Invasion: the apocalypse

ARC ONE: THE END OF THE WORLD. 1.0

DATE: 27TH AUGUST 2501.

INSIDE THE UNDERGROUND SHELTER ON THE OUTSKIRTS OUTSIDE CHROME CITY.

FIVE DAYS AFTER IMPACT.

“We have all thought about how the world will end, some believe that it will be caused by a deadly virus, others believe it will be a zombie apocalypse, a meteor impact.

Most believe it will be a nuclear war that will end the world, or the earth swallowed by the sun when it goes supernova. But we were all wrong.

The world’s ending happened in a less eventful way, it didn’t involve a meteor impact or any of the above. When it happened, we all knew it was coming, but there was nothing we could do to stop it, we could not fight it, we were unable to stop it. We could only let it strike us, and it took only seven hours for the world as we know it to end. Humanity could no longer roam the earth as we used to, and we were taken from the top of the food chain and placed at the very bottom. We were turned from the apex predators to the weakest of prey.

My name is Astra, just Astra, and I am one of the few survivors from Chrome city, we are currently hiding in the inner bunker under the chrome shelter, we are slowly depleting out our food and water supplies, and we won't last another month down here. If you are hearing this, please move to the nearest shelter and lock the gates, the monsters are everywhere, they come in like a flood and kill everything in their path.

Staying in a bunker may sound like the wrong thing to do, but it is your best chance of survival because all that is left on the surface was our greatest nightmare, horror, and death”.

FIVE DAYS BEFORE IMPACT

.

Astra stood with her deep blue eyes fixed on her telescope eyepiece as her classmates were collecting volcanic rock samples at the edge of Mount Chrome, the largest inactive volcano in the world that shines reflective silver in appearance due to the high abundance of chromium in its core. The morning sun has just risen, and the wind currents are high. Astra's short natural purple hair getting combed by strong air currents; with her unbuttoned shirt flying here and there in the gust of wind, revealing her high neck racer sports bra. The cold morning sea breeze caresses her soft cheeks and makes her lips dry up. Unlike most girls, Astra prefers to cut her hair short because she believes long hair gets in her way when she works; revealing her tomboyish nature.

Astra is a nineteen years old girl who lost her parents to a meteor impact that happened ten years ago, it was called a meteor impact, but the undisclosed truth is that no one knows what hit the ISS typhoon spaceship en-route Mars on what humanity thought would be its first interplanetary mission. Astra’s parents were both top-class astronaut engineers of the global human federation serving as onboard engineers and part of the mission to bring humanity to Mars after fifteen attempts, but each ship gets hit by a giant object that comes out of nowhere.

“Aren’t you cold Astra, with a dress like that, won’t you catch a cold?” asked professor Jada who is the lead Professor at Chrome city college of engineering and technology. Today she has brought all the students under her mentorship out on a field trip to Mount Chrome, hoping to pick up different rock samples that look like big chunks of silver due to the formation of chrome alloy in the active days of the volcano where silver-colored lava flowed out of its mouth and covered the landscapes near it. Today, the molten alloy and different Minerals and metal ores from inside the dead volcano became the very raw materials that made up the foundation for the walls of Chrome City. A city that is famous for being surrounded by a large metallic wall and is said to be the second-largest exporter of Chrome after the Giga mines in Russia.

“I am fine, but I think something is happening to the two spheres prof, for the last twenty days they spent in orbit side by side of the moon of the moon, they were stationary, but I think I just saw them rotating,” she said. Causing every one of her classmates except professor Jada to chuckle, the professor knows that although it has not been two lunar revolutions, Astra would never joke about such a thing. He knows that she is far more intelligent than that.

Like many millions of people on earth, Astra has been obsessed with looking at and observing the two spheres on both sides of the moon, Just as most people around the world, Astra has been observing and studying the Alien spheres that have appeared on the earth’s orbit exactly twenty days ago forming theories and making speculations on what they are and who may have sent them.

Exactly fifty six days ago, the spheres broadcasted  a signal that connected to every available communication device on earth, the signal carrieda simple audio massage.

"surrender the terra to the empire and mograte all your people to the African continent. Failure to do so within two Lunar revolutions will be consisdered an act of war and will be met by brutal force."

The government has 

However, Astra’s obsession with observing the moon did not start with the spheres, it could be said that she is naturally drawn towards it.

Since she joined the engineering college in Chrome city at the age of eleven, she has blurted to everyone that she will be an engineer one day and serve Humanity by helping in the expansion of the moon base. No one doubts her ambition because it is backed up by her unparalleled talent in the engineering field.

