prologue
EVEREST
Iwas fifteen when the monsters arrived, fresh in a wave of grief, having lost my parents in the latest of the pandemics that were sweeping the globe. My mom and dad were older—no business having children when they did—but I’d loved them.
A lot.
And then the illness swept through, leaving me bedridden for weeks and them six feet beneath soft earth. I was too sick to attend their funerals. I came back to full consciousness with a state worker holding a duffel bag, telling me I would be living with my Aunt Sheryl and Uncle Aaron, two people who didn’t like me very much.
And I didn’t really like them either.
The only kindness about it was that they lived two miles away from my old home, which was now on the market, along with all my parents’ old stuff. But I didn’t lose my friends. I didn’t lose my school—once I was well enough to go back. My best friend came over every day, and bit by bit, I started to heal.
But as the rift inside me began to close, a larger one within our tiny town of Grand River, Michigan, was opening. It was agateway into another world, another dimension full of creatures so profoundly unlike us that no one really knew what to think.
But the portal near Lake Superior didn’t open with war and destruction like so many movies and books had predicted. It was a polite, soft knock from another world, and then they stepped out.
The Vyastil.
A military border was set up around the perimeter of the city, and we were quarantined in our homes, glued to every news streaming network as we watched for something to happen.
Movement, maybe.
A figure of some sort.
A message.
It took six weeks before something happened, when each of us caught a single glimpse of a blue, opalescent figure with sea-green hair before all the cameras cut out.
And then there was nothing for eight full days. My aunt and uncle, who normally didn’t want my friends over, allowed Zane to stay with us. Probably only to keep me from asking them incessant questions and to save them from having to field my minor panic attacks—but whatever the reason, I appreciated it.
He and I barely moved from my bed, laptop open on our thighs, staring at the livestream of the portal as we waited to find out whether or not these things—the Vyastil—were some kind of alien beings who were taking over the world.
The transmission came at one in the morning. The exhausted-looking governor was flanked by the National Guard with the blue—for lack of a better word—monsterat his side.
“They mean us no harm.”
“Famous last words,” Zane whispered.
“The Vyastil are offering us peace, health, and prosperity. We are currently negotiating the terms of their stay here andeverywhere else the portals have appeared. Their numbers are vast, but we are a welcoming species, and we’re happy to come to an agreement.”
And then the transmission cut.
“Everest?” Zane murmured.
“Hmm?”
“That’s going to go over like a turd in a tub,” Zane said.
I sighed, but I couldn’t disagree. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
And I was right.
The monsters, as people were calling them, were offering peace, but humans—as we know—were not a peaceful people. Before we even got a glimpse of them beyond the figure who was brave enough to speak with human leaders, there were protests.
Riots.
Looting.
