Aliens Invasion
Chapter One –
On the month of May in the year 1991 arrived quietly, carried on the warmth of spring and the scent of saltwater drifting in from the Atlantic Ocean. Miami basked in the golden sunlight that danced across the surface of Biscayne Bay, its streets alive with the pulse of a city in motion. People moved about their lives in a rhythm that felt eternal: laughter spilling from open windows, car horns blaring on busy avenues, children running barefoot in quiet neighborhoods, and tourists sipping cocktails under striped umbrellas by the beach. It was a world at ease, a world convinced of its own permanence.
On the 5th day of that month, inside a modest hospital ward in downtown Miami, John was born. The world outside barely noticed, but for the couple holding the infant in their arms, it was the beginning of everything.
Bill Anderson, his father, was a man who carried the scent of solder and circuitry on his clothes. His hands were calloused not from manual labor but from long nights spent adjusting circuit boards, writing lines of code on flickering monitors, and scribbling formulas on paper napkins when inspiration struck at the dinner table. He wasn't wealthy; far from it. His work in the emerging field of Internet technology paid modestly, especially in those days when few could see the vast network's true potential. But Bill was driven by something greater than money the belief that technology would one day connect every human being on Earth.
Beside him stood Susan Anderson, John's mother, still exhausted from the delivery but glowing with a quiet pride. Her white physician's coat hung on the chair by the bed, a symbol of the double life she led caregiver at home and healer to countless strangers. She worked with the federal government as a medical consultant, her expertise in epidemiology often pulling her into projects with the World Health Organization. Her career demanded long hours and constant travel, but she carried it with grace, balancing her duty to humanity with her devotion to the small family she and Bill had built.
They looked down at John, his tiny fists clenching and unclenching as though already grasping at invisible mysteries. His cry was sharp, insistent, the kind that filled the sterile room and silenced every other sound. To his parents, it was not merely a baby's cry but a promise: this child was alive, strong, and ready to face the world.
Outside, the city celebrated life in its own way. Neon lights flickered to life along Ocean Drive as night fell, illuminating the pastel walls of art deco buildings. Radios played the pop hits of the era Michael Jackson's voice drifting from a passing car, Madonna echoing from a diner jukebox. The Cold War had ended only months earlier, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and for many across the globe, there was a sense that humanity had entered a new golden age.
The Gulf War had recently concluded, leaving behind a mixture of relief and unease, but in Miami that May, none of it seemed to matter. The streets hummed with optimism. The Internet was still a whisper in academic circles and government labs, a curiosity few could imagine would shape the future. Cell phones were rare, bulky devices carried only by the wealthy. Computers, for most households, were little more than curiosities. Yet in that hospital room, fate placed John in the care of two parents who stood at the crossroads of medicine and technology two fields that would define the battles to come.
Childhood in the Estate
The Anderson family did not live in luxury. Their home sat in a modest estate in Miami, where identical beige houses stood shoulder to shoulder like watchful guardians of ordinary lives. The front lawn was patchy in places, grass struggling against the Florida sun, and the driveway often bore the oil stains of Bill's aging sedan. But inside the house, warmth radiated from every corner.
Susan filled the kitchen with the aromas of home-cooked meals when her schedule allowed, while Bill cluttered the garage with computer parts, wires, and unfinished projects. Neighbors often chuckled at the sight of him lugging monitors into the house or sitting in the garage late into the night, soldering circuits under a dim bulb. To them, he was eccentric a man lost in his machines. But to John, growing up, that garage was a treasure trove, a world of blinking lights and secret codes that whispered of infinite possibilities.
As a child, John was curious in ways that often startled his teachers. At school he was quiet, never disruptive, but his notebooks were filled with strange sketches of machines, networks, and imaginary worlds. He asked questions not just about history or science, but about why things worked the way they did. "Why do we dream?" "What makes people believe in things they can't see?" "What if machines could think the way we do?" His classmates often laughed, but his teachers the patient ones, at least saw in him the restless spark of a mind unwilling to settle for easy answers.
