Thursday, April 22, 2038. That was the day that my life changed, as I was rudely awakened by the blaring of an alarm inside my head. Turning to gaze at the sleep-blurred digital clock on my wall, I found the time to be 4:17 a.m. “Wha… too early to get up…” I grumbled, ready to turn over and go back to sleep when the keening wail coming from my data implant ceased.

The irritating sound was immediately replaced by a robotic voice stating concisely, -= Emergency! You are currently in an Incursion Zone, please evacuate to the nearest shelter. =-

My blood turned to ice in my veins, and I was suddenly both very awake and frozen in fear as my brain tried to process what that meant. I knew what it meant, of course, I just didn’t want to believe that it was happening here, of all places. Any given person on Earth had as much chance of winning the lottery as being caught up in an Incursion, but where winning the jackpot would be the best thing to ever happen to a person, being where I was now was definitely one of the worst.

The first Incursion occurred almost eighteen years ago on July 17, 2020, in a small town in Ontario on the north shore of Lake Superior. At 3:55 p.m. local time, the first recorded Breach opened, a portal between our world and another, and metal Titans came through to destroy much of the town, capture some of its people, and kill anyone else they came across before returning through the portal before any form of defense could be organized. Since then, Breaches had opened once a month or so, though these Incursions didn’t seem to follow any sort of pattern, appearing randomly all over the planet.

My heart raced and, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe until I started doing my calming exercises. This was bad, but maybe we could pull through this. The first thing that we were taught during Incursion drills was that a Breach couldn’t stay open and connect our worlds for very long.

Forty-seven minutes, that was how long every breach seemed to stay open, without fail. It was the only thing that seemed to stay consistent about them. If we could stay hidden from the Titans for that long, or until the Vanguard could arrive to evacuate people and fight them off, then maybe my family could come out of this okay.

It all depended on where the Breach had opened. Our ranch was a good ten minutes away by hover-jet from Boulder Creek, the closest town. If it had opened close to the town, we would be in less danger because the Titans would focus on the town and its inhabitants first before spreading out further. If it had opened near the ranch itself or between the ranch and the town, my family was screwed.

My thoughts, and the panic attack that was accompanying them, were interrupted as my bedroom door flew open. I almost jumped out of bed like I was in a scene from a horror movie before I realized that the figure bathed in the light of the hallway behind her was my sister, Kelly, still clad in her nightgown. “Move it, Eli! We need to get to the Incursion shelter in town!” she called out before coming to grab me by the hand and half-drag me out of my bed.

Kelly was a year and a half older than me, having just turned eighteen years old, while I was barely old enough to get my driver's license. She was also very overprotective. The short age gap between us had made us very close growing up, despite our different interests and genders. We grew up playing together, riding horses together, and studying together.

She was the one who kept me steady when I was having a panic attack or when I got ‘stuck in my head’ as she liked to call it. My sister was my best friend and my rock. “Sorry, Sis,” I mumbled as she pulled me out of my room and down the hall toward the stairs.

Now that I was following instead of being pulled along, Kelly smiled and reached up to ruffle my hair. “We’ll be fine, Eli. You’re my brainiac little brother, I know that if you just had a little more confidence in yourself and a little more drive, you could do anything. So, let’s start with getting to the shelter.”

I nodded as I looked down at her pretty face, with her long black hair, brown eyes, and distinctive Chinese features that were so different than my own pale skin and dull brown hair and eyes. We were both adopted since Mom was a cervical cancer survivor and couldn’t have any kids of her own. It didn’t matter to any of us though because family was about more than blood, and my sister and I would do anything for one another.

We ran down the stairs and through the living room to the outside, where our parents were organizing the ranch hands and our housekeeper, Nancy. They were all piling into the bed of Dad’s big crew cab pickup truck. The vehicle was old but dependable, one of those that ran on diesel and was built well before the sleek new hover-jets that were being sold these days. It was safer too, especially since the Titans were known to shoot down anything in the air inside an Incursion Zone

We were halfway across the yard to the truck when a sound like multiple heavy footsteps and a humming that seemed to vibrate the air around us could be heard. My head snapped around toward the sound, even as Nancy screamed and one of the ranch hands called out “Titans!”

I turned my gaze toward where their eyes were locked in terror to see massive metallic forms shining under the moonlight as they moved toward us. Each was humanoid in form, over thirty feet tall, and they were all identical, with no real differences in style or build to set them apart, as if they were mass-produced. That was likely true since they seemed to be mechanical.

They were thick-bodied and bulky with thick triple-jointed legs that made their gait seem unnatural. Their arms were longer compared to their bodies than a human’s and ended in talon-like hands with four digits, one of which was an opposable thumb. Those arms and shoulders were covered with various bulges and attachments that I figured were some sort of weapon mounts or other equipment. Atop the torso and between the shoulders, the Titans’ heads were squat and compact, with a single red light in the center that was probably some kind of sensor.

