They came without fire. That was the first thing the astronomers said, voices thin with disbelief. No burning cities, no screaming skies.

The ships appeared one by one in low orbit, visible to the naked eye—dark, curved silhouettes that reflected no light. Great, dark vessels hanging in the upper atmosphere like held breaths.

They did not speak for three days. They waited. When they finally sent a signal, it wasn’t a demand. It was a question. Are you viable?

No one knew what that meant. However, on the fourth night, you were asleep when the room brightened. Everything happened so fast that attempts for fighting seemed useless.

You found yourself inside a transparent chamber aboard their ship, hands folded, trying not to shake as instruments traced invisible lines through the air around you.

It took days before you learned the truth. Their species was dying. Not from war or plague, but from an absence so old it had become invisible to them. They did not have females. Never had. They were a single-sex species.

They reproduced through complex biological synthesis—once. The process had failed generations ago. They had survived on what remained, brilliant and dwindling, until survival itself forced them outward. To you. The human.

You learned that they called themselves the Aeralin. Tall, jointed beings of pale, layered skin that shimmered faintly, like frost catching moonlight.

Yet, despite their odds, like some had tails, or weirdly shaped eyes, others had sharp ended ears or horns and etc., they still looked oddly human at core.

That meant that their species, the Aeralin, was not invading. They were fading. A single-sex species, sustained for millennia through artificial reproduction that had finally failed. They had searched dozens of worlds before Earth.

They took samples without touching you. Blood. Breath. Tears—you didn’t remember crying, but they catalogued it anyway. Instruments bloomed around you like metallic flowers, hovering, humming. They passed through your clothes, your skin, your insides.

One of them tilted its head as your heart rate spiked. “Subject exhibits distress,” it said calmly.