The sky burned red as the first wave of destruction began.

For centuries, humanity had watched the cosmos, yearning for answers, for connection. They sent probes into the vast unknown, etched golden records with their history, and dreamed of a day when first contact would arrive.

But when the message finally came, it was not in the form of a greeting.

It was an execution order.

The aliens came like gods of war, descending in obsidian vessels that eclipsed the stars. Their weapons did not fire projectiles or energy beams—instead, entire cities simply ceased to be. No explosion, no sound, just the sudden erasure of steel, stone, and flesh. In seconds, millions were gone.

Dr. Eleanor Graves, stationed at the Global Space Observatory, had seen the warnings long before the first strike. Flickers in the sky, distortions in space-time—unnatural pulses of light that should not exist. She had begged world leaders to listen.

But warnings meant nothing against the arrogance of mankind.

Now, the Earth was in its final hours.

Eleanor stood inside an underground bunker, her hands trembling as she monitored the last of the resistance crumbling. Satellite feeds displayed entire continents collapsing, their landscapes reshaped by some force beyond comprehension.

She clenched her jaw, forcing her breath to steady. If humanity was to die, she refused to let them be forgotten.

The Exodus Protocol—a desperate project, activated only in the event of planetary extinction—was her last hope. A deep-space probe, filled with the collective knowledge, history, and culture of Earth. A beacon to say:

We existed.

A massive tremor shook the bunker as another alien blast struck the surface above. The ceiling groaned, dust falling in waves. The power flickered, but the backup generators roared to life.

She didn’t have much time.

Her fingers danced over the console, bypassing the security locks. The Exodus probe was hidden within a secret launch site—one of Earth’s last, untouched by the first waves of destruction. If she could get it into space, there was a chance that, somewhere in the universe, another civilization would find it.

The screen flashed. Launch sequence initiated.

Above, the bunker cameras captured the probe’s ignition—a single, brilliant flame piercing the darkened sky. It climbed higher and higher, past the burning clouds, past the debris of fallen satellites, past the reach of those who sought to erase them.

She exhaled a shaky breath. It was done.

A shadow loomed at the bunker entrance.

Eleanor turned.

An alien figure stood before her, impossibly tall, its form shifting between liquid metal and dark energy. It had no eyes, no mouth, no features—only a smooth, void-like surface that seemed to swallow all light.

It did not raise a weapon.

It did not need to.

The war was already over.

For a long moment, neither moved. Then, a deep, resonant voice echoed—not from the creature’s form, but from inside her mind.

"You are lesser. Your kind is insignificant. Why do you struggle?"

Eleanor met its gaze, or at least, the place where its eyes should have been.

She was exhausted. Her muscles ached, her mind was raw with grief. But still, she forced herself to stand straight.

A bitter smile formed on her lips.

"Because even a speck of dust can defy the wind."

The creature did not react. It only stood there, silent, watching.

Then, without a word, it raised an arm.

Eleanor felt the world slip away.

The last thing she saw was the Earth—her home—fading into darkness.

And then, silence.

Beyond the End

Far beyond the ruins of Earth, the Exodus probe sailed through the void. It was small, insignificant against the vastness of the cosmos. And yet, within its data banks, it carried everything—humanity’s art, music, languages, stories. Proof that they had once walked beneath the stars.

For centuries, it drifted. Unnoticed. Unfound.

Until one day, a signal answered back.

A ship of unknown design intercepted the probe, drawing it into its hold. The beings aboard were not human, nor were they anything the probe had knowledge of.

But as they sifted through the data—images of a blue planet, voices speaking long-forgotten languages, a woman’s final log detailing the fall of her species—something unexpected happened.

They grieved.

And so, for the first time in recorded history, a species that had never known Earth mourned for it.

And in that moment, humanity was no longer forgotten.

They lived on.

A flicker in the void.

A whisper across the stars.

“We were here.”

(writer words: please like and follow me.)