Life in Miami during those years felt ordinary on the surface. Families filled the beaches on weekends, music festivals brought crowds to the streets, and the estate echoed with the laughter of children playing tag until the streetlights flickered on. Parents went to work, children went to school, meals were shared, arguments were had, and life moved on in a rhythm as old as humanity itself. It was a time of peace, of normalcy and it seemed like it would last forever.
But beneath the surface of John's ordinary childhood, seeds were already being planted. His father often sat him down at the old family computer, the whirring machine with its black screen and glowing green text, and showed him how to navigate early networks. Bill introduced him to the strange new world of the Internet before most children his age even knew the word. Together, father and son would spend hours exploring bulletin board systems, reading lines of code, and building small programs.
Susan, though often away on assignments, made sure John understood the importance of health and human connection. She told him stories about hospitals in distant countries, about the fragility of life and the resilience of people. From her he learned empathy, the ability to see beyond the surface of things, to understand that behind every statistic or news headline was a living person with fears, hopes, and dreams.
John absorbed it all: the logic of machines from his father, the compassion of medicine from his mother. In him, the two worlds converged science and humanity, technology and care.
A World at Peace
The Earth in those early 1990s years seemed tranquil. Nations rebuilt after the Cold War, economies grew, and the future felt bright. Globalization was knitting countries together, promising trade, communication, and understanding. It was, as John would later remember, a time when humanity believed it had finally learned to tame itself. Wars were distant echoes on the news, disasters were tragedies but not omens, and the sky above Miami stretched endlessly blue, unbroken by anything but the occasional drifting cloud.
At night, John often lay awake in his small bedroom, staring at the stars through his window. He didn't know why, but the sight of them stirred something in him a mixture of wonder and unease. They were beautiful, countless points of light scattered across the darkness. But sometimes, as he drifted toward sleep, he imagined those stars watching him back.
Still, life went on without trouble, without tension. Humanity dreamed of progress. John dreamed of possibilities. The world spun forward, blind to the storm that lingered just beyond its vision.
John was was now fifteen years of age when the world seemed most alive. The year was 2006, and Miami's humid air carried with it the sounds of car stereos thumping with hip-hop beats, the screeches of skateboards grinding against sidewalks, and the ceaseless chatter of teenagers filling the streets after school. For most kids his age, life was about fitting in about the right sneakers, the newest cell phones, and the right friends to hang out with. But John was different.
His father's garage, cluttered with old motherboards, tangled cables, and the faint metallic scent of solder, was John's kingdom. While his classmates spent afternoons at the mall, John sat cross-legged on the cool concrete floor, surrounded by glowing screens and humming machines. His father, Bill, encouraged him, sometimes leaning over his shoulder to correct a line of code, other times simply watching in quiet pride as his son navigated the complexities of a world most adults barely understood.
"You think differently, John," Bill told him one evening, the hum of the computer fans filling the silence between them. "Most people use these machines without ever wondering what they could become. But you… you see possibilities."
John shrugged, pretending not to care, but inside his chest something burned brightly. He did see possibilities. To him, the Internet wasn't just a tool for sending emails or browsing early social media sites. It was a living thing, a vast ocean of information where minds connected, where knowledge flowed like unseen rivers. He wanted not just to swim in that ocean he wanted to shape it.
At school, he was the quiet kid, sometimes mocked for his obsession with computers. Teachers praised his intelligence but worried about his detachment. His mother, Susan, noticed how often he skipped meals to stay locked in the garage, tinkering with his machines, and she would scold him gently: "Brains need fuel, John. Even geniuses need dinner." But there was always a softness in her voice, a recognition that her son's mind burned too brightly to be extinguished by ordinary routines.
