Morning sunlight spilled between the towers, warm and ordinary, the kind that made people believe the world was stable and safe.
Aiden jogged down the riverside path, headphones in, sweat sticking his shirt to his back.
The city breathed around him.
Traffic with honks, kids shouting, vendors arguing over prices.
Normal.
Predictable.
He slowed to catch his breath, hands on his knees, when his phone buzzed with an emergency alert.
Another test?
He frowned, swiping it open.
"NATIONAL EMERGENCY ALERT. SEEK SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
His stomach tightened.
"This some kind of mistake?" he muttered, pulling out an earbud.
A woman running past him stumbled to a stop. "Did you get that too?"
He nodded slowly.
People around them started pulling out their phones.
Murmurs spread, low and contagious.
"Is it a missile launch?"
"Earthquake?"
"Cyberattack?"
"What the hell is happening?"
No one had an answer.
Then the ground shivered.
Not violently, just enough to make people reach for something, anything, to steady themselves.
Aiden straightened, heart thumping.
Dogs barked.
Car alarms wailed.
Birds erupted from the trees, scattering in frantic spirals.
The sky dimmed.
Not like clouds rolling in.
Not like a storm.
Something… else.
Aiden wasn't the only one staring upward now.
Hundreds of people froze mid-step, mid-sentence.
The city's noise seemed to collapse into a single thread of breath.
"What… is that?" a kid whispered.
The clouds rippled.
As if something enormous pressed against them from above.
Aiden's chest tightened.
The air made noise with a deep, vibrating resonance so low he felt it in his bones more than heard it.
His hands trembled.
And then.....
the sky tore open.
A long, jagged wound burned across the heavens, bleeding white-gold light.
People screamed.
Phones fell to the pavement.
The wound widened, peeling open like a monstrous eye.
Shapes poured through.
Dark silhouettes, dozens...no, hundreds...no, thousands, descending in rigid, perfect formation.
They glowed with streaks of burning atmospheric plasma, trailing fire like angry comets.
"Jesus Christ…"
"Oh my God. Oh my...are those....?"
"That's not ours. That's not any country's aircraft."
Aiden's breath hitched.
They looked like massive armored beetles, plates of black metal shifting as they cut through the atmosphere.
Dropships.
So many that the sunrise vanished behind them.
Sirens blared through the city.
Not police.
Not ambulances.
The national defense siren.
The one used for war.
Speakers crackled across the streets.
"This is the Global Defense Network. Unknown extraterrestrial forces entering Earth's atmosphere. Repeat, extraterrestrial forces. Seek shelter immediately...."
People lost it.
Some ran.
Some fell to their knees.
Some screamed at the sky.
Cars crashed as drivers panicked.
Parents clutched their children.
Strangers grabbed strangers.
Aiden's heart slammed against his ribs.
He stood frozen for a moment, shock rooting him in place.
Extraterrestrial.
Aliens.
This wasn't a movie.
It wasn't a drill.
It wasn't a joke.
A man shoved past him. "MOVE, KID! FIND COVER!"
Aiden snapped out of it.
He turned and sprinted toward the underpass one of the designated emergency shelters.
People poured in from every direction, pushing, yelling, crying.
He heard a woman sobbing, "This can't be real, this can't be real...."
The sky roared again.
Louder.
Closer.
Aiden risked a glance upward.
The first wave of dropships broke formation, diving toward the city.
Engines burned like molten suns.
The air rippled behind them, sending shockwaves that toppled street signs.
Something twisted in Aiden's gut.
Survival instinct screamed at him.
"GO!" he shouted, pushing a frozen man toward the shelter entrance. "MOVE!"
Another siren wailed, sharper, rising in pitch.
"Ground incursion event detected. Incoming hostile landing forces. Seek hard cover immediately."
A young girl clung to her mother's coat. "Mommy, what are they?"
Her mother's voice cracked. "I—I don't know."
A deafening boom shattered the air.
One of the dropships struck a building across the river, clipping its top floors.
Concrete exploded outward in a storm of dust and flame.
The ship spiraled, spewing plasma, and smashed into the water with a violent plume.
The shockwave hit a second later.
It slammed into Aiden like a giant's fist, hurling him backward.
He crashed into a railing, ribs screaming.
Air blasted out of his lungs.
People were thrown like ragdolls, some tumbling into the street.
His ears rang. Vision blurred.
"Aiden!" someone shouted, but he couldn't tell who.
The world dissolved into chaos...sirens, screams, the thunder of engines overhead.
Dust choked the air.
He coughed, crawling to his knees.
Another drop ship descended...this one controlled, landing gear slamming into the pavement not far away.
The ground shook.
Plates of black alloy unfolded like the petals of a nightmare flower.
Soldiers stepped out.
Not human.
Tall, armored, masked in smooth metallic helmets.