“your jokes will be as short-lived as your career as an engineering” Jamie, an impudent boy among Astra’s classmates who like to brag by flaunting his family’s political standing and wealth as his strongest quality said to Astra in an intention to ridicule her. Jamie has always been jealous of Astra’s engineering genius and the attention it draws towards her. Being the son of the biggest sponsor of Chrome city’s engineering college, Jamie always wants all the attention in the world on himself, he wanted to be the only genius in his class, but they had to bring some orphan from the boonies to outshine him. He always thought.

“how can you even joke about that Astra?” asked Rhoda another of Astra’s classmates who only likes to join conversations to criticize other people.

“I don’t think she is joking, take a look yourself, one of the spheres is definitely moving”. Khan responded, pointing at the sky in the direction of the moon.

All of them tilted their heads upwards, looking, as one of the spheres could be seen leaving the side of the moon and moving in its orbit. All of a sudden, a large explosion so big was seen on the side of the moon, visibly destroying one-fifth of the moon including the human base on it. Then the other sphere begins to leave the side of the moon in a similar orbit until the two spheres in the sky as they pass through the atmosphere expanding past Astra and her classmates with a gust of wind that almost blew her telescope away have she not held it properly.

Professor Jada who realized what was about to happen next started shouting at her students to get down, her voice was drowned out by the whistling noise the wind is making, so she started running to Astra, but before she could take her third step, a super loud booming sound incomparable to anything known suddenly went off, throwing off all of them in the direction the wave was moving and shattering the glass eyepiece on Astra’s telescope.

The sound was heard all over the world and everywhere is in devastation as glass windows and doors shatter and massive floods occur.

When the tide of the wave has cleared out, Astra, her professor and seven of her classmates stood up and watch cloudless sky as the spheres open up their bottom and from inside the spheres came descending four massive white monoliths as big as the 21st century’s tallest building called the Burj Khalifa which at the time was the tallest building on the earth, standing 163 floors and 2,717 feet above ground.

The monolith pillars were so large that they can be seen with the naked eye as they descend towards the surface of the earth. As if guided, three of them angled out and moved apart. Leaving one monolith growing bigger in appearance with every passing second as it descend lower and lower.

Shaking with fear of the unknown, Astra and watched as the Pillar descended closer and closer until it became apparent that it was landing in the worst location possible, the middle of Chrome City.

Frantically, dialing their cell phones and calling relatives in the city to warn them of the impending danger of what they can see from the top f mount chrome, but their signals were interrupted by a broadcast from the Global human federation government warning people of the invasion and declaring a global state of emergency and asking all citizens to take refuge in the old nuclear shelters that were built a hundred and fifty years ago after World war three.

Astra stood at the peak of the silver colored mountain with her colleagues watching the hundred and sixty feet tall monolith land on the city she grew to love, as soon as the monolith made impact, it planted itself erect at the center of the city, triggering a wave explosion that engulfed the entire city, destroying everything and killing every living thing throughout the city.

Astra felt a sharp cold shiver run down her spine and her feet becoming weak. She turned behind her and saw professor Jada standing with utter horror in her eyes, Jamie and Tim were on the floor weeping for their families.

“We need to check the city if there are any survivors, they need our help!” Khan said, walking towards the direction that they had earlier parked their all-terrain cruise rover.

“I don’t think it is safe, so we will only take some of you with us, who is willing to come with us? We need three more people” Professor Jada said, managing to gather courage.

Astra, Tim, and Sam agreed to go. Khan drove the rover to them and Professor Jada picked from the trunk and gave each of them a high caliber pistol and a flare gun, having each of them understand and agree that they must do exactly as she orders out there, no matter what happens. With that, the four of them drove off, leaving Rhoda with the charge of keeping the rest of the students safe and transmitting their live location as they wait on top of the mountain.

Jada drove the rover skillfully through the forest, passing through to the scorched edges of the forest that the explosion from inside the city has reached. As they drive closer and closer to the city, the more unrecognizable it looks. What used to be a chrome covered wall that stand twenty-five feet tall has now become a melted out ten feet piece of metal. Inside the walls, where a few hours ago Astra and her colleagues left to be full of joy and life now looks like a ghost town. Not a single soul alive.

The remains of the people who did not get completely vaporized have been charred up everywhere in the city.

