The earth convulsed beneath John. A Hyperion cannon fired; its blast lit up the skyline and split a tower in two sending chunks of concrete hurling into the nearest windows. The two halves tumbled forward and shot glass and steel into the park in an avalanche of shrieking death.

  John hit the dirt and covered his head. Something heavy cracked behind him. He turned to see a lamppost wrapped around a tree. His ears rang, unable to process the cacophony of death. The Hyperion war scream rattled the air at higher octaves than the machine guns and tanks who responded with as much overwhelming firepower as they could muster.

  Buildings collapsed. Bodies fell from windows. Smoke coiled thick and clung to John’s skin with a chemical sting.

  He fumbled around his belt for his radio. It wasn’t there. He blinked through grit and blood. He felt for his sidearm. It was gone, too. His chest ached with every breath. He spotted an M4 carbine on the ground, slick with someone’s blood. He gripped it and checked the mag. It was full. He looked for cover.

  John rolled low behind a collapsed half wall just as a Hyperion blade cleaved through a department store on 5th Avenue. The sound was unnatural, wet and grinding. So were the screams which spiraled up then vanished with the wind. John ducked as a wave of burning air and glass shards washed over him. His back hit the wall. Dust choked the air so thick he could barely see.

  Thariel’s form hovered over the ruins, inspecting everything through his expressionless white mask. He admired his work. He looked for more.

  They were executioners. They moved with purpose. They transformed whole blocks into trenches of blood, steel, and lost memories. A chopper screamed overhead. Thariel snapped his purple edged plasma sword up and held it there.

  The helicopter collided with Thariel’s blade and exploded in a bloom of light and debris. The fragments whistled downward.

  John remained low, breathing hard. He felt the urge to cry.

  Then he heard her. It was a woman’s voice. It was quiet at first. “Where’s my ring? Please…oh God.” John turned. Through the haze he saw a female soldier who writhed in the grass beside a crumpled park bench. Her marine uniform soaked dark around her thigh. Shrapnel jutted from her leg. Blood pooled around her. John crawled to her, mind blank. His body moved on its own. “Stay with me,” he muttered. His voice cracked. He tore open her medpack. His hands trembled. He found the tourniquet. He tied it tightly. She winced, whimpered, and then…she stopped. Her body slacked. Her eyes froze. John stared at her. Shrapnel whizzed by him; and yet, he couldn’t move. Beside her, something glinted. It was a small wedding band—bent, cracked, and its stone missing. It sat in a pool of blood. His heart stopped.

  Then he remembered his girlfriend, Emily.

  John conjured an image of his girlfriend’s face, frightened and alone back at their apartment. His cellphone buzzed. He looked down. Three missed calls. He tried calling back. No signal. He grabbed his rifle, forced himself up, and ran through the rubble strewn park to find her.

  His thoughts were possessed by another force. They weren’t his own. They were something darker and more primal.

  John ran.

  He ducked through alleyways choked with dust and screams. The air tasted like ash and metal. A ruptured water main flooded the street in front of him. He waded through it, knee-deep in filth. His boots slipped, rifle clenched in his hands. Debris rained down from more Hyperion clashes. One sliced into a high-rise two blocks away. Glass and bone splattered the sidewalk. Civilians clawed their way out of crushed cars. Some were missing limbs. Others couldn’t stop weeping. They mouthed the names of people who weren’t there. John didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

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  John jumped over a burning sedan. He vaulted a broken traffic light. A girder fell. He dodged it. His lungs burned. His legs begged for rest. But Emily. Her voice kept echoing in his skull. “Where are you, John?” He pressed on. Above him, the glowing arc of Thariel’s plasma sword sliced through another tower. The building folded like wet sand. He dove behind a newsstand just as the explosion blasted shrapnel across the street. So many had died. The silence between screams felt louder than the erupting chaos around him.

  Then—the Hyperions vanished from above. At one moment, they slashed and killed. The next moment, they were gone from the Earth.

  One by one, the Hyperions launched into the sky. They launched up into the air in formation and disappeared into the stratosphere. They didn’t leave a word, only silent departure.

  John lay in a crater. He waited for the next blast, but it never came. For a few heartbeats, the city stood still. The damage was done. Fires still raged. Journalistic drones circled helplessly. People clawed through the rubble looking for their family. Cries echoed down the avenues. A man in a suit sobbed against the wall of a bank. The Hyperions were gone—but the ruin they left lingered like an open and festering wound. It would take more than time to heal.

  John knew better. They weren’t retreating. They simply found new targets. Another city. Another planet. Another off-world colony. Before long, they would come back and finish the job.

  John found a motorcycle near the edge of Midtown. The rider lay in pieces ten feet away. The engine ticked with heat. John didn’t hesitate. He mounted the bike and gunned it. He sped past flame-belching craters and bodies riddled with shrapnel.

  His duplex sat on the outer rim of the city past the ring road and the old defense silos. It should’ve been far enough.

  He pulled up and saw what was left—a half-collapsed building. Its walls were blackened and smoking. The second floor was gone. He stumbled through the debris. His voice was hoarse. He called her name. “Emily! Emily!” No answer. He climbed through the wreckage. His boots crunched on broken glass, past their dining room table which was snapped in half. They ate there together nearly every morning for the past year. The couch was overturned; it was stained red.

  Inside their bedroom closet, he saw it. A hand, bare and bloodied. It reached out from under the collapsed ceiling. He spotted her bare ringless finger. John didn’t move. He couldn’t. Then, his knees buckled. He sank to the floor as if gravity trapped him there. No tears came. He screamed, but the sounds were swallowed by the emergency sirens rising over the dying city.

  John stared at Emily’s hand for what felt like years. The blood on her fingers dried. His breath rasped. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. The moment folded in on itself. It was warped, bent, and just wrong. The light in the room flickered. It wasn’t their duplex anymore. It felt like stage dressing. It wasn’t real. He reached out and touched her hand. It was cold.

  He staggered into the hallway, rifle strapped over his shoulder. His legs wobbled. The walls creaked and the rubble shifted. Every pop in the flames made him flinch. He felt the wasps in his mind. Did she suffer? Was she alone? Did she cry for him? His chest clenched tightly. His legs gave out. He dropped onto the floor in the entryway beside the cracked photo of them lunching in the park last spring. Her smile glowed through the cracked glass.

  John grabbed the photo and slid it into his pocket.

  He heard something. It wasn’t engines or drones. Not Hyperion. It was a human scream. John looked up. Was it a scream? Was it real? He dug his fingers into the warped wooden tiles. Without meaning to, he started laughing. It turned to short and sharp gasps. Then he sobbed. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. He was in a costume and he wasn’t living a real life. He held his gun and had the uniform of a soldier, but he didn’t feel brave. He was a child who lost everything.

  “John? Is that you?”

  No…he was hearing things.

  “John?”

  He looked up.

  “Sam?”

  Ambassador Samantha Crowe crawled into the rubble and reached for John’s hand. Her blonde hair was matted with blood and there were scars on her face and neck. “John, we have to go.”