Chapter 564

The sand stung Faisal's face as he walked across the launch pad, the Saudi sun beating down with merciless force. At thirty-six, he felt the weariness of his years settling in, but today, weariness was secondary to a prickling anticipation. He was the mission specialist, and today, humanity pushed past the atmosphere again.

Not like the initial probes of a prior century; this was a mission for new homes, for mining prospects, for securing the survival of his kind amongst the endless night.

"Ready, Faisal?" a voice crackled in his helmet. It was Commander Reyes.

"Born ready," Faisal responded, managing a small smile despite the dryness in his throat.

They boarded. The hum of the spacecraft resonated not only in his ears but also in the depths of his rib cage. Each test, each countdown milestone brought a further tightening of his insides, and it wasn't entirely pleasant.

He secured himself into his seat, watching the numbers tick down on the main display. Outside, the launchpad workers receded.

"Ignition sequence started," Reyes announced. The entire vessel began to tremble.

Then, the roar.

The ground disappeared below. Faisal felt himself pushed back against his seat. This wasn't new. He'd ridden rockets many times prior, always tests. This time, though, was different. There was something unsettling in his heart he wasn't able to place a finger on, a darkness he hadn't anticipated.

He glanced out the small window. The Arabian desert shrunk into insignificance. They broke through the clouds, entering the deep black above.

For a time, it was bliss, just silence and the incredible view of their world receding behind.

That peace did not last.

"Commander, I'm reading some fluctuations here," Jian, the ship's engineer, declared. "Unknown energy readings, off the charts. Near the Earth."

Reyes checked her own instruments. "Confirm, Jian. Faisal, get a visual."

Faisal looked out the viewport. He expected micrometeoroids or solar flares, but there were no visual signs, not at first.

Then they appeared.

Tears in reality.

Like jagged wounds carved into the smooth face of emptiness, they came in a flood, rupturing everywhere he looked. Each tear glowed with an inner light, showing spaces of horrible landscapes on the other side, spaces no sane mind could ever comprehend.

"What in Allah's name is that?" Faisal breathed, the question escaping before he could consider professionalism.

"Portals," Reyes answered. Her breath sounded short, frightened. "Some sort of...dimensional breaches."

From the portals came shadows. They snaked and slithered into his perception, resolving into shapes.

Horrible shapes.

Creatures poured from the rifts. Some were insectile, with spindly legs and glittering eyes. Others were masses of teeth and tentacles, squirming with wicked and unknowable purpose. Some were just… wrong.

Things defied classification or explanation. Geometry broke, laws of gravity seemed an invitation instead of something fixed, and Faisal's mind reeled.

"We need to warn Earth. Now," Reyes said, her commands clipped. "Jian, send a message."

But Jian was already shouting. "Systems failing! The energy surges are disrupting everything! I can't get a signal through!"

Faisal watched as one of the creatures, a spider-like monstrosity with eyes scattered all across its carapace, lunged toward their ship. It impacted against their shields with bone-jarring force.

"Shields are down to eighty percent!" Jian screamed.

More impacts, and in what felt like mere moments, their shielding shattered. The creatures came close, scratching and tearing at the hull.

"We have to retreat!" Faisal stated. It seemed their only option, their only chance to warn their home of what he now knew was coming.

Reyes struggled with the controls. "Engines are down! I can't get us turned around!"

They were caught, stuck in the gravity of something infinitely worse than outer space.

He watched the horror play out through the viewport, seeing tears grow around the planet.

Cities were lit, even at this distance, bright glows which quickly became flares of consuming destruction. It became plain what the creatures wanted as dark clouds, impossible masses, were drawn over the Middle East, Africa, and finally into the American continents. All that remained of light, all signs of life, disappeared.

They were next.

A claw, tipped with a needle-like point, breached the hull. Then another, and another, until they started to widen the tear and squeeze in.

"Faisal, I'm sorry," Reyes said, her voice a soft murmur against the sound of tearing metal.

Faisal just shook his head. There was nothing left to say. No amount of explanation would adequately portray the chaos that he understood would now swallow every place and soul he'd ever known.

The creature forced its way in. Faisal glimpsed razor-sharp teeth. Its black eyes found his.

Then, there was nothing but suffering.

Below, on Earth, in Riyadh, Faisal's wife, Samira, watched the evening sky darken with unnatural speed. Her tea turned lukewarm on the coffee table and sat next to the unfinished homework she was meaning to help her daughter Aisha with.