“I don’t think there is any living being left here anymore, we should get away from the alien tower before it kills all as well” Astra said. And professor Jada agreed with her. Suddenly, they heard a hissing sound coming from the alien, monolithic tower overshadowing the entire city. 

“Where is Sam? I thought he said he understood the importance of following my orders” asked Professor Jada who fears what may come out of monolith and attack them or worse, the monolith may release another explosion that will vaporize all of them together with the remains of the city.

Jada made all the students get back into the Rover and started driving around to find Sam and get back to Rhoda and the rest of the students before moving to the chrome shelter on the other side of the mountain.

“There he is, Sam!” shouted Khan, but Jada quickly pulled the rover to a sudden stop and shushed Khan up.

“Sam, listen to me carefully, slowly walk towards the rover and whatever you do, do not turn back”.

Jada said to Sam, who is standing in where his parent's house used to be, and now only the ruins remain.

He started walking to the rover as ordered, he was halfway there when he heard a crackling sound behind him that resembles the eerie sound of cicada rubbing its wings. He lifted his face to see his classmates terrified and Jada has already started the rover, indicating the immediate danger that was behind him. He swallowed hard and looked at Jada who was shaking her head indicating for him not to look back.

But that was not enough to stop Sam, he was determined to see whatever the hell it is that just killed his parents and the entirety of the city.

As he turned around, he was eye to eye with a pale white monster, it was something unlike he has ever seen and the beast was so ugly and terrifying that Sam froze in place with fear, he was unable to move at all. The monster was as big as a horse, it stood on six legs that are bent at an angle for Astra to take one look and figure out it must be a fast runner. Each leg has a hoof except for the first two in the front which have razor sharp claws on them. The face of the alien creature has teeth that almost certainly tells anyone looking at it that it is about to bite its head off.

On the monster's back, where a horse would normally have a tail, it has five tentacles, each with a sharp bone at the end of it.

Sam freaked out and turned in the direction of the rover, running with all his might. As soon as she realized what was going on, Jada started the rover and started driving fast towards Sam. She made a skid turn in front of Sam, so he could jump in. He reached out his hands and jumped towards the vehicle when all of a sudden, a spike penetrated his chest, followed but four more that each impaled Sam. Astra, Jada, and the rest of the two students watched as Sam is torn into shreds by the alien creature that just came out of the monolith. The creature made a bloodcurdling shriek that reverberated all over the wasted city.

With a skillful execution, Jada turned the rover around and raised its wheels up, stepping on the accelerator as hard as she could, as the four of them drive out of the destroyed city in a raging speed.

From behind them, they could hear the amplified Crackling sound and the bloodcurdling shriek has increased. Astra quickly pull out her binoculars and looked back at the monolith, and she quickly said to Jada, “please drive faster, or we will all die a painful death soon. They are swarming the entire place, there are already a few thousands of them crawling out of the monolith and a few of them are still chasing us after us” She said and this made professor Jada to drive even faster than she was initially going.

After covering four kilometers away from the city, but the first monster that killed Sam, which has blood stains on its body is still chasing them. At a speed of a hundred miles per hour, confirming Mila’s intuition that the creature is a fast runner.

“In a situation like this, It is only a matter of time before it catches up to us, we must shoot it to lose it” Astra said and pulled out her high caliber pistol, strapping himself to the rover using the seat belt. She aimed her gun at the Monster following them. Immediately, Khan, and Tim joined her, strapping themselves to the rover and pulling out their guns, and the three started firing their guns at the creature. After each of them finished an entire magazine round on it, They realize that bullets just bounce off its skin.

“Guns can't hurt it” Khan shouted at the rest of them. But as the rest of them give up on shooting the alien monster, Astra reloaded her gun without hesitation and pointed it right at the creature that is still chasing them. She took aim at its Legs at first, firing single shots two times and accurately hitting the legs of the monster, but there was no change in what happens, the bullets simply bounced off its skin.

She took aim again at the monster’s face, firing twice again but this time around, as if it knows where she is aiming at, it leapt into the air and landed on the other side of the rover.

“It can't possibly be bulletproof all over its body, there have to be some weak spots on its body somewhere. We just have to find out where they are” Astra said, inciting the rest to pull out their guns and take aim at the creature once again, and beginning to shoot at the Monster which doesn’t seem to want to give up on chasing them.

With the wind combing through her short hair, she aimed at the monster’s face once again, preparing to fire again.

“We are approaching the shelter, we need to lose the monster or we won't even get the chance to open the gate to the entrance” Jada shouted at them.

“I have an idea, but you won't like it”. Astra shouted back.