They Were Already Here
231 Words
The impacts stopped.
For a moment, everyone in the settlement waited.
Nothing.
Sera slowly approached the sealed door.
“Don't open it,” Nyra whispered.
Sera looked at her.
“You heard what it said. We don't have a choice.”
She entered a command.
The door opened a few centimeters.
Cold air rushed through.
Beyond it was an empty tunnel.
No creature.
No ship.
Nothing.
Kian stepped forward.
“Maybe it left.”
Nyra shook her head.
“No.”
She pointed toward the wall.
A strange symbol had been carved into the metal.
But beneath it were hundreds of smaller marks.
Some were almost completely worn away.
Nyra touched one.
“This isn't new.”
Sera stared at the markings.
“They were here before the apocalypse.”
Nyra looked at her.
“How long before?”
Sera hesitated.
“According to the oldest records... thousands of years.”
Nyra stepped backward.
Ancient cave paintings flashed through her mind.
The same symbol.
The same silver figures.
The same impossible shape in the sky.
The aliens hadn't arrived seventeen years ago.
They had been here long before humanity recorded history.
Suddenly, Kian's device began vibrating.
A message appeared:
WE DID NOT COME TO EARTH.
Nyra stared at the words.
Another line appeared.
WE RETURNED.
Then the tunnel lights switched on.
Something was waiting at the end.
And it was human.
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