The Message

For tens of thousands of years, the message had been sent. Across silent skies and empty seas, etched in stone, whispered through dreams. And yet none could understand. Until now. It began with a burst of light in the sky. Not a storm. Not a warhead. Not anything the satellites were built to see. Just a flare-quick, silent-falling over the pines of the western range. A flicker, like something had blinked on the other side of the stars... and forgotten to turn itself off. Roughly the size of a basketball, the meteorite shattered the known world. The first to touch it died with wonder on their faces. No blood. No violence. Just stillness-like they had seen something that erased the need to keep breathing. Their deaths were clinical-no wounds, no trauma, only the eerie stillness of finality.