Tiamat Rising

December 20, 2021

The sound of breaking glass shattered the silence the two fugitives kept to avoid detection. Jeff's heart was beating so fast he could almost hear it. He and his alien girlfriend had been on the run for several months. He'd lost his job, his wife, and his family had disappeared. As he hid in the dark, in an old, abandoned building, he wondered if life would ever get back to normal again.

"Stupid question," he told himself.

Until last year, the mere suggestion there were UFOs and aliens was met with derision, even among Nasa's scientists. Yet it was aliens that had somehow managed to get onboard the Mars Sample and Return mission. They were undetectable and existed in a form of energy unknown to science. They had the ability to take over a human mind and act like a parasite. It was these creatures who had created the pandemic that started in late 2019 and that had killed off half the world's population, causing world economies to grind to a halt, breaking supply chains and causing disruption and chaos for everyone. By the time the vaccines were forcibly administered it had come too late for humanity to realize what was happening and fight back against these alien intruders. They had taken over select government departments via their human hosts and it was only a matter of time before these creatures had control of the planet.

Jeff had heard rumors about organized resistance groups but he had no idea where they were. Taieela was taking him to a secret location where one group met to discuss strategy. She was one of a select few who were trying to prevent her species from taking over Earth.

Her home planet, Tiamat, used to be situated between Mars and Jupiter several thousand years ago. Their civilization was rich in culture and the Tiamatians were more evolved than their distant cousins on Earth. Their bodies had evolved to the point where they could transmute into pure energy and revert back again at will, all done with the catalyst of pure thought. A natural disaster had caused the planet to be knocked out of orbit where it became rogue for a time. Millions of inhabitants died as the planet's atmosphere was ripped away and those who could, made the change to their energetic state. The planet was eventually pulled into Neptune's orbit where the gas giant's gravity propelled it into the outer rim of the solar system, becoming the largest object in the Kuiper belt.

Jeff could hear the sound of crunching glass and loud voices. They were getting closer.

"Taieela!" he whispered.

She glanced over at him. Even in the darkness her eyes had an almost iridescent glow to them. She was wearing the heart shaped locket he'd given her for her birthday. Her 5,000th birthday. She hadn't aged a day since she reverted back to her humanoid form. He motioned for her to make a quick run for it.

The voices grew louder and the door swung open. Jeff and Taieela made a dash for the opening and ran up the stairs. Shots ran out. They exited for doorway, crossed the parking lot and ran off into the woods. "Don't look back! Just keep running" he said to Taieela. She seemed to be struggling and couldn't keep up with him.

"Jeff!" she said, "I've been shot!"

He stopped and looked at her. She was holding her chest and blood was pumping out.

"I'll get you to a hospital," he said anxiously.

"Jeff, you have no idea where the nearest hospital is. I'm dying. Just go. I've given you directions on how to get there."

"Don't be crazy," he replied. "I'm not leaving you."

"Jeff, you have to leave. We don't have long. Earth doesn't have long."

He stared at her. Her naturally platinum blond hair looked so beautiful in the moonlight.

"I'm not leaving you he said." He held her and held the heart shaped locket she was wearing. There was a picture inside of the two of them together.

Her face turned ashen from the loss of blood. "I don't want to die" she said.

Jeff looked on incredulously as Taieela started to glow and shimmer as her body changed into its more evolved state. He had never seen a Tiamatian interphase before.

"I love you Jeff" were the last words he heard her say. Soon her whole body disappeared in a swirling band of color, and that was it - she was gone. The heart shaped locket he was holding was all that was left of her.

Grief stricken, he started running towards the woods.