The frost cracked beneath the Spartor’s feet as it turned, the glow of its single blue eye unwavering.

  steam drifted through the shattered street, painting the ruins in pale gray light. It did not step forward. It

  didn’t need to.

  Kyle could barely stand. He was twenty yards to the alien’s right, one knee pressed into the frozen

  concrete, breath rattling through a throat filled with blood. He’d been fighting so long that his body had

  forgotten what stillness felt like. His muscles twitched from exhaustion, ribs screaming every time he

  inhaled.

  He saw the alien lift its hands.

  At first, the motion looked almost slow, elegant. The long, armored fingers spread wide, then began to

  circle, palms facing inward. The air shimmered between them, bending the way heat bends light.

  A faint vibration started in the ground.

  “No…” Kyle’s voice rasped like torn paper. “Not again.”

  Across the clearing, Abby was still limping, her face streaked with dirt and blood. She froze as the first

  bits of debris began to lift, tiny pieces at first: nails, pebbles, flakes of shattered glass. They rose

  silently, spinning around the alien in a widening spiral.

  The humming deepened.

  Kyle forced himself up, his left leg trembling under his weight. He took one step forward, then another.

  “Abby! Move!”

  She tried, stumbling on her injured leg. But everywhere she turned, more debris floated upward. The

  fragments grew larger, chunks of wall, twisted beams, slabs of concrete. They circled higher, drawn

  toward the Spartor’s hands like metal filings to a magnet.

  Wind whipped through the street. The fires flickered and bent inward, their smoke pulled into the

  vortex forming above.

  Kyle staggered forward another step, shouting, “HEY! LOOK AT ME!”

  The Spartor didn’t react. It stood perfectly still, its fingers swirling, its one good eye fixed on Abby.

  The alien’s breathing was steady, controlled, but the muscles along its neck flexed and tensed like cords

  of wire.

  Abby turned in a slow circle, looking for an escape. Every structure that could’ve offered cover, walls,

  cars, transports, was now airborne, orbiting her in a storm of ruin. She couldn’t even see the sky

  anymore.

  Kyle’s heart hammered in his chest. He’d seen this kind of power once before, when the brown Spartor

  tore through an entire squad of trained operators. But this was different. This wasn’t raw rage. It was

  deliberate.

  It was an execution.

  “Abby!” He tried to run, but his ribs locked halfway through the motion. He fell to one knee, choking

  on blood. The knife in his hand clattered against the ground. He gripped it again, knuckles white,

  forcing himself back up.

  The humming became a roar.

  All the floating debris turned as one, shifting in the direction of the woman in the center. Abby’s hair

  whipped around her face, her eyes wide but steady..

  She looked toward the wreckage where Bash had hidden and then back at Kyle. Her lips trembled, but

  she didn’t look afraid. There was only resignation.

  She mouthed something at him, the words nearly lost in the storm.

  “I love you all.”

  Kyle screamed her name. “ABBY!”

  He pushed himself into a run, or what passed for one. His body felt like it was moving underwater. The

  world slowed. His boots splashed through shallow puddles of melted ice, every step echoing longer

  than it should have.

  He saw her face, pale in the blue light, her hair flicking across her eyes as the storm reached its peak.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  He saw the Spartor’s hands stop.

  Its fingers pressed together.

  The debris obeyed.

  Every piece of wreckage, steel, glass, concrete, metal, collapsed inward all at once.

  The sound shattered the world.

  A single, earth-splitting CRASH rolled across the street, followed by a wave of dust and cold air that

  threw Kyle backward mid-stride. He caught himself, knife scraping the ground, and kept moving.

  The cloud swallowed everything.

  For a moment, there was nothing, no sound, no movement, no breath. Only the high, empty whine in

  his ears.

  “Abby…” he croaked. His voice didn’t sound like his own. He couldn’t see anything past the wall of

  dust.

  He pushed through it anyway, stumbling forward with his arm over his face. The air burned. Frost

  formed across his sleeve.

  Then he saw it: the mound of wreckage where she had stood.

  “Abby!”

  He dropped to his knees, clawing at the debris with his bare hands. The edges cut into his palms, warm

  blood streaking the frost. His breath came in violent gasps, every motion pulling at the broken ribs in

  his chest.

  “ABBY!”

  A sound answered him, a low, mechanical growl.

  Kyle froze.

  Through the haze, the Spartor’s silhouette stood unchanged, framed in the steam. It hadn’t moved an

  inch. It was still facing him, arm half-lowered from the motion that had just leveled the street.

  The glow in its eye pulsed once.

  Kyle gripped the knife harder, pulling himself to his feet. “You son of a bitch…”

  He staggered toward it, each step slower than the last. His boots slipped in the dust and blood, his lungs

  barely working. The knife in his right hand shook with every heartbeat.

  The alien didn’t react until he was close, ten yards, maybe less. Then its head turned, just slightly,

  tracking his approach. The faint sound of moving armor cracked through the air.

  Kyle raised the blade. “You think I’m done?” His voice came out low, hoarse. “You think I’m scared of

  you?”

  He took another step, then another. His vision tunneled, the edges of the world darkening, but he didn’t

  stop.

  The Spartor watched him like one might watch a dying animal struggle to stand. It didn’t step away. It

  didn’t raise a weapon. It simply waited.

  “Come on…” Kyle whispered. His voice cracked into a laugh that wasn’t really laughter. “COME

  ON!”

  He broke into a run.

  If his ribs were breaking, he didn’t feel it. Every ounce of strength left in his body poured into that

  single motion. He raised the knife high, angling it toward the alien’s chest.

  The Spartor’s arm moved like a shadow.

  A blur of motion, one impossibly fast sweep.

  The backhand struck him square across the chest.

  The world flew by.

  The impact lifted him off the ground, his feet leaving the frost, his stomach lurching as the air rushed

  out of his lungs. The knife stayed clenched in his fist even as his body flew through the air.

  He hit the wall with the force of a crashing vehicle.

  The sound was bone and concrete breaking at once. The wall cracked under the impact, a spiderweb of

  fractures racing across it.

  Kyle slumped to the ground, still gripping the knife, blood spilling down his chin.

  For a moment, he didn’t move. He couldn’t. His head hung forward, his breaths shallow and uneven.

  Through the haze of pain and dust, he saw the Spartor standing exactly where it had been, its single

  glowing eye fixed in the same direction.

  Unmoving.

  Unfeeling.

  Silent.