Running out of time

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The white sky isn’t a sky—it’s a *cage*.

The alien structure looms, its surface shimmering with a light that doesn’t illuminate but *dissects*. The air hums with a frequency that makes my teeth ache, and the ground vibrates underfoot, as if the earth itself is recoiling. The Bastion’s remnants wither faster now, its golden leaves curling into ash.

Ravel stares at the structure, her shovel clenched like a weapon. “Purge protocol? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means they’re here to clean up their mess,” I say, the static’s ghost stirring uneasily. “And we’re part of the mess.”

The first drone descends at dawn.

---

**The Harvester**

It’s sleek and silent, a sphere of polished metal trailing tendrils of white light. It hovers over the Bastion’s corpse, scanning the ruins with a beam that burns where it touches. Survivors scream as it passes, their skin blistering, their veins glowing white.