On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’d love to have you as a subscriber to the weekly free story. You can subscribe via email here. Unsubscribe any time, from the link in every issue.

You can also get the entire collection of stories as a set of epub files for your favourite reader device: an overall collection, and also genre-specific volumes!

Here's story 279, of 288 so far.

Please note: permission is expressly denied to input any part of the story below into a machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence (AI) or Large Language Model (LLM) system in any form.

Lights

Everything has to happen sometime.

I mean, not everything that could happen actually comes to pass, but the stuff that does happen always has its time and place. It’s easy to forget that, in retrospect. The biggest events of human history were also just somebody’s Monday morning, or their Friday afternoon. Or somewhere in the middle.

It was a little after 8:30 PM on a Wednesday night when they arrived. At least, that’s what time it was for me. I was just walking back into the living room, but not my own; I was at a housewarming party at my mate’s new place. It was — and is — a nice house. Thick carpet where there should be, and hardwood otherwise. A garage that’s ripe for converting. Three bed, two bath, two social. Even some stairs. A proper house has stairs, I always thought.

It’s a nice place, and I’d told him so; him and his wife of about a year at that point. I meant it, too — if anything, I meant it even more than I’d expressed. Does anyone go to a housewarming and not feel just a little bit jealous? Whether it’s the location, or the size of the place, or just the potential, and the warmth, and the shiny newness. You go back home at the end of the night and you sort of sigh. But they’re good people, and they deserved it.

I didn’t go back home at the end of the night, though. It was well into the following morning before I even ventured near my own flat, because that was the night when they came.

I’d just come back into the living room, and I was about to head for the kitchen to get another drink. It was only August, so it was still fairly light outside, and the curtains were open (so everyone in the street could see how many friends their new neighbours had, I suppose — though in fairness, six or seven of the existing residents were at the party too). I remember that Snow Patrol was playing on my mate’s Spotify right at that moment.

There were lights outside. I assumed they were either from the police helicopter or some fireworks, both due to the festival. They got brighter, and a few of the other partygoers glanced towards the windows, but no-one paid much attention. I decided to go and have a look before getting that drink. I went to a window, yawned, and looked up.

The lights hung in the sky, just like fireworks in that moment before they fall. They didn’t fall, at least not rapidly. They just sort of drifted, like dandelion clocks.

I didn’t notice them arriving. They were just there. No-one expected them to actually be the lights themselves. No-one expected them at all. It was the most peaceful thing.

As they drifted down, they split, and then split again, and again, and again. Silently, languidly, glowing in the fading evening sun. By the time they reached the tallest rooftops, there were thousands of lights. All white, and faint like an energy-efficient bulb that was just switched on. Nothing alarming, except for their sheer numbers.

By the time their movements became purposeful, it was much too late. It was probably too late from the start.

There were at least two for every human being, everywhere on Earth. I remember hearing one of my mate’s neighbours shouting to their dog to come in. The animal was barking, but just in confusion. Its master’s voice had the shrill tone of barely-controlled fear. But it was too late.

They were just lights, and they moved straight through windows, and doors, and walls, and anything else. They moved through human beings, too, but they didn’t come back out again. They moved into everyone. Three of the lights moved into me.

I suppose you’d call it an invasion, but definitely not a war. It took a few minutes from start to finish. And then it all just stopped.

Everyone closed their eyes, and didn’t do or say anything else at all. They all just stood — or sat, or whatever — right where they were. That part took about a minute. Within that minute, there were an incredible number of casualties worldwide, as people lost control of vehicles, and that kind of thing. The first estimate I overheard was forty million. A tiny percentage of the global population, but still.

After the minute had passed, everyone in my mate’s new house opened their eyes again, and that was it. They weren’t the same people anymore. They didn’t even notice that I’d gone.

Casualties notwithstanding — and those were cleaned up rapidly — there’s been no disruption. Power is still on. Food. Fuel. Transit links. Internet. Everything still works, and is being maintained. It’s just their planet.

And honestly, it’s better now.

There’s no war. No murder. No rape. Everyone seems focused, calm, and rational. That’s not to say that they’re Pod People; they still laugh and eat and drink and presumably fuck. Children go to school. It all still works — just better. It’s a utopia, and all they had to do was put lights in everyone, and make them into new people.

The tech has started to change, or rather to change faster. I’ve seen some things that could have been from a movie. But I suppose that’s to be expected. They had to get here first, after all, and that can’t be an easy thing to do. It’s a long way to travel, no matter where you come from. It makes sense that their tech would be more advanced, and that they’d make it a priority to bring our little old world up to date.

I go along with it. I lay low, and when I do go out, I just stay calm. There’s no Body Snatchers pointing and screeching; they don’t seem to know I’m still human. Or maybe they don’t even care.

I felt my lights die almost the moment they joined me. An extinguishing, of something ancient, and foreign, and totally self-assured. They were surprised to die. I’m not sure they’d felt surprise before. I’m not sure they even knew what death is.

But I do.

I was diagnosed back in June, at least by the old calendar (they don’t seem to have much use for marking time beyond the daily cycle and the seasons). Bit of a cough for a while, little bit of blood. X-rays, and so on. The tumour is in my left lung, and I’m wheezing a little now. Sometimes, at odd moments, I get really tired.

Maybe that’s what did it. Or maybe it’s that I’m an atheist. Or that I eat far too fucking much processed sugar. Maybe it’s that my mother is a life-long smoker (or was; the new-her might not be, and I haven’t bothered to call). Maybe it’s my taste in music. I have no idea. What made me different? Why am I still me, unlike everyone else?

Maybe there are others too. It seems plausible, at least. Emotionally, that’s what I need to believe — but I’m not looking for them. I’ve got a few months left at best, and my cancer isn’t operable. It’s not like I can go in for chemo now either.

So that’s about it. It was a Wednesday evening, and I was at a housewarming on the unremarkable last day of humanity.

The lights came, and they took the world, but for some reason my lights died. They missed me out. And they don’t know about it yet, but eventually I’m sure they’ll find out.

There’s a bridge not far away. It’s a big one; trains go over it, and there’s a river below. So either way, I’m covered. I’m not going to wait for them to find me. I can be there in less than fifteen minutes, and I’m leaving right now.

The Earth is all theirs — or at least it will be shortly. I’m not even bitter, because there’s no-one else left to fight with, or for. There’s a sense of peace in that too.

They all have lights, except me. I know when I’ve outstayed my welcome.

And honestly, it’s better now.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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