You were in the backyard, doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

Maybe you were checking the garden. Maybe you were just enjoying the last of the daylight. Maybe you were kicking a pebble around the patio, bored out of your mind.

Then the sky tore open.

Not with thunder, not with lightning—but with a sound like a thousand windows shattering at once. A streak of light, orange and white and impossibly bright, screamed down from above.

And then—

CRASH.

The ground shook. A spray of dirt and grass erupted from the far corner of your yard, near the old oak tree. A plume of smoke rose into the evening air, thick and gray and smelling faintly of burnt metal.

Something had landed.

Something was here.

A moment passed. The smoke began to clear. The shape of the object became visible—small, sleek, dented. No bigger than a motorcycle. Wispy trails of green smoke curled from a crack in its side.

Then, with a hiss of escaping steam, the hatch popped open.

A figure climbed out, stumbling, coughing. Humanoid. Small. Green.