Dolores

This novella is exactly 23,973 words.

Blake Johnson works as the top neuroscientist for a top secret government agency named Theta-8. Even his very existence is kept shrouded by the United States government. As he stands in his living room he faces his television while the unthinkable happens: Man makes first contact. A UFO appears over Washington D.C.; news helicopters cover every inch of the space craft. Suddenly everything is not how it seems, though, when the president comes out to welcome the aliens to earth. Instead of the aliens accepting the welcome, a blue mist gets sprayed from the UFO, instantly turning everyone in Washington D.C. into husks of their former selves, unthinking slaves that are not even human. As the helicopters now being piloted by something so inhuman crash into the earth, Blake Johnson turns and hides away as he has always done every time a new challenge appears in his life. Unknown to him, though, is that he will decide the fate of the human civilization. As Blake meets and finally talks to people he’s known for years, he learns what it means to be human and all the immorality that comes with being human. He learns not why we must continue as a species but why we must become extinct as a species.