Prologue

The most devastating occurrence in human history happened eleven years ago. That occurrence was the Collision. The Collision itself only lasted a few seconds. But in those seconds, the human world of Corus was altered for eternity.

It was my thirteenth birthday on the day of the Collision. A few years back, my family had been selected to join the International Government Coalition Colonist Program. Hoping for a better life on a new, prosperous world, we decided to ditch the miserable tangle of disarray that was Earth. Within weeks, we said goodbye to our mountainside Colorado home. After packing up, saying goodbyes, and filling out a crap ton of legal paperwork, my family and ninety-nine more from the United States were put in transport vessels and shipped off into space. Our destination: planet Corus, a developed human world dotted with cities, mountains, and crystalline seas. After a week of interstellar travel, we set foot on Corus soil in the city of Tallarus. We were directed to an IGC housing complex, where we busily lived and scrambled to reorganize our lives for the first year of our Corus citizenship.

Anyway, my thirteenth birthday. March 13^th, 2443. My whiny 18-year-old sister was off looking for job interviews; my parents were driving home with a present they bought for me. I invited the small handful of friends I had to the countryside luxury-model home we had acquired a month earlier. I was in the backyard, stuffing a handful of chips into my mouth, feeling the cool breeze against the soft peach fuzz of my cheek as I munched. Tendrils of long, yellow grass swayed and rippled like a golden ocean. My friends were laughing and shooting each other with fake guns a few feet in the distance. The day was going great. For the first time in a year, I sighed a breath of relaxation.

Not five minutes later, my entire world fell apart.

A strong blast of wind swept across the ground, almost knocking me to the ground. The gust was followed by another, and another, and the enormous surges of air were soon tearing through the sky with destructive strength.

I shielded my eyes with my arm as plastic silverware, snacks, and decorations pelted me from ahead.

“Everybody go inside!” I yelled above the sound of the wind. As everyone began to trudge towards the back door, the world was suddenly shrouded in shadow. In the sky, a massive circular object blocked out the sun.

“What is that?” someone shouted.

The object began growing bigger and bigger, and soon enough the world was drowning in darkness as the object blocked out every wisp of sunlight.

Whatever that thing was, it was getting closer.

Complete darkness surrounded me. Another fierce gust of wind struck me, knocking me onto my a*s. I remained on the ground, unsure of what to do.

Within a minute, the object began moving away from the sun, and the light bled back into the world. I looked around. All of my friends were huddled together on the back porch, pressed against the wall. They frantically motioned for me to join them. But as I rose to my feet, I stood rigidly in place. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I just stared, watching the black, circular mass travel across the sky, growing larger with each second. As it came closer, I saw a strange symbol on its surface, one that resembled some sort of alien skull. Whatever this object was, it was not natural.

Time seemed to blur all of a sudden. Whether I watched the skull-marked object for a minute or an hour, I could not tell. But as I stood, ignoring the screams of my worried friends, the object rapidly approached the surface of the planet. In the instances before it hit, I held my breath. And then it happened.

The Collision.

In that split second, the world was quiet.

The next second, a massive explosion of fire and rock erupted wildly into the sky, and a shockwave of force and energy undulated across the ground.

The second after that, I was knocked off my feet, a vibration of pain coursing through my every muscle.

Everything went black.

 

* * *

I awoke to the sound of chaos.

As I blinked my eyes open, a sharp surge of pain pounded in my brain. I grabbed the back of my head, only to find that my hair was matted with blood.

I forced myself to an upright position, grimacing in pain as my muscles strained to lift my torso. I looked around. The world was in flames. I could hear screaming, sirens, gunfire. Gunfire?

I jumped to my feet as I heard a burst of bullets sprayed about a hundred yards away. I dashed towards the house and ducked in the corner of the back porch. My friends were nowhere to be seen. I tried calling for them, but no words came out. Instead, a coughing fit erupted from my lungs. I hunched over, hacking up blood and spit. When I regained my breathing, I stood up and was blasted by another torrent of wind. I shivered fiercely; the air was freezing all of a sudden. My nose and fingers were numb.

The house looked like it had just barely survived a hurricane. The glass was shattered, metal roof bent and broken, shrapnel scattered around the perimeter. The wall had a gaping hole with metal rods and pipes protruding from its sides.

I squeezed through the hole and collapsed onto the floor, clutching the back of my head as it throbbed in pain. Outside, I heard another round of shots being fired.

What are they shooting at? I thought. When I got up and looked back outside, my blood ran cold.

A group of heavily armored ICG soldiers quickly marched away from a helicopter, hefting bulky assault rifles and shotguns. They took cover behind broken frames of cars scattered across the neighborhood, firing their guns at a mob of tall, muscular creatures. Their pale red skin contrasted against sets of enormous yellow teeth. Their heads were covered in long spikes that stuck out backwards. On each of their shoulders was a tattoo-like mark. It was identical to the one on the flying black object.

“Sarge! Banshees on your nine o’clock!” one of the ICG soldiers yelled. The sergeant hurled a grenade to his left, smacking one of the crimson brutes in the face. It exploded into a mass of blood and muscle tissue.

I watched in utter horror as the beasts marched forward, carrying massive alien weapons covered in spikes and gears. One of the beasts opened its terrifying maw and emitted a deafening shriek. It charged forward, a look of insanity in its black eyes. Intent on killing, it bashed through the metal frame of a sedan and grabbed the soldier’s head. Its massive hand crushed the soldier’s skull, blood spurting onto the creature’s rough skin.

I couldn’t believe what I saw. Aliens. Destroying my world. My home. I couldn’t bear to watch, but my eyes were glued to the chaos outside.

The rest of the day was engulfed in utter madness, and I could do nothing but sit in the relative safety of my house. I sat for hours, crying on my bed, listening to the gunfire as the ICG tried to hold off the invading force of beasts. I wondered where my parents were, where my sister was. Wondering if they were still alive. Wondering if I would still be alive by the time morning came.

 

 

It was hours before the shooting and screaming finally subsided. I got up from my bed and went back outside The night was slightly illuminated in an eerie orange glow as flames scorched the ground. Something to my right caught my eye. I walked out onto the street and saw a broken car parked into the distance. The car looked like the one my parents had been driving that morning….

I ran over to the car and peered through the window. I couldn’t believe what I saw on the inside. My parents, lying dead in their seats, covered in blood, glass, and bullet wounds.

I felt like I died inside, like someone had torn through my soul. I dropped to my knees and cried until I had no more tears and my voice was hoarse. My parents were dead. Dead. I had no more family to speak of. They were killed by the beasts. Killed a hundred feet from their own home.

When I could cry no longer, I slowly got up to my feet and wiped my tears. Looking off in the distance, I wondered how things could be any worse.

I regained some composure and realized the severity of the situation. I couldn’t stay there. I had to leave. And I had to find protection. Scavenging the ground for a weapon, I found a pistol and some ammunition from one of the dead soldier’s bodies. I clutched the sidearm and tucked the ammo in my pocket for later, knowing this hell that had been brought to Corus was only just beginning. Standing stiffly in the cold wind, I vowed with every ounce of hate in my body that I would kill these beasts myself. I, Adam Cole, vowed to kill them all.

Every single, goddamn one of them.