Ambrosia

01 | PT-I | The End Is Only The Beginning

The city suddenly sounds very quiet, almost silent I'd dare to say, aside from the low hum above me. Then the State of Emergency alert system whirs up, sounding like a distant, haunted siren, the horns echoing off the glass windows.

I stand up and push the bisected window open—none of us this high up keep them locked because who the hell is going to scale eight floors of an apartment building? I lean as far out as I can without climbing ontop of the desk. Not a cloud in the sky.

Someone screams. It isn't long until more follow. I head out into the hall. Students come running past me, almost slamming right into me. The door across the way opens ever so slightly. A dark-haired boy with glasses and mismatched pajamas emerges. His jaw is dropped, and he's trembling. I'm tempted to ask, but more and more people are flooding the halls—I notice it's mostly those on the opposite side—some screaming, some praying, some calling for others, some rushing, some cussing, most hyperventilating. They all share similar expressions of shock and terror.

Those on the this side of the hall open their doors, peering out with the cut and paste look of confusion as me. They look at me, and the others.

The boy with glasses wraps his arms around himself, looking green. I step back, but those coming up and trying to push the crowd forward don't notice. He leans down and gags, the vomit splashing on the shoes of the passers-by. They scream again. The humming, I realise, is also getting louder.

Closer.

"What is going on?" I ask, my voice drowned out by the restless noise of begging and screaming. The boy struggles to stand up straight again, his glazed over eyes focused behind me. He raises a shaking arm and points over my shoulder.

"Them," he whispers, barely choking back tears. "It's... It's...them..."

Lost, I whirl around. A black mass, what almost looks like a rocky ledge, creeps into the view of my window. I make my way over to get a better look, but this time, I slide my laptop out of the way to kneel on my desk. I grip the window sill, warm wind blowing across my face.

It was a UFO—unidentified flying object, yes—but nothing like the silver disks seen in popular media. The mass floats across the sky, revealing an overgrown sinewy ship made of black crystallised metal. There were edifices on both the top and bottom, and they strung from the main construction like the stalagmites of a cave. On the side, it has what looks like lit windows, but as monumental as the thing is, those windows seem so small and so distant from here.

Much smaller and far less intricate versions zip by so close they shoot air across my face. I stumble away from the window. As foreign as the construction is, history is somewhat repetitive.

It's a warship. An alien warship with a fleet.

"They're here!" the boy shouts, his voice crackling like a roaring fire. Full of dread, as though he was always worried this day would come. Pretentious as he was in his belief that life could not exist outside of Earth. I glance over my shoulder; the queue of students has somehow thickened. "They're here!"

His eyes roll into the back of his head before he falls to his knees and then on his face, glasses flying off his face.

Is this a dream?

I blink furiously, hoping the fog that's suddenly dispersed on me will fade. It does nothing. I wait until most of the crowd has thinned to follow them out into the stairwell. There are windows in the shaft which look out over the city, and at the moment, seem to provide front row seats for the showcase of the first modern day (alien invasion?)—is this going to be an invasion, or just a friendly reminder that they are, in fact, out there?—though I suppose everyone in the city has front row tickets. The resounding thunder of bare feet and shoes and vocal panic is the only thing I can focus on, aside from the view.