This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
This is how human history ended
And the earth became ours
On November 16th, 2075
Entities appeared in the skies
Above many of the great human cities
Tokyo and Toronto
Los Angelos and Lagos
Buenos Aires and Paris
Citizens stopped to stare upwards at the beings
And soldiers abandoned their petty civil wars
To gaze skyward in wonder
The beings were nearly indescribable
And there was no agreement among witnesses as to their true form
To some, they were as a radiant sun
To others, as a giant eyeball that looked in all directions at once
Some saw concentric wheels within wheels
Or impossible geometries
Or a writhing collection of fractal limbs
Some people estimated that the beings
Were several kilometers across
Others thought they were only a few tens of meters in size
But were constantly shrouded by a cloud
That obscured their true scale
Some humans could hardly bear to look at these beings
Without being blinded by the light
Others seemed unable to look away
Some babbled incoherently
At the sight of the beings floating above them
And others were rendered mute
And simply never spoke again
The citizens of Earth began referring to the beings as Angels
Almost immediately on their arrival
Though there were always some
Who doubted their theological nature
Neither doubter nor believer
Would be saved by their opinions
From the fires that were yet to come
Soon enough, the Angels began to speak
And their words were heard
By people in all corners of the earth
From every country
Every class
Every race and religion
Not every human in the world heard the voices
But many billions of them did
Various people heard the Angels speak in a whisper
Or in a rumble
Or in a perfect choir
Or simply as an inner voice
That appeared in peoples' heads
The Call was usually in the hearer's native tongue
But not always
And the message was the same for all who heard it
Come to me
Come to me my children
And I will carry you unto heaven
And so the people went forth unto the Angels
They travelled from the corners of the earth
Leaving behind their communities
Their jobs
Their friends or families
To go
They went as if hypnotized
Walking for hundreds of miles without tiring
Ignoring national borders
And overwhelming international transportation
Running up debt or committing crimes
Just to get closer to the Angels
Towards the end
There were almost three billion people
Clogging the suburbs and countrysides beneath the beings
All the diversity of humankind mixed together
Craning their necks skyward
Waiting for the rapture
Then it happened
Simultaneously, each angel raised a vast arc of fire into the sky
And then hurled it to the ground
The fire burned several thousand square miles below each being
Incinerating each city and its inhabitants
And most of the landscape as far as the eye can see
Fields were scorched
Rivers and oceans boiled
The earth trembled and cracked
And smoke rose into the sky
To shroud the beings like a black cloak
Nearly a third of the human population of Earth
Perished in the space of only a few minutes
And then, the creatures began moving through the skies
Towards new cities
In which they could work their terrible deeds
And this is the point at which
Recorded human history ends
And so an alien assault on Earth unfurled
The aliens had come at the humans with deception
Using humankind's own religions against them
Infecting them with an eschatological fever
Making them to march willingly to their doom
The faithful and the curious were tricked
Into gathering together
Like sheep at the slaughterhouses
Like ants to a carnivorous plant
Like moths unto a flame
With so many of them dead in the initial attack
And human society collapsing into chaos
The rest of homo sapiens were easy for us
To hunt down and exterminate
And that is how the earth became ours