Letter to Chryssander

To Chryssander,

My little Sandy. If you're reading this, it means we did it.

Forgive me for not saying goodbye. I hoped, foolishly perhaps, that it might be easier this way. But don't worry, I'm taking them with me.

Before I go, son, there are things you need to know. Things about yourself, things I should have told you long ago.

The fluid you drank after reading your genetics book. We panicked. Searched frantically for something to undo what you'd done. But what we found — it was a miracle, and a terrible price. Your body a perfect match. Only you survived, because that brilliance of yours also made poison. We lost your mama that day, and it broke us.

My brave boy, you have a power inside you, a gift and a burden. I should have helped you understand it, not hidden you away. Now I can only beg you to believe in yourself the way your mama and I always have. The world will be a harsher place without us, but greatness is born in fire, my son.

There's a box in the corner, by my desk. Inside, your new friend, Will, awaits. I made him for you. Say hi from me. The flash drive below holds — well. It holds everything I could leave you.

One last thing, Sandy. Your mama's warmth, our love for you — it's in every beat of your heart. Remember that.

Love always,

Dad

In the year 300 they spread across the only doughnut-shaped planet ever found, Aerogaea 374n. The most developed planet in the Dagger 33A system. People of Earth 347 shared their technologies willingly, generously, the way people do when they believe the universe is fundamentally safe.

They weren't prepared.

Forty years before the conquest, a scientist named Thomas Elliott found the pitch-black planet at the center of 374's ring and called it Void. He published a paper a year later. Based on thorough biological analysis, it seems these species do not have any form of brainpower. Some people later speculated the paper wasn't written by him. Elliott himself had already vanished.

Five years after that, a researcher named Robert Graunos published a book. These creatures are as smart as we are, perhaps even smarter. They went after Thomas Elliott first, and he's the one who pushed them to change. They're already here, living among us. The day after publication, no one heard from Dr. Graunos ever again.

In the year 300, thousands of Voidomorphians emerged from Void and began their conquest of 374n and its nearest systems. Their natural adult form reaches approximately four hundred centimeters. They shapeshift — taking the form of whatever they've absorbed, keeping the abilities. They are difficult to define. Defining them is how Elliott spent the last year of his life.

This is the world thirty years later.

The letter above was found in a box with a flash drive and something that called itself Will. The boy who received it was eight years old.