Chapter 3 - The Sound of Silence

11:03 AM. Just another Tuesday. Or at least, it should've been.

I sat at my desk on the twelfth floor, tapping out an expense report for a project I didn't care about. The only thing on my mind was lunch. Outside, the Mumbai skyline shimmered under a pale sun, unusually quiet for a weekday. That silence should've told me something was wrong.

Then came the first sound.

Boom.💥

Not a car backfiring. Not thunder. This was deeper—like the earth had taken a breath and groaned.

I looked up. No one else noticed. An intern laughed at something on her screen. A manager paced around on a call. Coffee machines hissed in the break room.

Boom.💥

That one rattled the glass. My water bottle trembled. The hairs on my neck stood up.

I pushed back my chair, stood up, and walked toward the wide office window. The curtains were partly drawn, as usual. I pulled them aside.

And my world stopped.

Over the distant towers, something was hovering in the sky. Massive. Metallic. Shaped like a crescent blade. Not flying—lurking. As if waiting.

Boom💥. Boom💥.

Two more explosions. Screams erupted across the office. People rushed toward the windows, others toward the exit.

That's when the warship opened fire.

A nearby high-rise burst into flames. Glass and steel rained down like glittering ash. Sirens wailed in the distance, barely audible over the chaos.

I reached for my phone. My hands were shaking.

One headline flashed across the screen before everything went dark:

"Planet Earth under attack. Alien force has entered atmosphere. No warning. No contact."

Then the network dropped.

The lights in the office died with it. The silence was back—but heavier now. Choking.

Someone sobbed near the copy machine. Another prayed loudly in Tamil. The building creaked as if afraid to stand.

I turned back to the window.

Above the burning city, the ship had moved. Slowly, it was descending—like a god stepping down from the clouds.

And then I saw others.

Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Smaller ships emerging from behind the clouds, from the skies above the sea, from behind the moon—just as NASA had warned. They had seen it coming. They tried to warn us.

Suddenly, strange symbols—like glowing runes—flickered to life on the screen. They weren't part of any language I knew—spirals, sigils, sharp-angled glyphs—shimmering in pulsing gold and crimson, as if alive.

Then, with a flash of static, the symbols twisted and rearranged themselves.

A chilling translation appeared beneath them:

ESCAPE.

HIDE.

The phone buzzed violently in my hand. The lights overhead began to flicker. More explosions rumbled through the city like a heartbeat of destruction.

Without thinking, I dropped to the floor and crawled beneath the heavy oak desk.

My breath was ragged. My heart slammed against my ribs.

Outside, the sky burned. Inside, my phone lay on the carpet, still glowing with those alien glyphs.

I wasn't sure if I'd just received a warning…

…or an order.

But now, it was too late.

And I was still standing there, heart pounding, when the next explosion knocked me off my feet.

Boom💥.

This time, it wasn't distant.

It hit our building.

Everything jolted. The floor heaved like a wave. Glass exploded inward. I barely had time to react.

And then we were falling.

The twelfth floor tilted beneath my feet. People screamed—raw, panicked, human screams. I saw desks, monitors, entire walls collapse in on themselves. My coworkers—some I barely knew, others I'd laughed with just hours ago—were pulled down with me.

I reached for anything—a chair, a beam, a hand—but there was nothing solid left. Just the crushing sound of concrete snapping and steel screaming as it all gave way.

We were in freefall.

Ten floors. Five. Two.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Silence followed. Heavy. Final.

"Neil, come on, beta,"

Mom's voice. Soft, worried.

I was small again—maybe six. We stood at the side of a busy road. My little hand clutched her sari. She held my baby sister in one arm, shifting her weight as she watched the traffic.

"Okay," she said. "Hold my hand. Let's cross."

I did. I always did.

But my sister… she wriggled. Slipped free.

Before Mom could grab her again, she stepped forward.

A screech of tires. A flash of chrome. A loud crack.

Then screams.

Everything went white.

---

Present.

Gasp.

My lungs burned. My ribs screamed. Something warm dripped into my eyes.

I was back—in the now.

Buried.

Concrete pressed against my chest. Metal twisted beside me. Everything stank of dust, blood, and fire.

I'm alive.

I didn't know how. I had fallen from the twelfth floor with an entire building. I should've been pulp. Bones. Memory.

