Strip Mall, 2:30am

July 19th, 202X
Newark, NJ USA


That annoying buzzing sound again.

Every night for the last 2 weeks there's been this incessant buzzing sound outside that I can't make out, it seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere.

Lotsa complaints and hysteria in the news on and off for ages now, not much being done really. Quite annoying, sick of not getting much sleep because of it.

911's been totally inundated every night to actually get anything done (again, not that they had been for a while regardless) but especially so now. So may as well do something about it myself. Maybe I'll be a bit luckier than a bunch of the other schmucks in the area who've tried to do much on their own.

I grabbed my M1911 from under my bed and ran out onto my lawn, scanning the sky for anything strange. As always there's weird lights through the trees. This time, I'm so tired of it that I can't be bothered to worry about what dumb consequences there may be. So naturally, I aim and empty my magazine into the nearest set of lights I can see.

A few misses, a few sparks, and then a distant shattering sound, like glass. Before the hovering lights flicker and suddenly plummet a few hundred yards further back. A hit! Finally!

I immediately start sprinting in the direction of the whirring-crashing sound. Across the empty freeway near my house I can see smoke from an abandoned strip mall parking lot. So I head there, thankfully it didn't land on someone's house or anything. Weirdly though, no neighbors popped out to see about the commotion.

Under the flickering yellowish glow of a damaged incandescent street lamp in the direct center of the parking lot, I see smoke billowing from the strangest looking drone I've ever seen, something straight out of Black Ops 2. The paint job on it was almost akin Vantablack, as it wasn't reflective at all.

I approached cautiously as it was sparking and the smoke smelled awful. I noticed there was shattered black glass everywhere and a large puddle forming around it, aside from the other bits of wreckage.

In the middle of the puddle, there was nothing but a... fish?

Like, there was just a fish, flopping around on the wet pavement, looked kinda like one of those tripod fish that wander the ocean floors.

I just stood there, stunned a moment trying to figure out what was going on.

Did the drone land on someone who just had that on them? Was it inside the drone? Huh?

Before I could approach any closer, I spun around at the sound of squealing tires, although I couldn't hear any engines. There was suddenly about half a dozen similarly Vantablack armored vehicles speeding into the parking lot, surrounding me and the drone.

I had forgotten I was still holding my pistol when it was violently blasted from my hand right as all of the doors on all of the vans opened simultaneously and I was swarmed by some sort of Spec Ops unit. All in matching tactical uniforms in the same color as the drone and vans, so it was impossible to make out any details on them aside from a general outline and the fact they were holding some pretty futuristic looking silenced weaponry.

That was the last thing I saw before they silently threw a pitch black bag over my head and injected me with something. I could only feel myself tossed into one of the vehicles before slipping into unconsciousness. The last thing flashing in my mind was the fish in a black void, staring at me.