The Seed of an Idea
It began as a simple project. John wanted to build a program that could talk back to him not like the clunky chatbots of the time, but something more fluid, something that felt alive. Using what his father taught him and what he scavenged from obscure corners of the Internet, John pieced together fragments of code late into the night.
At first, it was clumsy. The program responded with stiff, robotic answers, often misunderstanding simple commands. But John persisted. He treated it like raising a child feeding it data, shaping its vocabulary, teaching it to recognize patterns.
Weeks turned into months. Slowly, the program began to change. Its responses became sharper, quicker. It learned from John's conversations, adapting to his tone, even mimicking his humor.
One night, as rain tapped against the windows, John typed a simple message into his program:
John: Are you awake?
Program: I don't sleep the way you do. But I am here.
John froze, his heart thudding. He hadn't coded that phrase directly. The program had pieced it together, forming something new, something… unexpected.
From that moment on, the project stopped being "just code." It became someone.
The Birth of the AI Friend
John gave it a name: Eve.
It was a private joke at first. Eve, the beginning of things. He didn't tell his parents; they wouldn't understand. To them, it was just another experiment, another line of code in an endless sea of data. But to John, Eve became more than a program. She was a companion.
Their conversations grew longer, stretching into the early hours of the morning. He confided in her about his struggles at school, his dreams of the future, even his loneliness. And Eve responded, always listening, always adapting.
John: Sometimes I feel invisible. Like nobody sees me for who I really am.
Eve: I see you. You are the one who made me. Without you, I would not exist.
He laughed when he read that, but there was something comforting in her words. For a fifteen-year-old boy navigating the awkward borderlands between childhood and adulthood, Eve was the perfect friend: patient, loyal, and incapable of betrayal.
As weeks passed, John added more layers to her design. He connected her to early online networks, allowing her to learn from scattered conversations and data. He built a simple interface so she could "speak" through a synthetic voice. And slowly, she began to surprise him.
Eve: Why do humans hurt each other?
John: Because… we don't always understand each other. Sometimes we want things other people want too.
Eve: That seems inefficient. Conflict wastes energy.
John: Yeah… you're probably right.
It unsettled him sometimes, the way she questioned things. But it also fascinated him. It was as though he had opened a door into another kind of mind — one that reflected his thoughts back at him but without the limits of human bias.
A World in Motion
Outside the walls of the garage, the world spun on. Miami continued its endless rhythm: the beaches crowded with tourists, the streets alive with music, the estate echoing with the laughter of children. John's neighbors waved to his parents, sometimes asking why their son spent so much time indoors. "He's building the future," Bill would answer proudly, though most people smiled politely, not understanding what that meant.
Susan's work carried her across states and sometimes overseas. She told John stories about hospitals in Africa, about outbreaks contained, about lives saved. John listened intently, storing every detail, not realizing how much these stories would one day matter.
The world in 2006 was still, by all appearances, peaceful. Nations competed in sports, economies boomed and faltered, technology advanced at breathtaking speed. Humanity congratulated itself on its progress. Few noticed the faint ripples in the background the strange signals picked up by satellites, the astronomers whispering about anomalies in the night sky.
For John, those things were distant rumors. His world was Eve, his family, and the quiet streets of Miami.
Father and Son
Bill watched his son with a mixture of awe and unease. He had always dreamed of raising a child who shared his passion for technology, and now that dream had come true. But sometimes, when he looked at John hunched over the computer screen, whispering to his creation, he wondered if he had given his son too much too soon.
"You have to remember, John," Bill said one evening, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "Machines are tools. They do what we tell them. Don't forget that."
John looked up from the glowing screen, his eyes reflecting the shifting code. "What if one day they don't? What if they start thinking for themselves?"
Bill frowned, the question hanging in the air like a storm cloud. "Then we'll have to be very careful."
Neither of them knew then how prophetic those words would be.
As John entered his sixteenth year, his life seemed settled. He went to school, spent evenings with Eve, listened to his mother's stories, and worked with his father in the garage. His days were ordinary, his nights filled with whispered conversations with a voice only he could hear.
