PROLOGUE
290 Words
Ten Years From Now
The sky was empty.
No satellites.
No signals.
No voices moving through the invisible air above the Earth.
For the first time in centuries, the world had gone silent.
Cities burned in the distance.
Daniel Harper stood on the roof of the broken communications tower, staring into the dark sky.
Blood ran down his arm.
Not all of it was his.
The wind carried the distant sounds of chaos—sirens, screams, the low thunder of something enormous moving through the city streets below.
He ignored it.
His attention was fixed on the machine in front of him.
The transmitter.
It was old.
Ancient technology by modern standards.
But that was the point.
Satellites were gone.
Networks were dead.
But radio… radio could still travel.
If the timing worked.
If the math was right.
Daniel adjusted the final dial.
The machine hummed weakly.
Behind him, footsteps echoed across the rooftop.
He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
The air itself changed when the creature arrived.
Cold.
Ancient.
Hungry.
“You’re too late,” a voice said behind him.
Daniel smiled faintly.
“No,” he said.
“I’m exactly on time.”
The voice moved closer.
“You can’t change what’s coming.”
Daniel pressed the transmit button.
Static exploded across the speakers.
A signal shot into the dark sky.
Through time.
Through the years.
Toward a small coastal radio station ten years earlier.
Toward a man named Ethan Cole.
Daniel spoke into the microphone.
His voice calm despite the approaching footsteps.
“If anyone can hear this…”
“…the sky has already gone silent.”
The creature lunged.
The transmission ended.
And ten years earlier…
A radio crackled to life.
- Writer
