Space

It was the movement of the clouds that gave the game away. The large open sky was covered in dark, grey, extremely slow moving clouds. In fact it would take several minutes close study for any observer to state with any certainty that they were moving at all. However in on sector of the sky, about 30 meters wide, the clouds moved from there steady crawl and started to zip across the gap at rapid speed. They sped like rapid waves rolling and tossing until they hit the other side and immediately slowed to another crawl.

When Ben saw this he pulled out his phone. It was an old battered thing, in a case that was stuffed with a map, for when the sat nav broke. Ben’s research found no record of the phenomenon so he decided to make a recording, but the video did not work. It appeared to be recording, but when he want back to review the footage, nothing was there.

This was enough to get Ben to stand up and put back on his mad caked red boots. He slowly did up his laces, staring up at the sky as he did so. He pulled on his rain coat he had been sat on and walked through the marsh towards the phenomenon.

When should have happened when he got to close is that a series of micro drones should have realised knock out gas. Then Ben would have woken up the next day in his bed. That should have happened but someone had disabled the security grid.

Next Ben should have meet an out post of guards, but the guards had gone to explore their difference of opinion with the people who had turned off the defence grid. All that was left was the guards small green and brown hut which Ben passed with barely a glance.

Then Ben should have ran into a series of thick concrete walls and around 200 guards in machine gun nests, heavily armoured SUVs and several helicopters. But all Ben found was some burnt stone and few happily burning fires. This would have been enough to make him leave, and quickly, if it hadn’t been for the fact that right then it didn’t start to rain. Or rather, to be more precise it started to rain every apart from in the small circular area where it stayed dry and sunny.

Ben walked closer, through the reckage and around the now smoking remains of fires. He could feel the rain soaking into his short brown hair and sticking his tee shirt to his body. Now he was perhaps ten yards from the area. A humid heat trobed off the area, the edge of which was visible from this close as what seemed like bursts of smoked whipped around its perimeter and disappeared.

Ben didn’t know how long he stood their, but sooner or later there was a scream. Someone screamed something in Japanese, the sound of bullets hitting stone and flesh broke out, and Ben did the only thing he could. He stepped forward, and passed out.

It was dark outside and cold. When people breathed out they could see their breath, which was slowly lifted away by the gentle current in the air.