I’ve always admired the sky. Especially at night. Watching the glimmering stars in their banded constellations, how they all hold the moon and the sun and other planets.

     I still remember when my dad took me to a science museum in San Francisco. Nothing in the museum had particularly interested me until we entered the astronomy section. There were planets hanging on the ceiling, and there was a path with a timeline of the universe. That’s what struck my inspiration—stars and planets, and really anything that had to do with Outer Space. “Avangeline,” Dad would say, “everything on Earth was created from stardust. Even you.”

     That was my name—Avangeline—although I prefer to be called Ava. Everyone has always thought my name was spelled weirdly since it’s usually spelled with an E, but my parents decided to change it up a little.

     I’ve always been interested in the sky and astronomy. And with astronomy comes many forms of imaginations, and I’m often told I have a strong one. Sometimes dreaming of stars leads you to imagine what kind of life forms live beyond Earth. Alien life forms are the most common to imagine. I’ve had some personal run-ins with aliens, but most certainly not the kind of aliens you may be thinking about. Not green, scaly, bug-eyed aliens, or strange creatures from Star Wars. Unimaginable creatures that no one could ever think of being real. Scary might be one word for them, but I find that word to be quite inappropriate for the creatures I’m talking about. Frightening, horrifying, terrifying, disgusting, repulsive, repugnant, and disturbing are just a few words I have openly used to describe these so-called aliens. I sometimes use stronger words for them as well, but those words should be kept inside my head.

     Nothing has been the same since the Disasters started. There have been four of them, all worse than the one prior to it. I haven’t seen my parents in over a year, and neither have any other Survivors. That’s what we call ourselves now—the ones that have been lucky enough to get away from the aliens, which we dubbed the Invaders. There are only about two hundred humans left of the world as we knew it before the Disasters. We don’t know how many more are still alive in other countries, and we don’t know how much longer we’ll live. But one thing’s for sure: we’ll never stop fighting.

The bell rings loudly, signaling that school is dismissed for the day. I quickly stuff all of my books into my backpack and throw one of the straps over my right shoulder. I follow my classmates out of the classroom and into the main hallway. I avoid making eye-contact with anyone as I quickly stride down the hallway toward the front of the school building.

    As I’m walking through the front doors of the school, I accidentally run into someone in front of me, walking in the opposite direction. My binder slips out of my hand and falls onto the floor. When I reach down to retrieve my binder, the person I ran into kneels down in front of me and grabs my binder at the same time as me. I anxiously look up at the person and realize that it’s Ashton Barnes.

    “I’m so sorry,” Ashton says, taking his hand off my binder.

    “It’s okay,” I reply. “It was my fault; I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

    “Neither was I,” he says.

    After I grab my binder and we both get up, he says, “Bye, Ava. See you tomorrow.”

    “Bye,” I say back. And then he continues walking back down the hallway, and I walk outside to the front of the school. I desperately try to hide the fact that my cheeks are burning bright red. I don’t need a mirror to know that I’m blushing.

    Moments later, my mom pulls into the parking lot and I jump in the car. I wait for her to ask the most repetitive question in the world. “How was school today?” she asks.

    Told you. “Boring,” I reply. Same answer every day.

When I get home, I throw my backpack on the floor next to the door and sit down on the couch. I grab the remote and turn on the TV. The first thing that comes on is the news. Dad must have been the last person to watch TV. Just as I’m about the change the channel, something actually grabs my attention on the news. There’s a video of what looks like some kind of spacecraft just a few miles into the atmosphere. 

A reporter sits in the News studio, and pictures flash by on the screen behind him. The scrolling caption beneath him on the screen reads, “Unusual Unidentified Object Found Orbiting Earth”. The reporter explains what details they already have on this mysterious object in the sky, stating they don’t know much, but that it has been strongly affecting frequency waves and satellite power.

     “What is that?” a small, frightened voice says behind me.

     “Miles, you shouldn’t be watching this,” I tell my little brother, but I know this is something beyond fiction.

     “What’s going on?” he asks. My heart sinks at the sound of his scared voice.

     “There’s a strange object that was found orbiting Earth,” I tell him. “They don’t know much about it yet.”

     Then, just as I finish my sentence, the ground begins to shake. I jump up from the couch and stare at the floor in confusion. The ground continues to rumble loudly, and the TV starts shorting out. I hear Miles whimpering, and I stride over to him and pull him into a hug. I look outside, and every house in the neighborhood appears to be shaking like ours is.

     The trembling occurs for about a minute, and then finally stops. Miles shivers fearfully in my arms. “It’s okay,” I say trying to coax him. But I know it’s not okay. There is nothing okay about a random earthquake like the one that just occurred.

     The next bombshell of a quake ruptures the entire city. I follow Miles outside and find him standing in the driveway, staring up at the cloudless sky. “Ava,” he says in a horrified voice. “What’s that?” He points at something in the sky, almost like a bird. But as I keep watching bird-like object in the sky, I realize that it’s some kind of falling aero-vehicle. My mind registers it as an airplane, and it hurdles down toward the land, engulfed in bright red flames. I grab Miles and pull him into a protective embrace. The airplane soars down from the smoke-darkened sky, and it plummets into the house across the street. Thick, black smoke billows up from the destroyed house, and I realize that cars are sitting in the driveway—the family had been home. My heart sinks in desperation as I think about the family that is no longer alive, wasn’t expecting to be killed by a plummeting airplane.

     Both of my parents run outside after us, staring up at the sky. A large black object with pointed tentacle-like protrusions hang down from a round base. I stare at it with a terrified expression, and I notice families running outside their houses to see the mysterious floating object, as well as the crashed plane. A realization springs into my mind, making me think that the orbiting object and the earthquakes must somehow be connected.