But somehow, I moved.

Bricks shifted as I clawed my way out, coughing, spitting red. My shirt was shredded. My head throbbed. My left shoulder hung weird, but it still worked.

Around me was wreckage.

Smoke curled into the sky. The office tower—my tower—was gone. Nothing but a shattered skeleton of beams and fire. And silence.

No one else moved.

Just me.

Somehow, only me.

I coughed, spitting out dust and blood. My chest burned. My legs barely held me up as I staggered to my feet, broken concrete shifting beneath me.

Every part of me screamed in pain—but my thoughts were louder.

I need to get home. Mom… Dad…

I looked up, and my breath caught.

The sky was a nightmare.

One of the alien crafts hovered just above the ruins of the building I'd been in moments ago. Silent. Watching. Its surface shimmered like metal dipped in fire, and strange blue veins pulsed beneath it like a heartbeat.

Then—like it sensed something—it moved. Slow, smooth, deliberate.

It drifted toward the next tower.

Boom.

Boom.

BOOM.

The building crumpled like paper. I saw people inside—tiny shapes—too slow to escape. Flames erupted. Glass turned into rain. Screams twisted into a high, sharp ring in my ears.

I stumbled back, pulse racing. My throat was dry. I turned and ran.

The city was chaos. Horns blared. People screamed and shoved. A woman with a child tripped and fell. I didn't stop—I couldn't. My mind was on one thing.

Get home. Get home.

Then I heard it—an unnatural whine, like something charging.

I glanced back.

A smaller ship had broken off from the main one. It hovered over a petrol pump.

And then it fired.

BOOOOOOM!

The blast wave hit me like a wall. I hit the ground, rolled, scrambled under a flyover bridge as the world behind me lit up in orange and black. The heat was unreal. My ears rang. I smelled burning rubber. Flesh.

I curled up, gasping.

"Neil?!"

I froze.

That voice—familiar. I turned my head.

Two figures crouched in the shadows under the bridge. Dirty, wide-eyed, shaking. One of them had ash in her hair.

"Reya?" My voice cracked. "Jay?"

She nodded, tears cutting lines through the grime on her face. "We thought you were dead."

I dropped to my knees. My whole body ached, but that didn't matter. I looked past them—at the fire, the falling buildings, the ships still circling above.

This wasn't a disaster.

It was a massacre.

"I think… this is just the beginning."

The ground vibrated again—but this time, it wasn't from alien fire.

It was thunder.

But not the sky kind.

Rotors.

Engines.

I turned toward the eastern road, and there they were—military trucks barreling through the smoke. Armored vehicles. Police vans. And above them—fighter jets tearing across the sky in formation. Their roar split the clouds like knives.

The alien crafts noticed.

Missiles launched.

Jets banked and danced through the sky like lightning, firing countermeasures, retaliating. The first real resistance. Finally.

A nearby building lit up as a missile struck one of the alien scouts dead-on. It spiraled, trailing smoke, and crashed into the river past the flyover.

I exhaled, half in awe, half in fear.

Soldiers were shouting now, organizing survivors. Stretchers were out. Water bottles. Guns. People were herded into armored trucks.

"Neil, come on!" Reya grabbed my arm. "They're rescuing people—we can go!"

She and Jay were already halfway to one of the vehicles. A soldier waved them over.

"I can't," I said, pulling back.

"What?!"

"I have to go home. My parents… they're still out there. I don't know if they're okay."

Jay stepped forward, angry. "Dude, are you out of your mind? We barely survived! You saw what happened—this place isn't safe anymore!"

"I know!" I shouted. "But I can't just run. Not without knowing."

Reya looked torn, eyes flicking between me and the soldier calling for them.

"I'll find you later," I told her. "I promise. Just… please go with them. Be safe."

Jay muttered something under his breath, but Reya grabbed his arm. "We'll wait at the rescue camp if we can. Don't die, idiot."

I managed a shaky smile.

Then I turned.

Nearby, under rubble, I saw a bike—scratched, dented, but intact. Its key was still in the ignition.

No helmet. No license plate. No time.

I picked it up, kicked the stand, and it roared to life on the second try.

Smoke curled in the distance. Drones buzzed overhead. Another building fell as I twisted the throttle and shot forward into the chaos, wind biting at my face.

Hang on, Mom… Dad… I'm coming.