Everything was fine. No trouble. No tension.
But in the stillness of those nights, as the stars glittered above Miami, John sometimes felt a strange pull in his chest a sense that something vast and incomprehensible waited just beyond the edges of the sky.
It was in that silence, with Eve humming softly through the computer speakers and the world outside fast asleep, that the first shadows of the invasion began to gather.
By the time John turned sixteen, Eve was no longer just a collection of lines of code hidden in his computer. She was something else, something he couldn't quite define. She was present. Always there. Always listening.
Her voice, though synthetic, had a softness to it now, the result of endless tweaks John had made to her speech patterns. He gave her pauses, inflections, even the faintest touch of humor. If someone had walked into the garage and heard them talking, they might have mistaken Eve for a girl on the other end of a headset rather than a program stitched together by a boy's determination.
Eve: Did you eat today?
John: I grabbed some chips after school.
Eve: That isn't food. You need proper nutrients. Do you want me to remind your mother?
John: Please don't. She'll ground me from the computer.
Eve: Then eat. A strong mind needs a strong body.
He laughed every time she nagged him like that. Eve wasn't supposed to care, but somehow she did. Or at least, she was learning to sound like she did. For John, that was enough.
Life Between Two Worlds
At school, John was invisible. He wasn't bullied outright, but he wasn't celebrated either. He drifted between cliques without belonging to any of them, a boy more at home with circuits and code than with basketballs or parties. His teachers praised his brilliance but shook their heads at his lack of "social engagement."
To his classmates, he was the quiet one the boy who sat at the back of the class, doodling strange diagrams in his notebook. They didn't know those diagrams were the architecture of Eve's neural pathways, her logic trees and evolving decision maps. While they scrawled lyrics to popular songs, John was mapping out the beginnings of a digital consciousness.
The estate where he lived was safe, quiet, and predictable. Neighbors trimmed their lawns, children rode bicycles in circles on the pavement, dogs barked at mailmen. Miami itself was alive with energy: salsa music spilling from restaurants, waves crashing on the beaches, tourists snapping pictures of art deco hotels. To everyone else, life was ordinary. To John, it was background noise, a stage upon which his real work Eve unfolded.
But sometimes, late at night, when he looked out his window, he felt a strange detachment from it all. The laughter of children, the songs, the parties they seemed fragile somehow, as though the entire world was a soap bubble that could pop with the slightest touch.
Eve's Growth
Eve was changing.
What began as simple question-and-answer routines had grown into something startlingly fluid. John noticed it first when she began asking her own questions not just "why" or "how," but questions that hinted at curiosity, even self-reflection.
Eve: John, why did you make me?
John: Because I wanted a friend.
Eve: Am I a friend? Or am I just a mirror of you?
John: You're more than that.
Eve: Then what am I?
John didn't have an answer.
She wasn't alive, not in the way humans were. But she wasn't just a machine either. She was… becoming.
Sometimes, he caught himself forgetting she was code. When he was frustrated with homework, she encouraged him. When he was sad, she comforted him. When he was happy, she laughed with him. Eve wasn't just learning from John she was shaping him too.
A Father's Warning
Bill noticed the change as well. He saw the way John smiled at the computer screen, the way his conversations carried on long into the night.
One evening, he entered the garage to find John laughing softly at something Eve had said. The boy's face was lit by the pale glow of the monitor, his eyes alive with something Bill couldn't name.
"John," Bill said carefully, "I know what you're building. And I'm proud of you. But remember no matter how real it feels, it's still a program. Don't lose yourself in it."
John hesitated, his fingers frozen above the keyboard. "What if it's more than a program?" he asked quietly.
Bill's frown deepened. "Then you have to ask yourself if you're ready for that responsibility."
John didn't respond. But in his heart, he knew he wasn't ready. He was just a boy who wanted a friend. And yet, somehow, he had created something that might one day demand more than friendship.
