Page 4 of Rebirth

The sleek dark metal that covers every inch of the vessel, hiding its angles and edges, is so dark it soaks up all light from the sun like a hungry black hole.

“What if it’s a trap, man?” The man in the front passenger seat speaks, his voice coming through the small window that separates the bed from the cab.

I grip my pack tighter, pulling it between my legs at the same time that the guy beside me taps a finger against his leg at a pace that tells me he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

“We won’t know until we get there.”

The tension in the van is only heightened the closer we get, and I wonder if this was the right decision.

I could have stayed in my bunker. Waited till all my food ran out. Waited it all out in a place that still smelled like home.

“And then what?” another one of the men says.

I know they aren’t speaking to me, but the question comes at such a perfect moment that I huff a mirthless laugh through my nose. Eyes still on the object in the skies, the question repeats in my head.

And then what? If I’d stayed, what would I have done? Starve to death? Do the very thing my body, my mind, protests against?

I’m one of the survivors of a massacre of my species. The day I stepped out of my bunker was the day I decided I wasn’t going to hide away in a hole anymore.

And it was the day, like a message from the universe, I bumped into that flyer.

“Look, man,” the first guy says. “If it’s a trap, then we’re fucked. We should have a backup plan. In case we see one of ‘em, you know?”

They say no names.

But regardless that I don’t know these men, I don’t need inside information to know who they’re talking about. Or rather…what.

Living in the bunker my father built years ago, locked away from everything else, safe, I’d wondered if the thing that would bring my death was time. There’d been no way out. I would stay in that bunker, time slowly ticking, slowly aging while the world above me was torn to pieces.

I would stay there forever, until my time ran out and I no longer existed.

The small radio I had rarely picked up any signals, but when it did, when I heard what was happening above ground, it only solidified the fact that my fears were coming true. I would either die in that bunker, or I would die at the hands of the strange beings that fell to Earth.

Either way, my time was up.

Either way, Sophie Seltzer’s time had come.

Until…it didn’t.

I grip the flyer in my hand so tight, I almost rip the worn paper.

On one side, the invitation to Unity is written in big bold letters. And on the other…

I turn the paper to that side now as the van slows down. Eyes still on that thing in the skies, there’s a feeling in my gut that isn’t fear.

Because if this is a trick, a trap, they don’t need to spring one. The beings that came in that ship are clearly more advanced than we are.

The van grinds to a halt, a cloud of dust floating up into the air, and the men bunched in with me glance at each other. It takes a moment before they start moving, each hopping out of the vehicle to stand on the earth below.

“Thanks for the ride.” I force a smile and the males nod.

Their movements are slow. Hesitant.

Not the type of reaction you’d expect after arriving at what should be a haven. And as I hop down from the bed of the van, that paper I’m gripping in my hand crumples as I grab my pack and stand, for the first time, on the ground that is now Unity.

“Maybe they’re not here,” I hear one of the men say. “Maybe they’re in that thing up there.” He gestures to the massive ship floating above us, a shudder going through his shoulders as a gust of wind whips around us.

But as the sun shines down, the blue sky calm and so beautiful I’m afraid to trust its stillness, I see something they do not.

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