Told in First Person by Jackson Creed, Retired Marine

I’ve fought men, monsters, dictators, ghosts in deserts, and shadows in jungles.
I’ve run black ops no one will ever admit existed.
But none of that prepared me for the day the sky opened above my home.

They called it an asteroid.
Metallic. Unusual. Harmless.

But I know the difference between a rock and a reconnaissance craft.

I know because it crashed straight through my roof…
and killed my wife and daughter.

Or so I thought.

THE FALL

I had been gone three days. When I returned, smoke was rising from miles away. Sirens howled. I drove faster than I thought my truck could handle.

My neighborhood was a crater.

Yellow-suited teams swarmed the wreckage. My house gone.
Half-melted alien metal glowed from the ruins.

I tried to run in.
I clawed at the burning debris.
They dragged me back.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder and said,
“Creed… don’t look.”

But I looked anyway.
And I saw enough to break me.

The government called it “a meteor strike.”
The media called me “the grieving Marine who lost his mind.”

Maybe I did lose it.
But I wasn’t wrong.

The ship was scouting us.
And its fall wasn’t fate.
It was a mistake.

And mistakes get followed up.

THEY RETURNED, TWO YEARS LATER

The sky split like a wound reopening in the heavens.

A colossal mothership descended, so massive it swallowed sunlight and cast cities into darkness. Gravity warped. Birds fell. Windows shattered.

Then the attack began.

Beams of white fire erased entire districts.
Tanks melted like wax.
The strongest nations fell silent within hours.

But humans are stubborn.
And stubbornness is good fuel for survival.

THE DISCOVERY

The world’s remaining scientists dug through fallen alien soldiers and tech. What they found changed everything:

Alien infantry were neurologically linked to the mothership.
Kill the ship kill the army.

But the mothership was protected by a shield stronger than anything we could build.

So our final air forces united America, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, the U.K., every nation that still had wings. Jets from rival countries formed a single formation, humanity’s last flock.

The sky became a slaughterhouse.

Ships exploded like dying stars.
Pilots screamed prayers into the static.
Jets fell in streaks of fire.

Then one pilot, out of ammo and out of options, made the choice the rest of us couldn’t.

He aimed his burning jet at the shield.
And rammed straight into it.

The impact punched a hole.

For the first time… the mothership flickered.

Alien soldiers poured out vulnerable, angry, ready.

We charged.

THE LAST GROUND WAR

I led what remained of Earth’s ground forces — maybe a thousand scattered fighters across what used to be cities.

Alien blood soaked the rubble. Human blood soaked everything else.
Bodies fell on both sides, but we pushed, inch by dying inch.

Then the ground trembled.

Ar’Mek Voidfather, king of their kind, landed before me.

Seven feet tall.
Armor of obsidian plates.
Eyes glowing with cold void-light.

A conqueror.
A judge.
A god to his people.

“You fight well,” he said, voice like distant thunder. “But not well enough to save this dying world.”

I raised my rifle.

“I’m not fighting to save the world,” I said.
“I’m fighting to join my wife and daughter the ones your recon craft killed.”

He tilted his head.

“I do not know of these deaths,” he said calmly. “No one was killed.”

Then he pointed to a glowing chip in his chest.

“Are they here, human? Digitized? Stored?”

My heart froze.

The recon craft didn’t kill.
It captured.

They were alive.
All of them.

And if I took that chip…
I could restore them.

I could restore everyone.

THE FIGHT TO END EVERYTHING

I fired my rifle until the barrel glowed red. Bullets sparked off his armor, cracked joints, staggered him — but not enough.

My rifle clicked dry.

Ar’Mek spread his arms, inviting me.

“Your weapon has fallen silent,” he said. “Fight me… soldier to soldier.”

I dropped the gun.
And charged.

My fist hit his jaw with enough force to numb my arm. He barely flinched.

Then he punched me.

I flew back into a wall so hard I saw white. Ribs cracked. Blood filled my mouth.

I staggered up.
I swung again.

He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me through a car windshield. Glass rained down. I crawled out and threw myself at him again.

We traded blows like animals.
No technique.
No training.
Just hatred, will, and bone.

He hurled me into the ground; I stomped his knee sideways.
He crushed my shoulder with his claws; I smashed my head into his faceplate.
Alien blood sprayed. Human blood soaked the ground.

He lifted me by the neck.
The world dimmed.

I kicked his leg out.
We fell together.

My hand touched something sharp a jagged piece of rebar.

I didn’t hesitate.

I rammed it under his armor, straight into his heart.

Ar’Mek choked, shocked, dying.

“You… fight with fury,” he rasped. “A warrior worthy of remembrance.”

I collapsed beside him.

“My family,” I whispered. “You took them.”

“I took… no lives,” he said, voice fading.
“Break the chip…
and all life taken will return.”

THE END OF ME, THE RETURN OF THEM

Cities did not rebuild.
Skyscrapers didn’t rise.
Streets didn’t magically fix.

Only life returned coughing, blinking, climbing out of rubble.

People emerged from debris, shaking, crying.
Birds returned to the grey sky.
Children called out for their mothers.
Old men rose from ash as if waking from a long sleep.

But the world stayed broken.
A shattered Earth full of ruins…
and survivors.

I lay dying among collapsed concrete, watching humanity breathe again.

A crowd gathered around me.
Faces covered in soot.
Eyes filled with gratitude.

Then a little girl stepped through the dust.
She held a crushed white flower the kind my daughter used to pick.

She placed it on my chest.

“You saved the world, Uncle,” she whispered.
“Now you can rest.”

Her smile was my daughter’s smile.

A tear slipped down my cheek.

I took her small hand.

And as the ruined world rose around me,
I finally let myself close my eyes.