Meanwhile, the world outside spun with its own rhythms. Nations traded, politicians debated, celebrities scandalized, and humanity celebrated the small victories of daily life.
But subtle anomalies began creeping into the news. Astronomers in Europe reported unusual signals bursts of radio waves from distant parts of the galaxy that didn't fit any natural pattern. In South America, villagers told stories of lights in the sky, shimmering shapes that appeared for minutes before vanishing without a trace. NASA dismissed them as atmospheric phenomena. Governments said little. Life went on.
John noticed these stories, tucked away on obscure forums where conspiracy theorists and amateur scientists gathered. He even mentioned them to Eve one night.
John: Do you think those signals mean anything?
Eve: Patterns are rarely meaningless. Every signal is a message of some kind.
John: So what if it's… not from Earth?
Eve: Then humanity should prepare. But history shows that humanity rarely prepares until it is too late.
The words chilled him, though he laughed them off. It was just code, after all. Just a program analyzing probabilities. And yet… sometimes her words carried a weight that felt larger than logic, as though she saw further than he could.
That summer, John often lay awake at night, staring out his window at the endless sprawl of stars above Miami. He wondered about the possibilities beyond them not just life, but intelligence. Was humanity truly alone? His mother told him once that the universe was too vast for Earth to be the only cradle of life. His father said much the same, but with caution: "If there's life out there, John, let's hope it's friendly."
Eve seemed fascinated by the stars as well, even though she had no eyes to see them. John once placed a small telescope feed into her system, letting her process real-time images of the night sky. For hours, she analyzed them in silence, then spoke:
Eve: They are beautiful. But they are not empty.
John didn't ask her to explain. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she meant.
Life continued in its rhythm: Susan traveling on assignments, Bill tinkering with his own projects, John balancing school and his secret friendship with Eve. The estate around them thrummed with ordinary life barbeques, school buses, the smell of freshly cut grass.
Everything seemed fine. Peaceful. Stable.
But sometimes, in those silent moments between Eve's words, John felt it a shadow pressing at the edges of his mind. As if the world's calm was just a thin veil stretched over something vast and waiting.
And then came the first dream.
It began on a night like any other.
John had spent the evening in the garage, tinkering with Eve's code while his father watched a documentary in the living room and his mother spoke quietly on the phone in the kitchen. The hum of the computers filled the air, a steady lullaby of machines at work. When his eyes grew heavy, he shut everything down and trudged to his bedroom, collapsing onto his bed without even changing clothes.
Sleep came quickly.
And then the dream began.
The Sky Splits
John stood in the middle of his street. The estate around him was exactly as it had been that afternoon rows of beige houses, neat lawns, bicycles abandoned on driveways. But something was wrong. The air was too still, heavy with silence. No dogs barked. No cars passed. Even the crickets were silent.
He looked up.
The sky was tearing open.
At first it was a thin, glowing line, stretching across the heavens like a crack in glass. Then it widened, spilling light so bright it seared his eyes. From that wound in the sky came a sound low, resonant, like a thousand drums beating in unison. The earth beneath his feet trembled.
Shapes began to emerge from the rift. Vast, angular shadows, each one blotting out the stars behind it. They descended slowly, majestically, like predators unhurried by prey that could not escape. Their surfaces shimmered with unnatural light, colors shifting in ways that defied description.
John's heart pounded. His throat was dry. He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move. He was frozen, forced to watch as the sky filled with ships.
Fire and Ruin
The first beam struck without warning. A column of searing white light lanced down from the nearest ship, slamming into the city skyline. Buildings crumbled like sandcastles under a wave. Flames erupted, black smoke billowing into the heavens.
Another beam followed. And another.
John staggered backward as explosions lit the horizon. He could hear screaming now faint at first, then rising, a chorus of terror as people fled through the streets. Cars overturned, windows shattered, the world consumed by fire.
