. "Please tell me your home."
"Yeah, of course, Mom. Where's brother-bear?"
"Jamie got called in; the entire base is buzzing."
"Yeah, I can see that. They're flying everything, Mom." Lila explained in as simple a manner as she could afford. "Not just the fast fancy ones, brother-bear flies for, I mean everything."
"They mentioned an evacuation. Here, Lily, I'm at the front bureau. Just give me a second."
"Yeah, that adds up." Lila smiled, somewhat amused by the excitement. "Now I got the tingles."
Lila then heard her mother's muffled voice a fair distance away from the receiving phone, her panicked tone indicating more bad news.
"Yes, Miss Brent. Jane Brent, we have your son on file right here. All service members have a guaranteed placement for families. There's no cause for alarm. Please just wait for an announcement, and we can provide more details." A second more professional voice emitted from Lila's phone, its cadence hiding a smidgen of fear.
"Okay, Lila."
"Yeah, I know, Mom," Lila interrupted. "I'll meet you at Saint Spears airfield."
"Hm? How do you already know? Did they make the announcement?"
"Nope. I just know that's where they keep all the rockets and bunkers. And that's where this herd here is heading." The young girl spoke hurriedly as she slipped on a pair of shoes. "Please tell me we have a car."
"You don't even have your license, young lady, and no, we don't have any. Just take the bus." Jane sighed, trying to speak softly to her daughter.
"You're joking, right?"
"It's the safest-."
"Yeah, no, I'm hoofing it. See you there!" Lila scoffed before hanging up abruptly.
On her way out, Lila made sure to grab both her red bike and her dog, motioning for the brown labrador to follow. She, of course, neglected the helmet and jacket in exchange for a few saved seconds as she barreled out of the driveway. But just before she could speed off, Lila made sure to brake in front of Diane's house.
"Hey!" Lila shouted to Fred, who was arguing with Diane and several other members of the community. "Spears, get going."
"The airfield!" Fred threw his hands up, his overweight belly moving along with him. "Of course. They're gonna leave without us in their fancy rockets, fucking cowards."
"Don't worry about all that ya'll," Lila explained calmly as she began to speed up. "Just get there. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to point that out to you."
"Well, hold on. What if we're not allowed?" One neighbor protested.
"Come on now, we've all seen the movies. Half the people on whatever fancy list they make won't show up in time. They'll take anyone they can get with this kind of short notice." Lila shrugged, giving one last moment to look at Diane, who seemed rather uncertain after leaving the house with her newborn clutched in her arms.
"But in the movies, don't people like riot at the fence and eat each other when it's too crowded?" Fred retorted.
"Well, it's a good thing we're a small town." The young girl smirked before speeding off, her dog giving chase.
Never before had Lila been so thankful for the delayed expansionism of Earth's infrastructure. In her small town, highways and open fences were still commonplace, unlike the bustling urban cities with their obnoxious automated freeways. It was rather easy for her to traverse with a bike, and even easier for her athletic dog to follow closely. At her pace, the airbase was merely a half-hour away, giving the sun plenty of time to set gently beyond the rocky mountains, leaving a sea of bright stars in its place. Ironically, such a perilous day had perfect weather, a fact not at all lost on Lila, who appreciated the turn of luck.
"Hey! Need a lift?" A man's voice came from a nearby pickup truck as it climbed a dirt hill leading to the airbase.
"Nah, we're basically there already. Thanks though."
"Now that you've mentioned it," the car slowed to a stop as the man spoke. "I can already see the line from here. Guess im hoofing it too."
The truck's door then swung open to reveal a family of four, with the man's wife conversing among her children on matters conveniently unrelated to the impending crisis. A similar scene could be seen all across the dirt road, as droves of people from all over the town began to hike towards the airbase at a surprisingly pleasant pace. Just as Lila had predicted, panic hadn't yet set in, and confidence was fairly high.
Her community held the unusual privilege of being remote, yet still an arm's length away from the military's colonial branch. In hindsight, such a feature was likely intentional on behalf of the United Nations, or at least that's what Lila had begun to beleive. Either way, she was getting closer to where she beleived her mother should be, causing her to briefly drop her guard.
"Hey, hold on now! Did anyone else just see that?" A voice cried out from somewhere in the crowd.
Instinctively, Lila spun around to face the open sky, its vast reaches still lit up by dozens of visible stars. But she couldn't see anything wrong, not even after peering behind a fence leading to an open field where the sky was most clear.
"That star just up and left!"
"What?" Lila gasped audibly. "That guy's crazy."
But to her horror, the young girl had begun to witness something identical to what the man had described. The tail end of Persues had disappeared, its light having been snuffed out in an instant. Suddenly, a faint flash followed suit in the same location, leaving nothing behind once it had dispersed. The star was gone, and the crowd began to panic.
"That's not possible, right?" The man from the truck spoke to Lila in a lowered tone, as not to alarm his family. "Wouldn't we be...you know...getting a little more than a flash if a star really died?"
"Not unless someone muffled it," Lila spoke plainly.
"There it is again!" The man's wife spoke as one of her children began to cry in confusion. "It's dissapearing!"
Lila watched closely in disbelief, confirming that indeed another star had disappeared, followed by a brief and unusually tame flash of light where it had once been.
"Something's out there." The young girl glared at the sky. "The space-heads must have spotted it already; that's why the military is buzzed."
"What do you mean? Something's eating stars?"
"I have to go." Lila ran as she signaled for her dog to follow.
