The air crackled like a live wire, thick with the stench of burning ozone and some unnamable dread, as the kid stood stiff-backed by the beacon—a lone yellow blot against the neon nightmare of twisted trees and boiling mud. The sky was split wide with unnatural light, and the ships—hulking, metallic predators with eyes of molten red—drifted down with a patience that smelled of inevitability. Whatever was coming wasn’t asking permission, and the boy, poor bastard, knew it.
