Episode 1 – The Last March
[Kal – Narration tone: calm but tense, reflective, with a soldier's grit.]
The year… is 2098.
Humanity has been fighting an alien invasion for twenty long years.
We've lost the skies.
We've lost the cities.
And now… we live underground.
There are sixty bunkers worldwide—some call them cities, but they feel more like graves.
Twenty-five are military. The rest? Civilian shelters.
Each one holds millions, trapped beneath the dirt… praying the monsters above forget we exist.
But monsters don't forget.
They evolve.
They call them Beasts.
We classify them in four types—A through D.
Type A: small, instinct-driven, fast, vicious.
Type B: smarter. Ambushers.
Type C: shapeshifters—able to mimic normal animals, slip into our bases unnoticed.
And Type D …
No one really survives those encounters.
I'm Kal Toussaint, thirty-five years old, Rank C, commander of Unit Nine—one of the Lethal Units.
Six soldiers.
No backup. No retreat.
We're the scalpel the brass sends when precision matters.
Today… precision won't be enough.
Inside the transport, the air hums with static tension.
The others sit quiet. Focused.
Layra prays under her breath.
Vex cracks jokes to hide his nerves.
I just count the light flickers overhead…
one every six seconds.
Vex catches me doing it.
He smirks. "You only do that when you're scared."
He's not wrong.
But a leader doesn't flinch.
We land in alien territory.
The ramp lowers, and the stench hits first—metallic, sharp, like blood rusting in the air.
The ground crunches beneath my boots.
Gray dust.
The sky above… a sickly green swirl.
"Clear perimeter," I order.
We move—silent, tight formation.
Shattered houses. Empty streets.
Every shadow feels alive.
Every breath, borrowed time.
Then we find it.
A two-story house, sagging under its own weight.
Footprints. Fresh. Heavy. Non-human.
"Inside," I whisper.
The door gives way under Juno's kick.
The smell hits me—sweet… wrong.
Every room is empty. Except one.
The dining table.
And on it—
a book.
Not paper. Not leather.
Something else. Something alive.
It pulses faintly.
Symbols crawl across the cover, shifting when I stare too long.
Vex mutters, "What the hell is that?"
I don't answer. I reach out.
The surface is warm—beating, almost.
Then a hum cuts through my skull.
My instincts scream leave it.
I close the book, shove it into my cargo pocket, and move on.
We still have a general to kill.
Hours later, everything goes wrong.
We find the alien general in the ruins of a stadium—towering, armored in plates that shimmer like oil.
Its eyes burn white.
Around it swarm hundreds of beasts.
"Positions!" I shout.
Gunfire. Explosions. Screams.
We fight like cornered wolves.
One by one, my people fall.
Layra goes down. Vex vanishes in the smoke.
I carve through the swarm, blood coating my visor.
Then I see it—
the general charging a weapon that hums like a dying star.
I shove Layra aside.
The blast hits.
Pain.
Light.
Silence.
Then… nothing.
No sound.
No pain.
No war.
Just… warmth.
I open my eyes to sunlight.
To birdsong.
To a sky that isn't green but blue.
My body freezes.
The holo-board across the street blinks the date.
Fifteen years before the invasion.
I should be dead.
Instead… I'm standing in the past.
Then… the voice.
Soft at first.
In my head.
Echo Protocol Activated
Sync Level: 92%
Temporal Strain: 0%
Welcome back, Kal.
My breath catches.
Text—blue, glowing—floats in front of my eyes.
Feature Unlocked: Memory Sparks
Tier One Access Granted.
Warning: Timeline integrity at risk.
I whisper, "What the hell did that book do to me?"
The system answers.
Origin: Artifact classified as Unknown.
Integration: Irreversible.
And then it hits me—
this isn't just a system.
It's something alive.
Something watching.
Something that wants me to rewrite everything.
I stare at my reflection in a cracked window.
No armor. No scars.
Younger. But my eyes…
still soldier eyes.
I died trying to save the future.
Now I've been thrown into the past—
with a system built from alien tech and human will.
A system that whispers one truth.
Survive.
Adapt.
Rewrite the timeline.
My name is Kal Toussaint.
Commander of Unit Nine.
Last survivor of the invasion.
And this time…
I'm not here to fight for survival.
I'm here to win the war before it begins.