'What the hell is that?'

The scenery looked like it was distorted, as if it was some piece of painted paper and something was trying to pop from behind it. The air was vibrating around the phenomenon and we could feel overwhelming energy emanating from it. Suddenly, we were drowned in blinding light. We all faced away with a scream. As soon as I was able to open my eyes again, I had a hard time believing what I was seeing – a creature, the shape of a horse, with radiant, white wings, was standing in front of us.

'A Pegasus?', Sophie exclaimed in disbelief.

While none of us dared move, Phoebe carefully approached the creature, her arm extended in a friendly gesture. It lowered its head and poke her hand with its snout. Then it abruptly fell to its knees.

'It's injured!'

The five of us instantly rushed forward to support the horse-like creature.

Don't worry about me.

'Who spoke?'

We all exchanged puzzled looks.

'Did you hear that just now?', Abiona asked doubtfully.

As we all nodded, Phoebe turned to the creature.

'Can you hear us?'

Yes, I can.

I had carefully watched its lips this time and they had definitely not moved an inch. It didn't feel like it was coming from outside, anyways. More like...

'Are you speaking in our minds?', I suddenly asked.

Yes, I am.

'Oh, boy. Now that is freaky.'

'Who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you injured?'

I have come to warn you.

'Warn us? About what?'

An alien force is coming to invade your planet.

'Sorry?!'

'Aliens? With highly advanced weapons and spacecrafts and stuff?'

No. A much more perverted kind. They do not seek to destroy you. What they want is... you.

'Us? What do you mean?'

They're called Shadows. They're parasites. A species which feeds on others. They infest living creatures and take control of them. Then they have their host behave exactly like before so it's impossible to tell the difference. They progressively infest whole planets undetected that way. They will make sure you remain unaware of their existence until you're all under their control.

'That's terrible!'

'But why do they want us for?'

You humans are numerous. They want you for your number. So that they can raise an invincible army and wipe out all who oppose them.

We fell silent for a while. Vile parasites from space coming to enslave all humanity – it was all so surrealistic, any of us would have laughed at it in normal circumstances. However, the circumstances were all but normal.

'But we're just a couple of teenage girls', I said meekly. 'You should speak with members of the government; There's hardly anything we can do.'

There's no time. I will give you something to fight with.

'What? Weapons?'

A special kind of weapon.

There was another burst of blinding light, though weaker than the previous one, and a small, glowing cube came out of nowhere in the front of the creature.

Come closer. Each of you, put your hand on a side of the cube.

We all did as we were instructed. The cube's surface was tepid and buzzed gently. The creature closed its eyes and I felt a little dizzy for an instant. Other than that and some itching at the tip of my fingers, I felt like nothing had change.

There.

'What did you do to us?'

I passed a piece of Pegasian technology on to the five of you. It is part of you now and no one can steal it from you.

'What technology?'

Instant genetic engineering. You can alter your genetic structure up to some point.

'Like, growing a third limb or stuff like that?'

Not necessarily to such extremities. But you can improve your metabolism in various ways and achieve feats which greatly surpass your kind's normal abilities. With experience, you will be able to manipulate increasingly complex sequences and even mimic those from other species.

'Seriously? But, how does it work? I mean, if your technology is inside our bodies, how do we command it?'

Through formulae. Your body will react to particular sets of nerve impulses which are in turn triggered by certain formulae. You will have to figure them out by yourself since I do not have the required knowledge about your species to predict how your nervous system works. What I can say for sure, though, is that meaningful formulae are necessarily unusual expression. This is a fail-safe to avoid accidental triggering of your powers.

Abiona chuckled.

'Unusual expressions we have to figure out by ourselves. Great.'

Phoebe looked daggers ar her.

'This is serious!'

Abiona stared back and shrugged. She was about to reply but her answer was cut off by a sudden, low vibration humming in the air. It was like some kind of silent aircraft slowly going down from above. We all looked up.

They're coming! Hide! the Pegasus urged us.

'But, we can't leave you here!', Sophie exclaimed.

You have to. It's too late for me anyways. They have come for me, don't let them find you too. Go!

Abiona pulled Sophie away from the creature as the rest of us hurried towards the school's gate. The humming was progressively getting louder and louder, quickly turning into a deafening noise.

'We won't make it!' Lynn shouted 'We have to hide now!'

'Over here!' I said, pointing at a pack of bushes which surrounded the lawn.

