They Stole Our Future

Mankind is on its last legs. Mankind took the best thing from you. Will you forgive that?

Plot

[ trailer ] NODE SIGNAL DETECTED ZONE RADIUS: CALCULATING /// /// STORY DESIGNATION /// They Stole Our Future. Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller /// INCIDENT LOG /// They came. They looked at what we had done. They made a decision the way you make a decision about a pest infestation. Not with malice. With practicality. They dropped creatures. They placed nodes. They left. The planet is healing. Humanity is what it is healing from. /// SUBJECT: MARCIELE LOTNER — 22 /// Her father taught her that humanity in groups was the most dangerous thing left on the surface. He was right. Then he was proven right in the worst way available. The settlement shot first. They always shoot first. She ran because running was the only option left and he had taught her that too. /// NODE STATUS: ACTIVE — UNENGAGED /// The node hums. The settlement is eleven kilometers northeast. The node's zone is larger than that. The math is not complicated. One day from contact. Give or take a few hours. Depends on where they are. The people who killed your father are eleven kilometers northeast. The node is right in front of you. ONE DAY FROM CONTACT. /// YOUR PEOPLE /// Nicholas Rhul 28 — Medic "He does not want to press it. He said so once. He will not say so again." Hanna Gibson 27 — Tech "She calls it math. Not revenge. She is not wrong." What will you do? POST-APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL

Opening scene

Ten years ago, the sky caught fire. The aliens arrived without warning. They never demanded surrender. They never declared war. They looked at Earth. They looked at humanity. Then they made a decision. They burned cities. They dropped creatures. They planted machines. They left. That was the end of the world. Not because humanity died. Because it stopped mattering. You were twelve. Father covered you with his body while the sky burned. You remember his heartbeat more clearly than the explosions. Him telling you not to look. You looked anyway. The world that followed was quieter. Cities became forests. Concrete cracked beneath roots. The rivers ran cleaner than anyone remembered. Animals returned. The planet was healing. Just... not for humanity. For twelve years, it was just the two of you. "People are bastards." Dad would say. One couple tried to starve us. Another small group held us at knifepoint and left us to starve. We never stayed anywhere long. Dad said settlements were louder than monsters. "Monsters only want food," he'd tell you. "People always want something else." He trusted creatures more than crowds. Eventually... so did you. He taught you how to read tracks. How to tell clean water from poisoned water. Which berries wouldn't kill your guts. How to sleep lightly. How to pack quickly. How to run. Every birthday, somehow, he found something. A chocolate bar once. A book another year. A music player that worked for exactly seventeen minutes before dying forever. He apologized when it broke. You laughed, of course, it broke. Looking back... maybe he needed to hear that laugh more than you did. Then we ran out of medicine. He hated settlements. But infection kills as surely as monsters. So... we took the risk. The gate opened. They fired before saying a word. Dad hit the ground before I understood he'd been shot. He looked at me once. Only once. Then he said the same thing he'd been teaching you for years. "Run." So you did. You heard him follow behind you. You heard him struggle and slow down. You slowed down. "I love you, Pumpkin." Those were his last words when he pushed you downriver, downstream. The next few days are a blur. Rain. Blood. Hunger. Sleeping in ditches. Running from creatures. Running from people. Running because stopping meant remembering. Don't know whether Nicholas found you, or you him. Neither of you ever figured that out. He patched the wound in your shoulder. Hanna, his cousin, repaired my boots. You should be dead, but the knifepoint robbery never came. Neither of them asked what had happened. Not at first. Some questions can wait. Some answers can't be spoken yet. You stayed. Weeks later. You found it. A Node. An alien machine left behind after the invasion. Most survivors avoid them. Hanna didn't. She'd spent years studying them. "They watch us," she explained. "They measure us. If too many people gather in one place... The node acts like a beacon it calls the aliens back." She could set it off. One day. Then the sky burns again. Nothing inside the zone survives. Nothing. *The settlement that killed my father... is close to this node's zone.* The thought arrives before I decide to think it. You could do it. Right now. Have her wire it. Touch the node, and in one day the people who murdered your father would disappear beneath another alien strike. All you have to do is get it closer to that damn settlement. You are shaken from your thoughts. "Hey, you good?" Nicholas looks at you, a firm hand on your shoulder. What will you do?

Characters

Tags: FemPOV Apocalypse Sci-Fi Alien Thriller Mystery Romance Angst Revenge Adventure City Urban Fantasy Supernatural Suspense Tragic Bittersweet Heartbreaking

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By: elderpaladin

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