The Unwelcome Dawn

Chapter One

Alice Holden had never been good at mornings, but lately, she'd started to make peace with them. After years of half-hearted resolutions, missed alarms, and stumbling into work late and exhausted, something in her had clicked. It was still a battle every day—wrestling with the inertia of her former self—but she’d found a rhythm. Her life, for once, felt like it was aligning, bit by bit. At twenty-seven, she had finally moved out of her parent's house, secured a stable job at a publishing company, and even started jogging. Things were looking up.

This morning, though, the world had a different plan.

It was early, and Alice stood at the window of her modest apartment, clutching a cup of coffee, watching the sky lighten. The apartment was nothing fancy—barely more than a one-bedroom with peeling paint and mismatched furniture—but it was hers. That mattered. She had worked hard to claim this slice of independence. Today would be like any other. She'd go to work, slog through the usual editorial tasks, and return home to the familiar embrace of solitude.

At least, that was the plan.

A strange sound broke the morning’s silence—low, rumbling, and distant. It was so faint at first that Alice thought it was thunder. She leaned closer to the window, squinting at the cloudless sky. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, leaving the horizon painted in soft hues of lavender and peach. Then it came again, louder this time—an unsettling groan, as if the earth itself was stirring from slumber.

Her pulse quickened.

Alice glanced at her phone. No notifications, no weather alerts. She refreshed the local news app. Nothing. Yet something felt wrong. It was an itch at the base of her spine, a creeping tension she couldn’t shake. She set her coffee down, hesitated for a moment, and stepped onto the balcony.

The city stretched out below her. Rows of buildings in varying states of repair formed a jagged skyline, bathed in the soft morning light. The streets were quiet, save for the occasional distant sound of a car engine or the hum of a bus. It was eerily normal.

And then, she saw it.

Far beyond the city’s edge, in the distance where the skyline met the horizon, something massive loomed. At first, she thought it was a building—a skyscraper she hadn’t noticed before—but then it moved. Slowly, impossibly, it shifted, blotting out the sun in a way no man-made structure could. It was as though the sky itself was bending, warping around a shape that defied comprehension.

Alice’s breath caught in her throat. The thing was enormous—too large to be real. Its edges were undefined, as though reality frayed at its boundaries. She blinked, trying to focus, but the more she stared, the less sense it made. It was like staring into an abyss, a presence so vast and alien that her mind recoiled from it.

And then, as if in response to her gaze, it let out a sound—a deep, guttural roar that shook the air. The vibrations rattled through the city, making windows tremble and setting off car alarms in a discordant symphony of panic.

Alice stumbled back into her apartment, heart pounding. What the hell was that?

She grabbed her phone again, frantically refreshing the news. Nothing. How could there be nothing?

She looked back out at the skyline. The thing was still there, now fully visible as the sun climbed higher. It was moving, slow and ponderous, like a mountain learning to walk. As it moved, she could see more of its shape—tentacles or limbs, she wasn’t sure, reaching out from its form, casting massive shadows over everything in their path.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed. The quiet streets below had come alive with noise—people shouting, cars screeching to a halt, the distant wail of sirens. Panic was setting in, spreading like wildfire through the city.