Shit, they were between us and Boulder Creek. There was no way that we would be able to get past dozens of the invaders to get to the Incursion shelter in town. And there were indeed dozens of them crossing one of our pastures, causing the cattle to panic and stampede toward the fences. Those not fast enough to flee were crushed under the Titans’ feet, while those fleeing were eviscerated by lightning bolts, explosions, or bright violet beams of light and heat.

Dad seemed to realize the same thing as he called out, “Run! Everyone, scatter! I’ll try to draw them away!” Then, as Kelly dragged me away in the direction of the stable and everyone else scattered, he turned to run in the opposite direction as Mom and us and raised his shotgun while on the move to fire at one of the Titans in the lead.

Light flared as the buckshot harmlessly impacted the energy shield that protected the Titan in question. I had heard that those barriers could withstand heavy artillery so he had to know that the shotgun wouldn’t do anything. Well, I wouldn’t say it didn’t do anything, it did get the attention of our attackers.

More flashes of light lit the night as violet beams of death erupted from several of the Titans, several left the truck a smoldering pile of scrap while others tore furrows in the ground as they swept toward Dad and several of the ranch hands who had run off in other directions with a similar tactic in mind, firing as they went. They were trying to keep attention off the rest of us and not provide a single, stationary target.

I was looking helplessly over my shoulder as we ran and one of those beams cut our father in half and both halves of him fell lifelessly to the ground. It was a vision that would be burned into my nightmares for a long time to come. I was only barely aware of the other beams and a bolt of lightning dealing similar death to the three ranch hands. “Dad!” I screamed out, wanting to go to him, but fear and my sister pulled me toward the stable.

The Titans picked up speed now that they had targets in sight. Damn, they were so fast, there was no way we could outrun those things. Even as one snatched up Nancy in its massive fist and another grabbed our mother, Mom yelled, “Keep running! Find somewhere to hide!”

We made it to the stable, which was now filled with horses panicking in their stalls. Even if we could calm some down enough to mount up, I didn’t think we were going to be able to get away. Two of the Titans were hot on our trail, and I could hear the impacts of their metallic weight, and feel the ground tremble, with each step they made toward our shelter.

Surprisingly, our pursuers stopped just outside of the stable doors, as if trying to figure out the best way to get to us since there was no way they could fit inside. We used that time to get to Sundancer’s stall and open the stall door as my sister tried to calm the gold-colored mare inside. Sundancer was my sister’s horse, a gift from our parents for her sixteenth birthday. In the stall next to her was Moonlight, a white dappled filly that Sundancer had birthed last spring. Kelly had insisted that she would be mine and I had been caring for her since not long after she was born.

Kelly managed to calm the golden mare and vaulted onto her back, not an easy feat with no saddle or stirrups, especially as short as my sister was. “I’ll draw them away, Eli,” she said as she looked down at me from Sundancer’s back. “Hopefully we can keep them chasing us until they have to turn back to the breach, or the Vanguard shows up. You hide with moonlight in her stall. Don’t move and don’t make a sound.”

“No, Sis, you can’t! Dad already…” I couldn’t finish that sentence as tears threatened to burst from my eyes and the sudden tightness in my throat stole my words away. Everyone was protecting us… protecting me. Dad was dead and Mom was captured, I couldn't lose Kelly too. I tried to pull her off the mare, but she kicked my hand away.

“Hide!” she hissed, kicking me toward Moonlight’s stall. “I love you, Eli, and I’ll see you later.” Then she gripped Sundancer’s mane tightly and gave a gentle kick to her sides, spurring her toward the unblocked exit leading to the rear pastures. I stood there frozen, watching her until I felt a wave of heat above me, and the stable’s roof was eviscerated by a barrage of violet light, leaving little left but a shower of small, smoking bits of shrapnel.

I barely noticed the glancing blow to my shoulder by falling debris as a Titan appeared at the doors before Sundancer and Kelly could make it outside, its massive metal hand grabbing my sister from her mounted position. With Kelly in hand, the massive metal mecha stomped Sundancer underfoot to the sound of breaking bones and the mare’s (thankfully brief) screams. Kelly was still screaming in terror and anguish as the Titan left with her as its captive.

I was alone now, shaking in terror and unable to breathe as tears streamed down my face and I tried to make my body move. I just stood there, frozen, unable to look away from Sundancer’s mangled and bloody corpse. It seemed like an eternity but was likely less than a minute before the sound of gargantuan feet pounding upon the ground getting ever closer to me, and the terrified whinnies coming from Moonlight’s stall, spurred me to action.

Grabbing a pair of worn woolen blankets, I opened the door to the stall where the young filly was trembling in the corner and then draped one of the blankets over her back and hindquarters. I flipped the other blanket up, so it was covering both of our heads before hugging the filly around the neck and attempting to soothe her with gentle words and a calm voice. Hopefully, the filly wouldn’t notice that I was trembling as much as she was and that my voice was shaking as I whispered, “Shhh… it’ll b-be okay, Moonlight. I… I’m right h-here.”

