You could tell when they were close by the way your breath hung frozen in front of you. It took us all far too long to recognise that the "breath" we were seeing wasn't us and it was alive in its own right but by that point we'd already lost a war we never knew we were fighting.
At first it was thought to be some kind of global reaction to pollution in the air, those spontaneous asphyxiation cases that appeared random at first until the common factor was found. From there it was a matter of weeks before we found it had a pulse... and eyes... and a mouth.
The best was we found to study it was to use live bait and as much as I hesitate to use that term, the subjects were told exactly what they would be doing and still agreed to die in the hopes that from their deaths we would find a weapon against our unseen killers.
They didn't thrive in the cold but we found that they attacked much quicker when they could blend in with the subject's cloudy exhales. This was when we found they had a heat signature and with some tweaking to our sensors, we could finally see them.
That was when we realised that we were outnumbered.
There was no sky, only their writhing chaos.
We never stood a chance.
At first it was thought to be some kind of global reaction to pollution in the air, those spontaneous asphyxiation cases that appeared random at first until the common factor was found. From there it was a matter of weeks before we found it had a pulse... and eyes... and a mouth.
The best was we found to study it was to use live bait and as much as I hesitate to use that term, the subjects were told exactly what they would be doing and still agreed to die in the hopes that from their deaths we would find a weapon against our unseen killers.
They didn't thrive in the cold but we found that they attacked much quicker when they could blend in with the subject's cloudy exhales. This was when we found they had a heat signature and with some tweaking to our sensors, we could finally see them.
That was when we realised that we were outnumbered.
There was no sky, only their writhing chaos.
We never stood a chance.
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