The year is 2069. There’s nothing left in this world except death and decay: decay; decay, disease and famine. It all started ten years ago, when all of a sudden, the traffic sped up; the paint on buildings became nothing but a colourful confusion of bright light and claustrophobic movement.

Head: around, around, around. Eyes: side to side to side: cars, shops, people, voices, sky, pavement, buses. Yes... Ten years ago to the day, all of a sudden, they first arrived. I remember the sound. The sound will never leave me. The sound of a wailing: like shadows of all the tortured souls to have ever existed.

“Bitsee... Bitsee... Bitsee” - It’s somebody’s voice overshadowing the overwhelming noise locked in between the intermittent passages of stunning silence. I think it’s a voice I know? I think it’s my father’s voice...

I can barely hold onto his words. I can taste the drop in his tone: a drop of panic, confusion and concern. It’s a tone I’ve heard before, but there’s a severity like never before. I watch his mouth pull different shapes, like there are words coming out, but the silence has become deafening once again.

I start shaking; my body is acting of its own accord. When my neck jolts upright from the rapid rigours routing through my body, I notice them. There are hundreds of them: maybe thousands. They appear to be like neon bees connected to one another through an electric impulse.

The light they omit overwhelms me in dizziness. I snap my eyes back to my father, which is when I notice them. Onii-san and Mama lying on the pavement, Onee-chan collapsed next to them, her face painted with tears. It’s at this moment I notice it is not my body that is shaking of its own accord; it is Papa that is shaking me by the shoulders.

“Ruuuuuuuuuuuuunnnn!” my father bellowed. Before I could even contemplate his words, he had already lifted Onee-chan from the floor and flung her onto his shoulder, grabbed my hand and begun running. I couldn’t find my voice, but I was screaming for him to stop. Mama and Onii-san were still lying on the floor; a thickness of red seeping from around the bodies. They were dead.

It was starting to make sense. It became apparent at that moment that shards of light were raining down from the sky; evaporating drones of people spread through the streets. People were running for their lives. We were running and running and running: left, left, left, right – I’m not sure.

Finally we were inside a building. The door closed behind. The screaming continued. Ten years ago today they arrived: the oppressors from another world. The new central authority. They would later become known as: ‘The Gatekeepers’.