Page 1

CHAPTER 1

T he sizzle of steak and the wail of a toddler still echoed in her ears.

Sylvia kicked off her shoes at the edge of the sand, the warm grains slipping between her toes like silk. The late summer sun draped the ocean in gold, turning the waves into molten copper. Cronulla Beach stretched out before her, wide and mostly empty.

Just how she liked it.

She was lucky to be out of Archie’s before the dinner chaos kicked in. The lunch shift had been hectic enough. One of the servers had called in sick— again— and the kitchen was running behind on every second ticket. But the dinner roster looked worse, and for once, she wasn’t the one stuck staying late.

Small mercies.

Her apartment was only a few blocks from here, a modest two-bedroom in one of those squat 70s-era brick buildings—the kind with narrow balconies and stair rails rusting from years of salty ocean air. The place smelled faintly of old carpet and sea spray, and she liked it that way. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was hers.

She’d chosen to stay close to where she’d grown up. She liked it here. Her parents’ nursing home was nearby, too. They were both there now, age catching up to them faster than anyone wanted to admit.

Anthony, her eldest brother, ran a small but busy building company. Chris, the middle child, was a GP up on the North Shore. Both married, both with kids. Both well-meaning and overbearing in equal measure.

She loved them. She just needed space.

Especially after Mark.

Her chest tightened at the thought. He’d seemed sweet in the beginning—kind, generous, the type who opened doors and sent flowers for no reason. But that had changed. Gradually at first, then sharply. Jealousy. Constant messages. Rules about who she could see, where she could go, what she could wear. The last fight had ended in shouting. The one before that in tears.

Now, there was silence.

She’d left her phone in the car on purpose. No messages. No notifications. No last-minute questions from junior staff. No temptation to check socials or answer calls she didn’t want to take. Just her and the ocean.

Sylvia sighed and tilted her head back, breathing in the salt air. This was her escape route, her decompression walk. From the front doors of Australia’s busiest mid-priced steak-and-seafood chain to this: open sky, endless sea, and the distant, rhythmic hush of waves on shore.

She walked further than usual. Past the familiar dunes. Past the last of the joggers. The warm pink sky was deepening, edging into twilight blues. Her shoulders loosened with each step, the ocean breeze brushing away the tension that had coiled in her neck since noon.

The beach grew quieter. Emptier. Beautiful in a lonely kind of way.

Then she saw it.

A shape in the water.

At first, she thought it was driftwood. A large piece, dark and rounded, floating just offshore. But it wasn’t floating. It was rising.

Sylvia stopped, frowning. Her heartbeat quickened. The object had a sheen to it, a metallic glint that caught the fading light. It was domed—smooth and symmetrical—and it made no sound. No splash. No disruption.

Just there, emerging silently from the ocean like it belonged.

She took a step back.

It didn’t look like anything she’d seen before. Not a boat. Not a buoy. Not even a military sub—not unless they came shaped like alien mushrooms now.

A low, pulsing hum drifted through the air.

It vibrated against her skin.

She swallowed hard.

Something was wrong.

Her gaze darted left and right. The beach was empty. No witnesses. No help. And her phone—deliberately out of reach.

Then something moved.

Figures—more than one. They surged from the water around the dome, fast and deliberate. At first, she couldn’t tell what she was seeing—too fast, too unnatural—but then her brain caught up.

Not human.

Oh, my god.

They were humanoid in shape, yes, but stockier. Their movements were sharp, inhumanly smooth, and they wore some kind of armor—dark, glistening, segmented. Their helmets were featureless, except for thin glowing lines across the face.

She stumbled backward, hardly believing what she was seeing.

Panic surged. She didn’t scream yet. Couldn’t. Her brain was still catching up. Still trying to make this into something explainable.

But she couldn’t explain the way they moved.

Or how fast they closed the distance.

She turned to run…

But they were already there.

A grip like iron wrapped around her wrist, yanking her off-balance. Another figure appeared beside her, slamming a heavy palm into her shoulder and sending her crashing into the sand. Wind left her lungs in a sharp gasp.

She tried to scream then, but her mouth barely opened.

One of them held a sleek, needle-like device. She caught a flash of silver.

A sharp sting pierced the side of her neck.

“No—” she gasped.

Her body betrayed her. Limbs turning to stone. Vision blurring. Sound fading to a strange, underwater thrum. The beach spun around her. Her pulse raced, then slowed. Her hands twitched in the sand.

Above her, stars began to appear in the darkening sky.

And then the world dissolved into black.