When the stars moved

The first sign was when the stars moved.
I stood with my love on a hill. We knew the day had been coming, we knew for as long as most others did. Bit by bit, the constellations seemed to bend and distort, at first as if they were breathing, next as if we were watching through a trick glass.
We pondered and pointed, wondering what was happening. Before long, we had the answer.
They weren't moving.
Something was creating a mirage effect, same way the air dances on a hot day. This truth was the next step in the global response. Curiosity evolved into fear. We all had the same question: What could make a mirage of space?
We wanted to know, wanted our answers. Angry and afraid, we turned on our governments, demanding secrets they did not have. We got them. The distortion is space grew larger; more stars blurred and seemed to ebb as if caught in a tide. We waited, worried, each with a reserved breath of what was going to happen. We could never have expected this.
I stood on top of that hill with my love, gazing up at the night sky. For the few days before the city had been home to riots and rebels. It played a constant symphony of panic and confusion, the smashing of windows, the beat of riot shields, and smell of burnt rubber were all accompaniments. Yet, despite our civil destruction, despite our dying governments, we both knew the ember bright city was staring at that distortion with us. The distortion seemed to bulge as if pregnant, tossing and brewing like a storm contained.
Then, it gave birth.
A tear in space, wide enough to swallow our planet and take it as a tooth in its gaping grin-like smile, ripped through the heavens, hiding whole constellations behind it.
There was no noise from it, just a silence.
The world seemed to freeze in that moment, our cities burning, our people leaderless and our planet naked before what came.
It arrived like a bird of prey. A long hook like beak broke through the rip, followed by a long body, almost like a boat of some kind. From behind, came a second, then a third, then a fleet, then an armada.
Their numbers seemed to grow like a mould, spreading across space. Their blinking lights gazed at our planet. To this day, I wonder what they saw.
Civil unrest that needed to be stopped? A lush paradise save for some dirty savages? Prime targets?
They seemed to break apart, like a cluster bomb. One ship in particular, came towards our city. It just came within our atmosphere I think; I could hear the rumbling of thunder from its belly. From the hill, we saw it all. We could see people trying to escape in vehicles, others stopping to gaze from vehicles. They were like insects, beneath the God of all boots.
As if they wanted to trump our self-destruction, they launched the first barrage.
I can only relate their barrage to one thing: When I was young, I would lie in our field and watch shooting stars blaze across the sky, you’d blink and miss them. This must have been what shot those same stars.
A half an instant was all it took. The city stood full of life, than it stood vacant. There was a flash of red; it must have engulfed the roads around the city too. There seemed to be…an almost unified scream. Agony, terror and awe make a cocktail of sound, lethal to hear.
We were lucky to be far enough to avoid the blast, but if the price of survival wasn’t to hear that wail then I don’t know what could be more costly. I had binoculars and tried to look for survivors.
Ashes. Not even nice sandy dust, not skeletons, just piles of ash. Lumps of it, as if only the flesh was fried, the remains just glopped together with the bodily fluids. That could be the interest with the sound.
The city still stood, like one big marker to the dead. Their weapons, they left all the goods to be raided intact, only vaporised the biological ‘threats’, leaving any resources just in need of a clean-up.
The two of us prayed, prayed to wake from the nightmare. We then saw the next horror.
The horizon, once dark with the night, was now blood red, flashing like a blinking panel of lights.
We had first contact.
We stayed on that hill for hours, unable to understand what we had just seen. It couldn’t be real. Then the small ships found us, their lights bore on us, a noise barked from a speaker with a gun bearing on us. She panicked… and she tried to run. I shouted to stay but before she could turn the ships gun responded and there was a flash of red. She disappeared.
I just fell, unable to make a sound. All those years together, every embrace, all our plans vaporised with that flash of colour.
In my puppet like state, the ship landed. I would be allowed to meet my killer it seemed.
A ramp descended and the visitors stepped out.
They shared my shape, two arms, and two legs minus though they stood straight. They were of a different colour, very pale. They were smaller and lacked a fore horn, though they had a curve in the centre of their face with two small holes either side. They seemed to have five digits on each hand, much smaller than my three. Each held a gun in their hand and wore one around their waist.
There were five of these invaders. One stepped forward. He was larger, the chief I thought. He held a flag in one hand, and a collar in the other. He said something to the other four, who nodded and held me down. I didn’t care what they did, I gave no resistance.
With a swift motion, he clamped the collar around my waist. I winced as it bit into me, gripping like a vice. I looked up at the invader.
He took out a packet of some kind, slender and rod like, and lit the end. He sucked on this and blew smoke to the air.
He talked to me, the collar buzzed, telling me what he said. Its robotic tone was out of sync with his movements.
I still remember the words, “Congratulations, your planet is the first step on our new frontier.”
He knelt down, placing a similar rod in my right air valve, chuckling at some joke in it.
“You’re first race we've encountered, now that you pose no threat, we’ll open negotiations for… introduction to humanity.” He nodded to the other soldiers who hoisted me up. I was almost a quarter larger than them.
Their leader started walking back to his ship, his soldiers bringing me with him “Don’t worry,” he shouted back, throwing the packet down on the grass, “ Earth’s not too different from here.”