Their movements were too precise, too mechanical yet too alive.
Some carried spear-like rifles that vibrated with blue energy.
Others released floating drones that fanned outward like predatory birds.
Aiden froze, breath locking in his chest.
The first alien leveled its weapon at nearby civilians.
The weapon whined.
A beam of shimmering energy burst out, not explosive but concussive, launching people backward with horrifying force.
Bodies hit walls, cars, concrete.
Aiden's stomach twisted.
The aliens were following some kind of rule.
Not vaporizing.
Not disintegrating.
They weren't allowed to.
But they were ruthless.
A man next to Aiden grabbed his arm. "Kid—get up. We have to get out of here!"
Aiden stood, legs shaking. "Where—where do we go?!"
"Anywhere they're not!"
Another beam slammed into a bus station, blasting chunks of metal into the street.
People screamed, scattering like ants.
Aiden pulled the man forward. "Come on! Keep your head down—"
A drone swept toward them, blue lights scanning.
Aiden shoved the man aside just as the drone fired.
He felt the shock hit him in the chest....a sledgehammer of force that launched him backward.
He hit the pavement hard.
Pain exploded across his ribs.
Breath refused to come.
His vision dimmed.
Sound muffled.
The world became distant.
Am I… dying?
He tried to move.
Nothing responded.
Through the haze, he saw the sky...cracked open, burning, foreign ships raining down.
The city he knew turned into a battlefield within minutes.
He tasted blood.
Panic flickered weakly in his chest, but his body wouldn't obey him.
Everything blurred.
Darkness crept in.
Then..
a sound.
A soft, synthetic chime.
Like a notification inside his skull.
Aiden's eyes fluttered.
More light surged.
Then a voice..calm, gentle spoke from within him.
[Adaptive Evolution Protocol… Activating.]
His heart thudded once, hard.
[Life-threatening trauma detected.]
[Initiating baseline enhancements.]
[Warning: Subject unconscious. Process efficiency reduced.]
"What…" he whispered.
Or maybe he didn't.
He couldn't tell.
His lips felt numb.
A wave of heat rolled through his body, starting at his spine.
Not painful...sharp, controlled, like fire held in a cage.
His vision steadied slightly.
The voice continued.
[Subject Aiden Holt. Potential index: High.]
[Evolution requirement: Effort. Progress only achievable through training and physical exertion.]
[No automatic growth.]
[Survive to continue.]
Survive.
Aiden blinked, forcing his eyes open.
A drone hovered toward him, lowering for a killing blow.
No.
He refused to die.
Not like this.
Not helpless.
His fingers twitched.
Then his arm.
Then his leg.
Strength flickered inside him, weak but real.
He pushed himself onto his elbows, pain lancing through him but the world sharpened.
The drone angled its weapon.
Aiden snarled under his breath and rolled behind a wrecked bench as the beam cracked the pavement where his head had been.
Screams echoed nearby.
Gunfire crackled as military units finally engaged the aliens further down the street.
Helicopters thundered overhead.
Aiden forced himself up, leaning on the bench.
Each breath stabbed, but he gritted his teeth.
The voice spoke again, quieter this time.
[Warning: System in stabilization mode. Further enhancements locked until physical exercise threshold is met.]
"Great," he hissed. "Perfect timing."
He glanced at the drone.
Its blue lights flickered.
It scanned the area.
Aiden's pulse pounded.
He didn't know what the hell the voice was.
A hallucination?
A dream?
A miracle?
None of it mattered.
What mattered was surviving the next five seconds.
He spotted a chunk of broken concrete, still warm from the explosion.
His fingers closed around it.
Too light.
Too small.
But better than nothing.
The drone tilted slightly, detecting movement.
Aiden took a shaky breath.
Then another.
And then—
He threw.
The concrete block smashed into the drone's sensor.
The machine faltered, spinning wildly.
Aiden didn't wait...he dived toward it, grabbing a metal rod from the ground, and slammed it into the drone's side.
Sparks burst.
It shrieked, metal grinding.
Aiden hit it again.
And again.
When the drone finally fell still, Aiden dropped the rod, chest heaving.
Sweat mixed with blood.
His arms trembled.
The sky rumbled above, another wave of dropships descending.
Aiden wiped his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek.
Fear clawed at him...but something else burned hotter beneath it.
Anger.
Resolve.
A spark he didn't recognize.
He looked at the burning city, at the falling ships, at the alien soldiers advancing across the riverfront.
"This isn't how humanity ends," he whispered. "Not like this. Not kneeling."
His fists clenched, knuckles whitening.
"Come on," he hissed to himself. "Get up. Move. Fight."
The voice inside him stirred again, like a heartbeat aligning with his own.
[Initialization complete.]
[Survive. Train. Evolve.]
Aiden stood.
And for the first time in his life, he felt like the world was about to change and that he would have to change with it.