What if the unthinkable happened? What if something came from the stars so long ago?
For Matt Connelly and this small, quiet town, a mass destruction is happening.
His family has been slaughtered, and his only means of escaping his own death is to make it to the military post on the border of the town before more of them come and change people, change the world...

Prologue



It started some months ago.

Everything changed. People changed into Them. When I say Them, I'm not quite sure who or what They really are, all I know is that They are not from around these parts at all. Somewhere far up north, I'd imagine, and I don't mean Canada.

Conspiracy nuts would blame the government for some elaborate cover up scheme, and I would, too, if I were them. It's easy to look up at the sky now and see things in a whole new perspective. Call it a conspiracy theory biting the government in the ass or call it an invasion. It doesn't matter what title you put on it; it happened.

I first noticed the change around May, I would say. Yeah. May sounds about right. People were acting different; they were becoming stronger and smarter, more unhuman than anything I've ever seen. This might be just an act of God. A mercy killing to help stop these wars and these violent acts we find on our streets and on the news ever day, and I'm not a religious man, but I would say anything is possible right about now. But either way, whether it was something from up in the stars or God himself—something went terribly wrong back in May.

My family is dead.

My name is Matt Connelly, and several months ago, life on Earth changed. Dear God, did it ever change. My version of events leading up to this moment and continuing on as I write this from underneath the soil of Earth in an abandoned fallout shelter; I hope you will be reading this to find out what truly happened here, but most importantly, I hope there is a you at all.

I'm going to write this as clear as possible, and in full detail of all events thus far, hoping that one day I will be able to rise from the ground and pat you on the back, say "I'm glad we're still alive," and by "we," I mean you and me, of course and whoever else travels the path of mine and yours.

Just remember, that the events that I've witness will be testimony that I have lived—and probably will die—through one of the most heinous times mankind has ever seen. Nazis, the assignation of Martin Luther King, Nine-Eleven—none of it compares to what has happened or what will become of us when they're done…breeding.

I've seen it. People stuck in some kind of cocoon on trees, in their homes. I heard the deadliest of screams at night that makes me what to curl myself in a ball and wait for the sweet release of death. That'd be better than killing my neighbors or They turning me into one of their kind. After all, my wife and son changed just a week after the news reported such brilliant glows from the sky. They seemed dead at first, then They took control of their bodies.

When you finish reading this, I hope it gives you a sense of hope, a sagacity that I've been carrying with me for a long time in anticipation that someone will rescue me from the depths of this incarceration that I face. And when it is all said and done, and you have read this, I will shake your hand; I will hug you like you're my long lost brother or sister.

Hope is all I have left.

Some things will never change, now will they?