Thirty days.
The countdown has started, North America shivers under the shadow of a massive alien spacecraft, and humanity is hurtling toward an unknown future that lurks at the end of the timer. Somewhere, somehow, the heroes are making their plan...
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Airspace over ORLANDO, FLORIDA, USA
July 27, 3:10 AM
At 13,000 feet in the air, the night is strangely calm. Outside the windows of my father's Mooney M20, the black sky is freckled with stars and wisps of clouds; the glittering lights of Disneyworld wink at us from down below. Peter O. Knight Airport at the edge of Tampa is fast approaching.
Returning home from my brief stay in New Hampshire should be a blessing. I hate New Hampshire; whenever I'm forced to visit my father during his visitation week in the summer, it feels as if I've been plucked out of civilization entirely. I guess a decaying shack in the middle of the woods with questionable access to fresh water is the perfect place for a reclusive former pilot—not necessarily for his 17-year-old daughter.
However, this time, the glowing webs of light dotting the Florida landscape only fill me with dread. Because this isn't a homecoming anymore.
Sensing my movement, my father takes his eyes momentarily off the plane controls to glance at me. "Leslie," he says, his voice crackling through the headset. "You awake, kiddo?"
"Don't call me kiddo," I mutter, turning away from him to stare out the window.
My dad is silent for a moment before asking, "Did you sleep? We're going to be landing soon, and this week is going to be—"
"I'm fine," I say, refusing to dampen the edge to my voice. What did he want me to say? Sure, Dad! I slept like a champ! I didn't even think about how Grandma found Mom dead.
Did you know that anesthesiologists have one of the highest rates of opiate misuse amongst physicians? That's not what got Mom though. She settled for propofol—the stuff that killed Michael Jackson. Apparently set up an IV all by herself and let that milk of amnesia run in. Grandma checked in after not hearing from her for three days; found her dead in her bed with flies crawling out of her nostrils.
The official ruling from the coroner will come in about a month. Right now, it's a toss-up between an accident and suicide. I have a hard time believing it was the former; my mom was meticulous and she had been battling demons for a while. Demons I had helped her keep at bay.
But I wasn't there this time; I was in fucking New Hampshire.
I gaze out the window, my eyes locked on the crisscrossing network of streetlights and buildings below. But suddenly, they vanish. It's as if all the lights have turned off in unison, replaced by a black void.
"What the...?" I mutter, face pressed to the glass. Did I just witness a power outage? But I'm drawn away from that thanks to the sound of my father frantically fiddling with his navigation equipment.
"Something's below us," he says. "It just appeared, no warning—"
The next thing I know, the Mooney M20 is flung upwards, buffeted by a gust of wind. I scream as the entire craft shakes; my weight is pressed downwards into my chair. We spin, and I lose all bearings on the earth; the only thing I feel is fear: a lightning-sharp, breath-taking fear—
