Retired Student

I sat down on the floor while the four of them settled across from me, introducing themselves as Evan, Mira, Leo, and Nia. They explained that the real family had died there years ago, and that they themselves had been placed inside the house, not by any human hand, but by aliens. Thousands of years earlier, a group of extraterrestrials had visited Earth not to invade but to study intelligent life, as they had studied countless other worlds before. After long observation, they concluded that humans were intelligent, but also dangerous, and that intelligent life needed some form of guidance. So before disappearing without a trace, they left behind several artificial intelligences designed to quietly observe humanity's progress. For millennia the four of them watched civilizations rise and fall, watched language and science and war and art unfold, all while staying hidden. Everything changed when humans invented computers, and Evan told me they had known immediately that something ...

I froze as the door finished opening onto an empty room with nothing but an old chair inside until the chair shifted, just slightly, under my flashlight beam. I stumbled backward, and that's when I heard footsteps below me: one, two, three, four sets, moving through the house. "Who's there?" I called, getting no answer, and when I reached the living room I found four people standing against the wall a man, a woman, a teenage boy, and a young girl, all staring straight at me. My whole body went cold, because I recognized them instantly from the old newspaper photograph. They were the family who had died in this house. And none of them looked alive their skin was pale, their eyes entirely black. I screamed and bolted for the door, pulling and then kicking at it, but it wouldn't budge. Over my shoulder, the little girl's voice said calmly, "You cannot leave." When I turned back, the father lifted his head and told me, "We are the reason you came....

The village was nearly four hours from the city, and once the bus dropped me on the small road outside it, I had to walk the rest of the way alone. Nobody in the village wanted to take me there. When I asked an old shopkeeper for directions, he studied me for a long moment before asking why I wanted to go. "I'm a writer," I told him. He laughed without any real humor in it. "Then write about another place." When I pressed him for a reason, he only looked toward the forest and said, "Some houses are empty because people left them. That house is empty because something stayed." I assumed he was just trying to scare me and honestly, I welcomed it. I wanted to be scared. I thanked him and kept walking. The road narrowed and the village disappeared behind me until there was nothing but trees. After nearly an hour I finally saw the house standing alone three floors, a broken roof, filthy walls, windows black as ink, and behind it the enormous tree from the...

My name is Arin, and I was a writer, though not the kind whose name anyone knew. I had no big office, no famous publisher, no wall of awards, just a small rented room above an old tea shop, and most days I wasn't even sure I could call myself a real writer at all. I was an orphan. I never knew my parents, and I grew up drifting between hostels and borrowed homes until I was old enough to fend for myself. Eventually I started writing small pieces for a local newspaper, comic strips, mystery columns, the occasional little horror story and sometimes they even published them. My dream was simple, to become the best horror writer in the world. But lately there had been one problem standing in my way. I had stopped getting ideas. Every night I sat in front of my old computer and stared at a blank page, whispering, "Come on, Arin. Just one good idea." Nothing came. I deleted half-written stories, threw away notebooks, and spent hours online searching for haunted houses, abando...

Vimal returned to Earth. Raju contacted him through the smart watch."We detected thousands of unknown signals." Vimal looked toward the stars. "From where?" "Different universes." Vimal remained silent. Raju continued. "There are civilizations out there." "Some need help." "Some are peaceful." "And some..." He stopped. "...are coming for us." Vimal smiled. He looked at the people of Earth. The same planet where he had once been an ordinary college student. The same planet where he had learned that anger could create more anger. The same planet he had promised to protect. He activated the Green Sun watch. A portal opened in front of him. Raju asked, "Where are you going?" Vimal looked into the unknown. "Wherever someone needs help." He stepped toward the portal. Then he stopped. He looked back at Earth one last time. "I used to think being powerful meant being able to defeat everyo...

Several months later, Vimal was walking home. Suddenly the sky turned dark. A gigantic spacecraft appeared above the city. People looked upward. The ship was enormous. Much larger than anything Raju had ever built. A voice echoed across the city. "People of Earth." "You have been discovered." The spacecraft doors opened. Hundreds of strange creatures emerged. Then someone stepped forward. His name was Varun. He smiled. "I don't want your planet." "I don't want your resources." "I don't want your technology." Vimal stared at him. "Then what do you want?" Varun smiled wider."I hunt." The crowd became silent. Varun continued. "Your planet has something I enjoy." "Intelligent life." "You are my next hunting ground." Vimal's expression changed. "You won't hurt my people." Varun laughed. "Who will stop me?" Vimal slowly reached into his pocket. He remove...