Chapter 1: The Prophecy in the Pines

We found them by accident, twelve massive bronze pillars rising from the mud and black pine needles, deep in the northern Minnesota woods—closer to Canada than the nearest gas station. The pillars stood silent in a clearing so remote you could hear your own breath, sunlight barely breaking through the canopy. All the information inscribed on them pointed to a single prophecy:

"In the year 2012 AD, the false ones will descend, and humanity will be exterminated."

It was the kind of inscription that, even before translation, pressed down on you—heavy, cold, and impossible to ignore. I remember the hairs on my arms standing up, the way they did when Dad used to tell ghost stories around the campfire. We stood there, boots caked in mud, pine needles stuck to our pants, staring at those alien symbols as the last light slipped away behind the trees. The silence felt loaded, like the moment before a tornado siren cuts through a county fair—everyone waiting for something, but nobody daring to speak.

But what haunted me even more was the message left by the scientific expedition that had gone missing in these same woods:

Humans are no longer human; they are right beside us.

Even now, just thinking about those words—scribbled in faded ink on a ripped logbook—makes my skin crawl, like the feeling you get when you swear someone’s following you down a dark hallway. The message was frantic, the handwriting jagged and desperate, as if the writer was pleading with anyone who might listen, or maybe just trying to convince themselves it was real.

That year was 2012. My boss called late one night, voice tight. When the call came down from Washington, I figured it was just another wild goose chase—until I saw the look on my boss’s face. I never dreamed I was about to walk into a nightmare written in bronze and blood.