"Mama, why is it so dark?" Aisha called from her room.

"Just some clouds, habibti," Samira responded. Though she wasn't confident of her explanation, the air growing strangely thick with ozone. She pulled up her prayer rug, figuring she may as well complete the night prayer earlier than normal while waiting for Faisal to complete his mission. She faced Mecca.

The portal opened in the corner of their living room. It felt sudden, and like something that was intended to happen. It shimmered, showing not another place but something else entirely.

Fear struck at Samira's core, sharp and deep.

A claw reached through, then an arm, impossibly long and covered in iridescent scales. Its grip landed on her prayer rug. It grabbed tight.

"Mama?" Aisha said again, drawing closer.

Samira yanked the rug away, and with it, something ripped free of the portal with an explosive sound. A humanoid thing, but distorted, grotesque, moved with too many joints.

Samira pushed Aisha behind her. "Run, habibti! Run to your grandmother's!"

The creature moved, inhumanly quick, grabbing Aisha. Her daughter screamed.

"Release her, now!" Samira demanded. It was brave, considering her bones shook within her body from a cold horror she'd never felt before. She could barely move her lips, much less form clear thoughts as she stared at her beautiful daughter wrapped within this hideous monster's arms.

The creature's mouth opened, a gaping maw filled with rows of jagged teeth. It swallowed Aisha whole.

Samira's world dissolved. She lunged, her bare hands seeking purchase on the thing's foul flesh. It brushed her away with contemptuous ease, backhanding her against the wall. She felt her ribs break.

The creature returned to the portal, slipping back into whatever dimension had spawned it.

Samira managed to lift her head. The portal flickered then collapsed, leaving not a trace save a dark splatter of Aisha's blood on their living room carpet.

Samira crawled towards it, reaching with a shaking hand, feeling something crack inside. All warmth deserted her being and her brain was no longer registering words properly.

"Aisha…" she breathed, the sound swallowed by the silence.

She lay there, alone with the stain, waiting. It wouldn't take them long to find her.

Some measure of distance away, in a forgotten quadrant of the ruined Riyadh, another portal crackled into actuality.

From it stepped another Faisal. Not the brave mission specialist, but something different, something broken. This Faisal's eyes were vacant, his skin pallid, and his movements puppet-like, yet there was an animal strength. A strange purpose guided his every move, a new path forward he had not planned for or imagined on his Earth.

He clutched a simple device, a tarnished metal rectangle that shuddered gently in his grasp. His sole command, delivered in a dead language he could never consciously recall, drove him onwards.

The directive: Deliver the package.

He walked. Not towards home, not towards the memories of warmth or joy, but in the direction his device pulled. He passed broken bodies, collapsing buildings, entire existence destroyed and wiped out as if it meant nothing.

The air vibrated with an acrid sting, thick and metallic, with what used to be normal days. But nothing seemed real.

The device led him to a building mostly intact, standing unnaturally straight against a backdrop of annihilation. This must be the destination.

He found an inner chamber, its stone walls etched with symbols of forgotten times. In the middle sat an altar of sorts.

A figure stood at the altar. An insectoid, like one of those Faisal had seen in space but larger. In space, that image didn't hit as intensely as this did. It felt alien, not from a planet somewhere out there. It existed in an entirely different dimension.

He presented the device to the being. The insectoid extended a clawed hand, taking it.

The creature spoke, and a guttural language vibrated within Faisal's head. The words needed no translation, his understanding becoming absolute with some newfound power from what was contained in his core.

Your mission, complete. Now you will know the joy of our purpose.

Understanding washed over Faisal, and along with it came the shattering recognition. He hadn't been captured, not completely.

He'd been transformed.

A sleeper agent, unknowingly tasked. A Trojan horse delivered through impossible spaces, only to awaken at the moment of most important value, as all this destruction and new dawn unfolded for a whole new universe to conquer. His wife. His daughter.

Sacrifices on the way towards some inevitable success.

The joy they talked of was nothing like anything he was programmed to care about, for the concept alone, was something far off and beyond what humanity could feel in even its deepest core.

His stomach coiled in something between pain and disgust, something only to further cement him into this alien hive. A singular tear dropped from Faisal's eye as he looked at the symbol being put onto his skin, permanently marking him for service and as part of the Hive, now. A lone individual now with zero individual identity. A drop in the bucket of endless numbers.

He had condemned them all.