A sudden chill gradually enveloped Mark's body, leaving him with an unsettling sense of unease. Sitting under the shade of a tree with a half-eaten pie nestled in his hands, Mark looked like the perfect embodiment of idleness. It was not like he didn't have a job - he did. It was also one of the best an outskirt rat like him could obtain. A truck pusher. Something that he had to do if he didn't want to starve to death. But Mark had refused to go to work and instead found solace in the shade of a tree. He would scan the street, his face twisting into a deep sorrow as he observed the people walking by. His expression blended anxiety and distress, laced with a touch of pity. It was impossible not to feel compassion, especially if what he perceived wasn't just a figment of his imagination.
He turned his gaze toward the sky; threatening clouds could be seen despite it being midday. He shuddered at the sight of them; knowledge of the horrors within those clouds shook him to the core. Returning his gaze to the streets, he cursed under his breath. The sentence "knowledge is a curse"resounded in the back of his mind, and he wished he never knew anything. How great would it be if he was just as oblivious to the events about to take place as anyone else, going about his daily life, pushing a truck and earning enough to feed himself? But no, he possessed knowledge he wasn't supposed to have, insights into events that lacked explanation. He understood what had happened, what was happening, and what would happen. It all started about two years ago when he started having strange dreams of what would happen in a not-so-faraway future - he dismissed it as his starved mind playing a dirty trick on him, not until he started seeing things unexpectedly before they happened. It felt like déjà vu; a series of images would play in his mind—a cup of coffee spilling, someone slipping, someone getting hit by a car, and so on. Surprisingly, these visions would come true in the next moment. He started to believe in the significance of his dreams. At first, he thought he was going crazy, but with each revelation experience, his feelings alerted him that he was onto something important.
He attempted to share his experiences with a few kids from the outskirts, but they all called him crazy and demented. Some even threatened to call a psychiatric hospital before his condition spiralled out of control. As a result, he decided to keep everything to himself, making preparations and biding his time. If the world were to end, he resolved to survive at all costs. He took a last bite from the pie he was chewing on and tossed the rest into a nearby trashcan. He then lifted his head and looked at the vast sky, darkened by thick clouds. He took note of an alight movement as his gaze turned grim. " I guess it's starting then," he said to himself. He got up and stretched a little before heading down the streets.
*******
The Cosmos Observatory facility was a large-scale government project which swallowed a ton of resources and managed power. It was publicly known as a space observation facility; it secretly functioned as a military base.
In an enclosure that could barely pass as a room, various system monitors were arranged side by side all displaying different feeds from numerous satellites.
Sitting in front of the rows of monitor was a man clad in a military uniform, the three Chevrons on his shoulders served as an indication of his rank as a Sergeant
He wasn't looking too good though. Nestled in his arms was a cup of coffee which he sipped on as his stared at the monitor screen, his face was taut with obvious bags looming under his eyes, huge veins were bulging on his neck and he looked like he hadn't slept for days on end.
Still he couldn't take his attention off the screen of a particular monitor. Displayed on it was a live videos feed from showing the sun or what could be called the sun but it's light were blotted out by black clouds, an unexplainable phenomenon which he had never seen.
He had noticed the presence of the clouds moving across the stratosphere and had been paying attention to it. For some strange reasons, the movement of the clouds seem coordinated, he felt something bigger than just clouds was at play but he couldn't put his fingers on it and here he was watching the clouds converging at noon blotting out the sun.
He grabbed a communicator and brought it to his lips
"Attention!! Attention!!! Unknown phenomenon spotted"
"Possible code black, I repeat possible code black"
He hadn't put down the communicator when the clouds began behaving abnormally. The black puffy clouds converging at noon blotting out the sun were moving and it seemed to be moving down into the atmosphere.
Before the sergeant could blink, the black clouds came undone revealing multiple space ships. He was stumped, turns out the clouds were just a camouflage and hiding within it were unknown space ships
Immediately he grabbed the communicator
"Unidentified vessels in the atmosphere. I repeat unidentified vessels has invaded the atmosphere"