The night sky still flickered like a bad fluorescent bulb when my cruiser rolled to a stop. Steam — or smoke, or something in between — crawled up from the crater ahead, blurring the flashing blue and red of the squad cars.

“Jesus…” murmured Officer Lin beside me. “Was it a gas main?”

I didn’t answer. The ground under my boots was still warm. Asphalt had folded in on itself like melted taffy, glittering faintly under the streetlights. I’d seen car bombs in Afghanistan, but nothing like this.

Dispatch had said “object from the sky.” I’d laughed. Until now.

The crater spanned half the intersection. A traffic light leaned sideways over it, wires sparking weakly. Every few seconds, the air made a crackling noise — like static on a radio, but alive.

“Geiger’s clear,” one of the hazmat guys said. “No radiation. No debris either — just… this.”

I peered into the pit. The center wasn’t empty — not exactly. There was something there, half-obscured by glowing mist. The light wasn’t reflection. It was coming from her.

A woman. Naked, unburned, lying at the very center of the molten asphalt like it had molded around her.

“Get the paramedics—” I started, then stopped.

Her eyes opened.

The static roared back, and every radio on every belt went dead at once.

For one heartbeat, I could’ve sworn the air itself bent — the mist pulling inward like she’d inhaled the entire world — and then, in the silence that followed, she sat up.

There wasn’t a scratch on her.

“Sergeant?” Lin’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Sergeant!” he repeated. But I didn’t answer. Did this… ‘woman’ come from the sky?