Member-only story
When the Sky Bled Violet
Futuristic Fiction
I could tell you many things about the world of yesterday, but you probably wouldn’t believe a word of it. You were born under different stars, the kind that didn’t signal destruction with every shuddering glimpse of light. You breathed easy in the open air, a combination of elements that wouldn’t require a mask for filtration. But things had started changing, even then, because we had already spent years digging our own graves as we tried to outlive every disaster nature threw at us.
And that was even before They came.
We said we had been prepared. We had tried to appease the panic with soothing words during emergency broadcasts. We had told everyone to stay calm, stay inside, stay with friends and family.
We were liars, all of us, because we really had no idea what They wanted.
And, of course, They had a different idea of how They wanted to introduce themselves.
It wasn’t like in the movies I had seen as a kid. We had always imagined far-off cities made of indestructible elements unknown to humankind. The tech, the construction, the deployment of such insanely advanced things — these were all inventions of the imagination, all things penned by the greatest minds in science fiction. But the reality? It was both frightening and exhilarating.
