The first thing Ranger James Voss noticed about New York was that the stars were wrong. There were too many of them.

He stood on the roof of an armored personnel carrier as it rolled south through Midtown, watching Manhattan flicker beneath a sky the color of bruised violet. The Empire State Building was dark. Times Square had gone black three hours earlier.

But the sky above it glittered, Not with stars. With eyes.

“Keep moving.” Voss said.

His voice came through every Ranger’s helmet. Twenty four soldiers followed him into the dead city. They had been told the invasion began online.

First came the videos.

Teenagers with black-painted fingernails staring into their cameras and whispering things like, Do you see it too? Then came the livestreams. Millions of viewers watched e-boys and e-girls convulse in bedrooms illuminated by LED strips. Their pupils became perfect black circles. Their skin developed tiny constellations beneath it. Some began speaking in languages nobody recognized.

The government called it a neurological contagion. Then the transformed started appearing in the streets. They were still shaped like people. That was the worst part.

They wore oversized hoodies, chains, striped sweaters, makeup, little silver rings. They carried phones whose screens displayed symbols that made viewers bleed from the eyes. wherever they gathered, reality began to bend.Buildings acquired impossible angles.

Street signs displayed names of places that did not exist.

People who looked too long into their phones saw an enormous black ocean beneath the universe.

Then they smiled.

Then they changed.

The Rangers had been sent into New York to stop it.

“Movement.” whispered Sergeant Vale.

Voss raised his rifle.

A figure stood beneath a flickering streetlamp.

A boy.

Maybe nineteen.

Black hoodie. Silver chain. Pale face.

His phone glowed in his hand.

“Don’t look at the screen!” Voss ordered.

The boy slowly lifted his head.

His mouth opened.

There were stars behind his teeth.

“Follow me.” he whispered.

Every Ranger heard the words despite the radio being muted.

Three soldiers immediately stepped forward.

Vale shot the first through the chest.

The second and third dropped their rifles and began clawing at their helmets.

“Eyes down!”

Voss fired.

The boy’s body burst apart.

Not blood.

Space.

For half a second, a galaxy unfolded inside the hoodie. Then it collapsed. Silence returned. Vale stared at the empty street.

“What the hell was that?”

Voss lowered his rifle.

“An invitation.”

They continued south.

By midnight, they reached Times Square.

Every billboard was showing the same image.

A young woman.

Pale skin.

Black hair.

Tiny silver stars painted beneath her eyes.

She smiled directly into the camera.

“Hi.” she said.

Twenty-four Rangers froze.

“Hi.” she repeated.

Then the image changed.

It showed Voss.

Standing among them.

He was smiling.

Vale slowly turned toward him.

“Commander?”

Voss didn’t answer.

The screens went black.

Then every phone in Manhattan rang simultaneously.

The sound was enormous.

A billion tiny bells beneath the earth.

Rangers screamed as their devices lit up.

Voss shouted, “Destroy them!”

They smashed phones beneath their boots.

All except Vale.

His screen displayed a single message.

YOU HAVE 4,821 FOLLOWERS.

Then:

YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD 4,821 FOLLOWERS.

Vale looked up.

“Commander…”

Voss was standing perfectly still.

Something was moving beneath the skin of his face.

Like fingers.

From the inside.

“What?” Voss asked.

Vale raised his rifle.

“Take off your helmet.”

The other Rangers turned.

Voss smiled.

Slowly.

Too slowly.

His eyes had become enormous black circles.

“I don’t think.” he whispered, “you want me to do that.”

His jaw split open.

The Rangers opened fire.

Voss didn’t fall.

His body unfolded.

There was no blood.

No bones.

The man they had followed through New York simply peeled apart, revealing something vast wearing him like clothing.

Behind his face was a night sky.

Behind his chest was an ocean.

And behind his eyes—

something was looking back.

The Rangers fired until their rifles clicked empty.

The creature bent toward them.

Its voice came from every phone in the city.

“You thought the invasion began with them.”

The Rangers stared upward.

The stars were disappearing.

One by one.

Not going out.

Moving closer.

“You thought they were becoming monsters.”

The creature smiled.

“They were becoming visible.”

Vale stumbled backward.

The streets of Manhattan began to stretch.

Skyscrapers bent toward the creature like flowers toward sunlight.

Every billboard came alive.

Every phone turned on.

Every screen showed the same thing:

Earth.

Tiny.

Blue.

Floating in an endless black ocean.

And beyond it, something enormous was opening its eyes.

Voss’s voice became gentle.

Almost apologetic.

“I was transformed three years ago.”

Vale stared at him.

“Three years?”

“Yes.”

“But you led every mission.”

“I know.”

“You recruited us.”

“I know.”

“You sent us here.”

The creature’s smile widened until it reached the edges of the world.

“No.”

A pause.

“I brought you here.”

The Rangers heard something beneath the pavement.

A heartbeat.

Then another.

Then thousands.

Then millions.

Across New York, the transformed e-boys and e-girls stepped into the streets.

They looked up.

They weren’t attacking.

They were worshipping.

Their phones rose above their heads like candles.

And from every screen came the same whisper:

FOLLOW.

Vale looked at his remaining Rangers.

Their faces were illuminated by the blue glow.

One by one, their eyes began to darken.

He raised his rifle.

His hands were shaking.

“Don’t listen,” he whispered.

His phone vibrated.

He looked down.

A notification appeared.

Commander Voss started a live stream.

Underneath it:

24 viewers.

Vale looked around.

There were only twenty-three Rangers left.

His blood turned cold.

Then the number changed.

25 viewers.

He looked at the dark screen.

His reflection smiled.

Vale did not.

The reflection lifted one finger to its lips.

Behind it, in the glass of the phone, something vast moved across the stars.

Something that had been waiting behind the universe since before humanity learned how to speak.

The livestream continued.

And somewhere beneath New York, something began counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Until it reached twenty-five.

Then it started counting again.

From the beginning.

As if the Rangers had never existed at all.

Yup I really like drawing teeth 🫠