1
Blood Rain
The old television hummed and crackled, its screen casting a flickering glow in the dimly lit room. A vintage NASA broadcast played, the colors dulled by age, the logo in the corner a symbol of boundless ambition. The voice of the news anchor carried the weight of history.
“Apollo 13, April 13th, 1970. A mission meant to push humanity further. A mission that nearly ended in tragedy.”
The screen shifted to black-and-white footage of Mission Control. Grim faced engineers hunched over consoles, their murmurs thick with urgency. Then came the infamous words, crackling through the static.
“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
A moment of silence, then an animated diagram of the spacecraft’s damaged service module. Yet, at the edges of the grainy footage, something flickered. A dark sliver against the void, moving too fast for the untrained eye. A glitch, dismissed. Forgotten.
The news anchor’s voice deepened with reverence. “NASA’s greatest failure… and yet, from its lessons, we reach our most crowning achievement.”
The image dissolved into the present. Towering above the Earth, a structure unlike anything before. A cable, thick as a city block, stretching from the ground and disappearing into an infinite sky. The Icarus Space Bridge. Humanity’s tether to the stars. At its base, banners waved as crowds looked up in awe. Scientists, dignitaries, and reports gathered beneath the colossal structure. The crowd swelled, cameras flashing, the world watching in celebration. They had conquered the heavens at last. The countdown boomed over the loudspeakers. A countdown to activation.
“3…2…1.” The behemoth machine roared to life. Crowds gazed skyward as a beam on lights illuminated and appeared to rocket down the side of the cable. This was not only Nasa’s achievement but humanities.
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Miles away, beyond the reach of the gathered crowds, beyond the constant hum of machinery and the artificial lights of the launch complex, stood Matt’s home—a secluded cabin nestled deep in the mountain ridges. From here, the Icarus Space Bridge was an eerie silhouette against the evening sky, its immense form dominating the horizon. A monolithic wound carved into the heavens. Matt stood on the porch, beer in one hand, the other lazily flipping a steak over the grill. The scent of seared meat mixed with pine and cooling earth. He watched the bridge in the distance, unsettled by its presence. A man-made thing that had no business reaching so high.
“You ever think we’d live to see something like that?”
Sarah, leaning against the railing, arms folded against the chill, didn’t look at the thing. She kept her gaze on the trees, the fading sun washing her in amber.
“I don’t like it,” she admitted. “Something about it feels… wrong.”
Matt exhaled, feeling it too now. A pressure, a weight in the air that hadn’t been there before. It was subtle, almost like an ache in his chest, a tightening in his throat. Then he noticed the trees had gone quiet. Still moving but quiet. The wind had stopped. Even the insects had ceased their endless droning. A low, primal instinct fired in his brain. A wrongness so deep it made his skin crawl. His grip tightened around the spatula, suddenly aware of how exposed they were.
“Sarah…” She turned to him, her eyes widening as realization dawned on her face.
Then...
She was ripped upward. Not yanked, not pulled, but ripped. Faster than his mind could register, faster than he could comprehend, she was no longer standing there. Matt’s breath caught in his throat. His heart slammed against his ribs. His hands trembled. He barely had time to process it when...
With nothing but a look of horror on her face, she exploded. A sudden, violent burst of blood erupted in the sky, raining down in thick, warm droplets. It spattered against his arms, his face, the deck. The force of it knocked the breath from his lungs. His stomach lurched. His knees almost buckled. His gaze snapped upwards. The sky rippled and the air bent. The trees swayed violently, their branches snapping as though struck by hurricane-force winds. The grill toppled, sending burning coals and charred meat scattering across the deck. Yet all was silent.
Then...
Sound returned. The trees calmed. The wind rushed past his ears. The grill hissed, and the world roared back to life. Except for Sarah. Sarah was gone. His breath hitched, his chest tightening with horror as blood rained down all around him. He dropped to his knees staring at his crimson covered hands and wept.