I jumped behind them and my classmates followed me, just in time. There was the same kind of cracking noise we had heard as the Pegasus had shown earlier, just much louder. Then, from nowhere, a huge distortion appeared in the sky, right above our school, through which a giant fortress in the shape of a dark crystal descended. The Pegasus's voice echoed in your minds.

The Shadows' Lair. A heavily defended fortress from which they conduct the invasion of your planet, and which is invisible to any of your detection systems. It bears dark crystals Shadows need to connect to regularly in order to replenish – once in about three of your days.

It came to me that it was his last moments and he was trying to give us as much intelligence as he could. Suddenly, a couple of bolts shot from the crystal's surface to the ground, summoning horrendous creatures which quickly spread out around the schoolyard. They looked like some sort of dinosaurs, except that their skin was covered with razor blades.

Saurians. A peaceful species entirely enslaved by the Shadows. They are to be pitied.

It was pretty hard to believe these killing machines were originally peaceful, to be honest. They were followed by disgusting worms with dozens of short limbs, quite like centipedes.

Myriapods. Those are cowards, allies of the Shadows which let themselves infest willingly.

As difficult as it was to picture Saurians as harmless beings, those Myriapods, on the contrary, definitely gave a straightforward impression. Judging by the Pegasus's words, they were just as disgusting deep down as they looked. The monsters were securing the perimeter when Sophie gasped and pointed at a group of people who emerged from the crystal as well.

Infested humans. Those are not people anymore. They have all fallen to Shadows and one of them is controlling their every moves.

I felt a shiver crawling down my spine. You would expect infested humans to exhibit monstrous traits, or some kind of clue as to their condition – but they looked perfectly normal, with natural movements, shouting orders and talking to each others like any humans would. Some of them even looked kind and friendly. Shadows in disguise – a disguise so perfect it was impossible to tell them apart from real humans. Even for us, who knew.

Then, a gate opened at the Lair's surface. And, to our greatest surprise, a horse-like creature with shimmering wings came out of it – another Pegasus. However, although he had pretty much the same appearance as the one who came to help us fight the Shadows, there was clearly something different about him – an evil aura, so dark you could practically feel cold and fear oozing out of him.

Variscite Three. The leader of the invasion. The only Shadow which was able to infest a Pegasian ever. He's very cunning and will stop at nothing.

The infested Pegasian landed gracefully in the middle of all his minions. He slowly approached his wounded kin and looked down at him.

So, Prince Erlan, we finally meet in person, don't we?

Hearing Variscite Three's spooky voice in our heads was like having a cockroach in our back. We exchanged anxious looks, worried that we might have been spotted.

Stay calm, the warm voice of Prince Erlan said. You can hear him only because he wants everyone to witness his triumph. As for me, I'm using private mind speech – he's not aware I'm talking to someone.

It is such an honor, the infested Pegasian continued, You have fought bravely. Unfortunately, you have lost.

I have merely lost a battle, Variscite. You have not won the war. This planet isn't yours yet.

Variscite Three's cold laughter echoed throughout the schoolyard – or so it seemed, since it was obviously all in our minds.

Conquering this planet shall be a breeze, Prince. Creatures so weak – no natural weapons, feeble bodies, all so full of themselves... And so numerous! A legion of Shadows rampaging throughout the galaxy in these hosts, and slowly turning every living being into one of ours – can you picture that?

I don't need to – that will never happen!

Ah, that's the spirit, Prince. You see, it's what I like about your kind – always so confident about being on the rightful side. It's funny, when you think of how this war started...

Prince Erlan remained silent. His voice was growing fainter as the conversation was going on, and I knew he had little time left.

But let's go straight to the point, if you don't mind – I see you're severely injured, and I do not not want to miss the privilege of putting you to death with my own hands.

Though it was difficult to see from the distance, I noticed that the infested Pegasus's jaw was slowly coming out of place.

I worked this strand out of the Saurians' DNA, Prince. I'm sure you're going to love it.

As a Pegasian, he also possesses the genetic engineering technology. Prince Erlan explained to us.

And, as Variscite Three's maw opened wide, we could see several rows of enormous, razor-sharp fangs shine in the sunset's last beams. We watched in horror as the infested monster bit into the body of the wounded Pegasus. I don't feel like going into detail further, I guess you get the picture. I wish I hadn't stared to be honest, but I couldn't take my eyes off it. I felt like I owed it to the bravery of Prince Erlan to watch his last moments to the end. Also, I had to know how far our enemy was willing to go. And the scene I was watching was giving this question a plainly brutal answer.

Anyways, a few moments later, Prince Erlan's body had vanished.