We thought it was a harmless earworm. A jingle targeted at kids to make money and get kids moving. Harmless, even if parents everywhere were exasperated by it.
We never thought it would be our downfall.
You could hear the tune, or references to it, everywhere: movies, TV shows, the radio, talk shows, and pop-ups on the internet. There was no way to avoid it. Slowly, the song saturated media markets around the world, until even the most remote 3rd world shepherds and farmer was humming it randomly throughout their day.
Then, it happened. In one statistically unlikely moment, every person in the world hummed the tune at the same time. How did that happen? No one knows. People dreamt the tune or hummed it in their sleep. Those awake all had it playing in their head. It was mentioned on every radio station and TV channel.
When everyone finished humming the tune when the sharks missed the fish and they were "safe at last, do do do do do," the sky slowly darkened. Those who were awake and outside said they saw what looked like row upon row of teeth the size of mountains up in the sky. The pictures they took certainly look like teeth.
As the enormous jaws enclosed our planet, the satellites began de-orbiting, sending fiery streaks across the sky. And then? Darkness. Darkness so black there weren't any stars.
The only explanation our scientists can come up with is that the planet was swallowed whole by a giant space shark. We appear to be moving too. Swimming through space, breaking away from our orbit. Astronomers have found the remains of what they believe were other broken planets deeper in what they believe is the digestive system of the shark. A digestive system we are slowly drifting towards.
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Every scientist in the world is working on preserving humanity. We have less than a month to figure out how to artificially make enough light to keep the plants and animals alive. Once that problem is solved, we have a year to figure out how to move the planet out of the space shark and back into orbit around the nearest star. Everyone is working as hard as they can, but hope is hard to come by.
The people of Earth are sending this message out into the galaxy as a warning. If you have a catchy song, about a baby shark, don't sing it. The more you sing it, the more it summons the beast. Once your whole population is singing it, the sharks can find your position, and they will come.
From what we can tell, these sharks travel fast. The song only existed for ten years before the sharks arrived. TEN YEARS. That is all they needed to hear us, find us, and eat us.
By the time you receive this message, our race will either be gone, or we will have found a way to defeat the sharks. We can only hope our warning doesn't come too late, and your society might be saved. We never thought such beings could exist, you probably didn't either. We assure you, they do, and they eat planets.
In the attached data packet, you will find coordinates to the Sol System so you can view the damage for yourself. There is also a history and cultural file so you can see what our planet, species, and culture were like; and a copy of all our scientific discoveries to date. These files contain everything we are, everything we were, and the potential we were unable to achieve.
Remember us. And please, stay safe.