Immortal Path: Fighting For The Human Alien

Chapter 1: The Last Stand

“Pull up, Ethan! Pull up!”

I yanked the controls, but the sky was already on fire and the radar was lying to me.

Because something big was climbing out of the ocean, and every instinct I had screamed run and save those humans.

Too bad because there was nowhere left to run, and even though I wanted to save anybody. I don't have any save place to take them to.

Well, before I bore you with my troubles without saying the roots and what's going on… lemme just leave you to read it your self instead, I think that's the best idea.

You can begin from the day all humans died excluding me.

*******

The sky over New Angeles burned with colors that didn't belong to any earthly sunset.

Ethan Reid pulled his fighter jet into a sharp barrel roll as another Voidborne creature materialized directly in his path, its form shifting between solid matter and something that made his eyes water to look at.

"Echo-Seven, you've got three on your six!" Commander Hayes's voice came through the comm, distorted by interference that had plagued their systems for the past hour.

"I see them!" Ethan's fingers danced across the controls, firing a burst of plasma rounds that should have torn through the creatures.

Instead, the shots passed harmlessly through their translucent bodies before they solidified again, closing the distance with impossible speed.

This was how humanity died. Not with a bang, but with the slow realization that everything they'd built, every weapon they'd designed, every strategy they'd perfected—none of it mattered against an enemy that rewrote the laws of physics.

Ethan's radar lit up with dozens of red signatures. Below, the city's defensive grid flickered and died, plunging millions into darkness.

He'd grown up in those streets, attended the academy there, kissed Sarah goodbye on the roof of her apartment building before shipping out six months ago.

The thought of Sarah made his chest tight. She'd stopped answering his messages three weeks ago, right after the Voidborne breached the European sector.

"All units, fall back to rally point Omega!" Hayes's voice had lost its usual commanding edge. It sounded hollow now, defeated. "We're abandoning the coastal defense line."

"Sir, if we abandon the coast, there's nothing between them and the evacuation centers…."

The comm exploded with static. Through his canopy, Ethan watched Hayes's fighter disintegrate as a Voidborne creature phased directly through its hull.

There were no explosion or debris. The jet simply ceased to exist, erased from reality like a pencil mark rubbed from paper.

Ethan's hands trembled on the flight stick. Seventeen pilots had launched from Carrier Athena this morning. His radar showed three remaining signals, and even as he watched, another winked out of existence.

"Echo-Seven to any remaining units, I'm breaking formation." His voice sounded steadier than he felt. "Heading for downtown. If there's anyone left down there, they deserve cover."

But no one responded. Maybe no one was left to respond.

He dove toward the city, pushing his engines past their safety limits. The fighter screamed in protest, heat warnings flashing across his HUD.

Buildings rushed past in a blur, as he could see people in the streets, running, falling, and disappearing into shadows that moved with predatory hunger.

A woman stood on a rooftop, holding a child, both of them looking up at his jet with expressions that would haunt him forever.

Ethan opened fire on the Voidborne creatures swarming the building, knowing it was futile, knowing it wouldn't matter, but unable to do nothing. Some of his shots connected, tearing chunks from the creatures' semi-solid forms. They regenerated in seconds.

His missile warning system shrieked. Ethan glanced at his radar and saw something that made his blood run cold.

The signature was massive, easily ten times larger than anything they'd encountered before, and it was rising from the ocean like a dark god emerging from the depths.

"This is Echo-Seven broadcasting on all frequencies," he said, his voice sounded calm despite the terror clawing at his throat.

"If anyone's listening, if anyone's recording this—tell them we fought. Tell them we didn't run. Tell them…"

The creature's tendril punched through his cockpit before he could finish. Not through the canopy glass—through the metal hull itself, phasing through solid matter as easily as air.

The tendril wrapped around his chest, and Ethan felt something fundamental drain from his body.

His vision darkened at the edges. Through the growing haze, he saw the massive creature fully emerge from the ocean, its form blotting out half the sky. This was the end. Not just for him, but for everything.

Then light exploded around him. The tendril recoiled, and Ethan felt his body being pulled apart at the molecular level. The creature shrieked, a sound that existed beyond normal hearing, vibrating through dimensions Ethan hadn't known existed.

His fighter disintegrated around him, but instead of falling, he felt himself accelerating upward, faster than any jet engine could achieve.

The last thing he saw before consciousness fled was Earth growing smaller beneath him, wrapped in shadows that were consuming it whole.

And somewhere in the impossible light that surrounded him, Ethan could have sworn he heard a voice.

"SPECIMEN ACQUIRED: HUMAN MALE.

“STATUS: LAST OF SPECIES.

“BEGINNING PRESERVATION PROTOCOL."

Then everything went black.