Lila then began to sprint around the edges of the dirt path, silently pushing people aside as she made a mad dash to the entrance of the airfield. Upon reaching the first gate, she came across a row of stopped cars and at least a hundred armed gaurds, their weapons still calmly holstered as they stood in silence.
"Ma'am, you can't go through, not yet." One guard spoke to Lila as she tried to slip past, his black visor and white armor completely obscuring his human features. "Please step back."
"Fuck the announcement, you have to get these people out of here," Lila pleaded, pointing towards the set of black colony ships on the horizon, their bulbous hulls having been recently strapped to a set of interstellar rockets. "While everyone is still sane."
"I understand your concern. We will be moving along shortly," the guard explained, pushing Lila back with his black gauntlets. "Please be patient."
"Yeah sure, be patient," Lila shrugged playfully, raising her hands as a sign of calm. "So about the airfleet you sent here-."
"Hey, I'm not happy about this either, girl. But this is a small town, and a big installation. We'll get everyone we can on board."
"So is that gonna be before or after our solar system explodes?"
"I advise calm and-."
An ear-piercing bang suddenly reverberated through the air, catching Lila by surprise as she fell to her knees. Before she could even process the pain, a shockwave of wind and dust slammed into her small frame, causing her and the nearby surroundings to be flung backwards violently. Barely able to keep herself councious, Lila looked up to the sky as she lay on her back, still unable to see anything amiss in the starry night.
"Shit!" The guard groaned as he knelt over Lila to shield her from a barrage of falling glass. "The hell was that?!"
After some time, Lila finally came to her senses, realizing her dog had been tugging on her shoulder with unusual vigor. But before she could pick herself off the floor, a second soundwave shook the airbase, forcing the young girl to look upwards once more; only this time, the night sky was no longer empty.
A shadow loomed over Lila, the young girl staring in silent shock as everything but her own body and her dog became undetectable. What she saw then, in that moment of chaos, was a vessel of indescribable proportions, its rectangular shape having appeared in an instant to shatter the surface of the earth with its mere presence. It was then that Lila witnessed the second wave of destruction, this time far more calamitous than the last, burst forth from the vessel's belly.
"Shit." Lila grabbed onto her dog and began to limp away from the airbase. "Come on. Come on. Not like this."
An automated voice then blurted out from the base's PA system, "atmospheric rupture detected."
"Not a chance," Lila gritted her teeth as she waded through the mess of people, both dead and alive, their faces no longer visibly detailed as the girl focused solely on survival. "We got this. We got this pupper."
High above the fleeing girl was the remaining fleet of human aircraft, their metallic hulls having been utterly ruined by the rupture of the arriving vessel, causing them to rain down around the base and onto the crowd of evacuees. Lila, of course, still remained undiscouraged, her stride improving as she pushed past the pain and narrowly avoided a hunk of flaming metal that fell behind her. But just as she began to put distance between herself and the calamity, a second vessel appeared in the night sky in front of her, its size just as daunting as the last. Written upon the bottom of its metal belly lay a set of symbols she had never seen before, their red markings stretching on for what seemed like miles.
"Come on, Puppers," Lila pushed on, ignoring the presence of the invaders as she slid down the dirt hill.
But with the arrival of the second vessel came another shockwave, its blast sending an entire eighteen-wheeler flying in Lila's direction, crashing down upon her with a fiery bang. The world then faded to black, leaving the girl lost in the wake of destruction. As far as Lila could tell, she was already dead.
Yet somehow, after an endless torrent of screeching howls, Lila opened her eyes, her head having recovered enough to process both sight and pain.
"Pup-," Lili coughed as she crawled over something warm. "Puppers!"
Unable to work her own body, the girl desperately shuffled her bloodied arms through the dirt, scraping at everything she could get a handle on to pull herself forward. Lila then heard foosteps from behind her, far too heavy and monstrous to be her dog. Accepting her fate, she turned herself around to see a towering alien figure, its bulky frame pushing through the wreckage with ease. If Lila had known any better, she was staring at a walking rhinoceros that had grown to twice its size. And yet still, she hadn't begun to cry, nor was her fear evident on her face. She looked on with amazement, her shock driving her forward as she watched the alien point a cannon at her, the size of a street sign.
"Wait, you buffoon," a feminine voice called out, its words sticking into the interior of Lila's mind as it spoke with raspy words the girl could feel. "We have one here. Psionic potential."
The walking beast then stepped aside, revealing a shorter, slimmer figure in its wake. Still, even the smaller of the two aliens made Lila feel like an insect, examining her with a singular twitching eyeball that pulsed in the center of its head. The slim creature began to circle Lila, its high-heeled fit creating a strangely elegant clicking sound as a result. Soon, more of the bulky creatures began to arrive, their patience growing thin as they stared at Lila with bloodlust so visible it could be seen behind their cage-like helmets.
"She meets the requirements," the slim alien hissed, her voice still echoing within Lila's mind. "I shall make the extraction."
"Is Yrix done?" One of the lumbering creatures snorted, its golden pauldrons signifying a higher rank as it thrust its arms around impatiently. "We have work to do."
"This sector...yes. I will leave you to your work."
Lila then felt herself being lifted off the ground, her body encased in an invisible field of energy produced by the slim creature. Staring her dead in the eyes, the creature then motioned with its hand, causing Lila to immediately lose consciousness as a result. The last thing the girl could see before it all faded to black was the singular eye of the creature still pulsing in her mind like a ghostly siren.