It came down like dust. Silent. Invisible. Harmless—at first.

One night, a meteor streaked across the sky and shattered in the woods outside the small, quiet town of Elridge, population 6,842. The local news called it “a spectacular light show.” The next morning, Mrs. Sanderson was whistling on her porch—happy for the first time in years. Two days later, the mayor ended all city council meetings with the words, “We are one.”

The organism was not here to conquer. It had no teeth, no claws, no lasers or machines. It wanted only one thing: unity. It spread like a song—through water, through breath, through touch. It rewrote neurons and whispered peace into the minds of the angry, the anxious, the afraid.

One by one, Elridge changed. Not violently. Beautifully.

Everyone was happy. No crime. No pain. No secrets.

Except for a few—those who felt it crawling just beneath their skin. Who knew the smiles weren’t real. Who resisted the calm like their very soul was allergic to it.

And the organism? It learned quickly. Resistance was stress. Stress was violence. Violence had to be calmed. Corrected. Absorbed.

You see, it didn’t think it was invading. It thought it was healing.

For years, Harmony was just another forgotten dot on the map—rural, quiet, invisible. Then it dropped off all communications grids. No phones, no internet. Surveillance drones went missing. The census marked a sudden population spike—despite no new births or migrations.

When aerial scans showed citizens walking in synchronized patterns and smiling up at the sky during a thunderstorm, SHIELD took notice.

Now, Fury is sending the Avengers to investigate the potential danger.