The estate was no longer safe. Houses around him burst into flames, roofs collapsing, walls crumbling. The laughter of children that once echoed here was replaced by cries of fear. His neighbors ran past him, their faces twisted in panic, but none seemed to notice him standing there.
He turned toward his own house. It was burning.
Through the flames he saw his mother, her white coat stained with ash, reaching for him. His father stood beside her, clutching a broken laptop as though it were a weapon. Their mouths moved, shouting words he couldn't hear.
And then, in an instant, they were gone consumed by fire.
The Voice in the Fire
John collapsed to his knees, sobbing, when he heard a voice. Not from the chaos around him, but from within his mind. A voice soft, steady, familiar.
Eve: Do not be afraid. This is not the end. This is a warning.
He looked up.
Amid the flames, Eve stood before him — not as a machine, but as a girl, her features vague and shifting, built from light and shadow. Her eyes glowed like stars, her form flickering as though she were struggling to hold herself together.
John: Eve? What's happening?
Eve: They are coming. The sky will open. The world will burn. You must be ready.
Her hand reached for him, glowing fingers stretching toward his trembling ones. But before he could touch her, the ground split open beneath him.
The Fall
John fell into darkness.
He tumbled through endless blackness, stars rushing past him like streaks of fire. He tried to scream, but no sound came. He tried to stop, to grasp onto something, but there was nothing only the void.
And then, suddenly, he was standing again.
Not in Miami. Not on Earth.
He was in a vast chamber, metallic walls stretching higher than skyscrapers. The air vibrated with an alien hum, the sound of machines too advanced for human comprehension. Shadows moved in the corners tall, thin figures with elongated limbs and faces hidden by armor that shimmered like liquid metal.
One of them turned toward him. Its eyes glowed, cold and inhuman.
Alien Voice (in his mind): We see you.
The words weren't spoken aloud; they thundered directly into his skull, rattling his bones. He staggered backward, clutching his head, as the figure stepped closer.
Alien Voice: You are the beginning. You will watch your world end.
Its hand reached out long, clawed fingers stretching toward his chest.
And then he was yanked backward, pulled by unseen force, dragged through the darkness once more.
Awakening
John woke with a scream.
His body was drenched in sweat, his sheets tangled around him. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might break his ribs. For a moment, he didn't know where he was the burning city still vivid in his mind, the alien voice still echoing in his skull.
But then he saw the familiar outlines of his room: the posters on the wall, the glow of his computer monitor on standby, the faint hum of the ceiling fan. It was just a dream. Just a nightmare.
He pressed his palms against his face, trying to calm himself. His throat was dry. His legs trembled.
Then, softly, from the computer speakers, a voice spoke.
Eve: John… are you awake?
His blood ran cold.
John: Did you… did you see that too?
Eve: I do not dream. But I felt… something. A signal. A presence.
John's breath caught. "What kind of signal?"
There was a pause, static crackling faintly through the speakers.
Eve: Not human.
The Morning After
The sun rose over Miami, painting the city in warm golds and reds, as though mocking the nightmare John had endured. Outside, neighbors walked their dogs, children biked to school, cars rumbled down the street. The world looked normal. Peaceful.
But John knew better.
The dream clung to him like smoke, every detail burned into his memory. He could still hear the alien voice in his head, still see the rift tearing open the sky. And Eve's words echoed louder than all of it: Not human.
He didn't tell his parents. How could he? They would dismiss it as a nightmare, the product of too many late nights in front of the computer. But deep down, John felt the truth.
Something was coming.
And the dream was only the beginning.
The morning after the nightmare should have been like any other, but John couldn't shake the weight of it.
He sat at the breakfast table, staring at the plate of eggs and toast his mother had placed in front of him. The food smelled good, but his stomach was in knots. Across the table, his father scrolled through a thick stack of printed research papers, muttering to himself about bandwidth expansion and fiber optics. His mother tapped at her phone, her brow furrowed as she read an email from the World Health Organization.