I adjusted the threadbare blanket slightly, aligning one of the many small holes with my right eye so I could scan my surroundings. That thing was still out there, every instinct that I possessed told me as much, screaming for me to run and hide. This was not an ideal hiding spot, especially with the roof of the stable vaporized and now completely absent. Those big behemoths would just be able to look down to see inside.

The only thing that we had going for us was that it was still dark out, and the dark gray blankets might be able to act as camouflage. We would be royally screwed if it had thermal vision, or some other type of vision or sensors that didn’t rely on light to find us. I prayed that wasn’t the case as held onto Moonlight’s neck for dear life and my eye and ears scanned the darkness for confirmation.

Then I saw it, that glowing red sensor eye thing. The metal behemoth was standing over the remains of the stable, that red light sweeping back and forth as it searched for me. The horses didn’t seem to interest it any, at least, not unless I used one to try and escape like my sister had. No, it was definitely looking for me.

The sensor stopped moving, and the red light aimed directly at my hiding spot, where it seemed to bore into my very soul. I tried my best to remain quiet, using the flesh of Moonlight’s neck to smother the fearful, staggered gasps of air from my lungs that had replaced any semblance of normal breathing. Still, the red eye hovered. My heart hammered away in my chest with each silent gasping breath.

I knew then that I was dead or, far more likely, that it would reach out to grab me any second. In my racing thoughts, I briefly wondered what would happen then. Was I to be a trophy? A prize? Or maybe they eat the people they capture. The thought of slave labor also came to mind as I considered why they might be invading our world and taking us captive.

The sensor turned away, even as the Titan did the same. The sound of its massive, shuddering footsteps fading away into the dark of the night as it went off in search of other prey, or to join the others of its kind. My knees went weak, and I collapsed to the ground, no longer able to keep my shaking arms wrapped around Moonlight’s neck.

“What the hell?” I thought as I kneeled there on the ground shaking and crying from the far too close encounter. “It saw me. I’m sure of it. Why didn’t it take the opportunity to grab me? Are they heading back to the Breach?” Even as I thought the last, I knew it wasn’t true. I could still hear its fellows in the distance, blowing shit up and causing chaos. So, why did it spare me?

As I knelt there in the stall with Moonlight while shaking, crying, and trying not to make a sound as I listened to the chaos outside, I worried about my mom and Kelly. My earlier fears about what might have been awaiting me on the other side of that Breach coalesced into terror for them as my sister’s screams from when she was taken played back in my mind. Maybe… maybe they could still be saved before they were taken through the breach. “Where the hell is the Vanguard?!” I thought in a nervous panic, “They’re supposed to protect us from this!”

That wasn’t fair and, even in my current emotional state, I damn well knew it. Their main headquarters was practically on the other side of the continent, and the Vanguard was still small and spread thin. Forty-seven minutes isn’t a lot of time to organize and mobilize a counterattack for an Incursion that could occur at any time and anywhere on the planet. Even the National Guard couldn’t mobilize a significant force to such a tiny and remote town so quickly. Even if anyone could get a sizable force here before the Breach closed, they would be prioritizing the town, but the Vanguard might try to stop them at the Breach as well.

I’m not sure how long I knelt there huddled up with Moonlight in her stall in the dark, fearing for my life and whatever might happen to my mother and sister. It seemed like an eternity to me before the silence drew me out of my dark thoughts and fears. The silence felt unnatural for a moment. It was as if the world could not exist without the sounds of screams and battles in the distance. Was it really over?

That was when everything that had happened hit me, and the silence was broken by the sounds of me vomiting up last night’s dinner. I hacked, coughed, and sputtered and the acidic tang of bile filled my throat as I started to tremble once again, and my heart seized with the overwhelming feeling of loss. At some point, the blanket that had been covering me and Moonlight fell to the ground and the filly nudged me gently with her head.

I had to get up. I needed to look at the damage and search for any other survivors. Getting shakily to my feet, using Moonlight to help steady myself, I softly told the filly, “I’ll be okay.” It was a lie, of course, because I doubted that I would ever be anything even resembling ‘okay’ ever again, and my voice was tremulous and raspy as I forced the words out.

I leaned against Moonlight once again to steady myself as I got to my feet and led her toward what had been the stable’s entrance to force myself to face reality. That was when a lance of pain in my chest had me collapse against the filly. No, it wasn’t pain. A strange, warm pulsing sensation was building up in the center of my chest, and suddenly it was like my whole body was being consumed by the feeling of pins and needles, getting stronger and spreading further with every thrumming pulse in my chest.

I stumbled even as I tried to remain standing, falling to the ground. Attempting to push myself to my feet again only brought my attention to my bleeding arms. No, I wasn’t bleeding, there were no wounds. Instead, it was like blood was oozing out through my pores, covering my skin with more and more red fluid before the visceral coating began to crystallize before my eyes, even as I tried to wipe it away.

Another shooting pain, real pain this time, like a red-hot knife being stabbed into my brain. It drowned out the pulsing in my chest and the near-painful tingling along my skin and had me screaming. I screamed myself hoarse as the pain intensified, unable to focus on anything but that agony. Everything else lost meaning until finally, mercifully, everything faded to black.