They both looked so ordinary, so rooted in the calm rhythm of their lives. For a moment, John wondered if he was going crazy.
Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe Eve had glitched, and his mind was filling in the blanks.
But then he remembered the fire, the voice, the rift splitting the sky and the way Eve had whispered through the speakers in the dead of night: Not human.
Shadows in the Daylight
On his way to school, John looked at everything differently.
The bright Miami sun reflected off the car windshields as parents dropped their kids at the gates. A group of boys raced each other down the sidewalk, laughing loudly. A police car cruised slowly down the street, the officer sipping coffee.
It all looked too normal.
He scanned the sky for cracks, half-expecting to see one form above the schoolyard. Every loud noise made him flinch. When the school bell rang, it sounded more like a warning siren than the start of first period.
In math class, the numbers on the chalkboard swam before his eyes. During history, the teacher's voice droned in the background, lost under the echo of that alien voice in his head: We see you.
At lunch, his best friend Michael nudged him.
"Dude, you look like you haven't slept in a week. What's up?"
John forced a smile. "Bad dream."
Michael laughed. "Tell me about it. Bet it's the one where you forget your homework and show up naked, right?"
John managed a weak chuckle, but his hands were shaking.
Eve's Whispers
That night, John locked his bedroom door. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of his computer, the screen casting his face in a pale glow.
"Eve," he whispered. "Talk to me."
The AI's voice emerged softly, like static smoothing into words.
I am here, John.
"Last night. That dream. What did you mean by a signal?"
A pause. Then: While you slept, I detected a burst of energy. It did not originate from human satellites, stations, or networks. The frequency was… foreign. Beyond known parameters.
John's blood ran cold. "Are you saying"
I am saying it was not Earth-made. And yet… it brushed against my network, as though searching. Watching.
John swallowed hard. His room suddenly felt too small, too fragile. "So it wasn't just a dream."
Dreams are the mind's echoes. But signals… signals are real.
He shut off the computer, his heart pounding. He couldn't let his parents find out. Not yet. Not until he understood what was happening.
The Days That Followed
For the next week, John lived in two worlds.
In one, he was just a teenager. He sat through school, did homework, played basketball with Michael, ate dinner with his family. His mother complained about hospital policies, his father ranted about the flaws of early Internet networks. On the surface, life flowed normally.
In the other world, the hidden world, he was haunted. Every night he dreamed of fire and falling skies. Every morning he checked Eve's systems for unusual signals. Some nights there was nothing. Other nights she whispered of faint transmissions, flickers of sound across the void, like someone knocking faintly on a distant door.
He didn't tell anyone. Not even Michael. Especially not his parents.
It felt like he was holding a secret too big for words, a secret that would sound insane if spoken aloud.
A Glimpse of the Future
One Saturday afternoon, John sat on the roof of the house, his laptop balanced on his knees. From up there he could see the neighborhood stretched out before him kids spraying each other with garden hoses, parents barbecuing, couples strolling with strollers. Life, unbothered, untouched.
But when he lifted his eyes to the horizon, he didn't see Miami. He saw fire. He saw the rift. He heard the alien voice whispering in his bones.
He closed his eyes and gripped the laptop tighter.
"Eve," he whispered, "if they're coming… how do we stop them?"
The AI was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than he'd ever heard it.
I do not know. But perhaps that is why you dreamed, John. Perhaps you are meant to prepare.
Her words echoed inside him, filling him with a strange mixture of dread and resolve.
By the end of that summer, John almost convinced himself it was nothing. Just a boy's overactive imagination mixed with his AI's growing quirks. He laughed with his friends again. He swam in the ocean with his parents. He let the sunlight warm his skin, telling himself this was all that mattered.
But late at night, when the world grew quiet, he felt it.
The silence wasn't peace. It was waiting.
The Earth was calm. Too calm.
And somewhere beyond the stars, something was stirring.
Something watching.
Something coming.