They just didn't know it, yet.

Three days into the Tahoe Trip, and everyone was spending the evening watching a summer blockbuster that somehow both families had missed. The Hawkins family had invited the Ortegas over to their room, as it was slightly larger than their neighbors’ and thus more accommodating to the increased occupancy. Nate had managed to convince Mom and Maria to let the children over 21 (himself, Alex, and Vivian) have some ****, much to the chagrin of Nate’s siblings.

Still, they weren’t partying, or anything – no one had drank more than enough to have any more than a slight buzz.

Truth be told, the first explosion happened during a fight scene of the movie, leaving most of those gathered either oblivious or wondering as to whether or not they had heard anything.

It was the second and third explosions that finally tipped them off something was wrong.

---

Serena waited patiently for her name to be called. She had been waiting ages for her proposal to be approved, waiting a bit longer was no problem at all.

Indeed, several minutes – by her experience at least – later, her name was called. She rose from her chair and entered the open door – somehow both the only door in the hallway, and yet one of countless other doors filling the hallway. Best not to think too hard on it, she knew.

Seated behind the desk was… a thing. Any mortal witnessing it would likely think it a man, though they would think so while their subconscious descended into madness upon gleaning some small truths of its true visage. The thing smiled at her, in a way that felt like it knew her thoughts before she had thought to think them.

Dealing with a producer was always a hassle.

“Sit, Serena,” the producer gestured to the seat in front of it. In classic, sadistic producer fashion, the chair was both a chair and an iron maiden for her waist down. Should she actually sit on it, the stimulus of those sharp, wicked spikes inside piercing through her flesh would prove… distracting.

One does not simply deny a producer, however. No, to live any amount of time doing this job, you had to have a bit more finesse. Or nepotism. Nepotism worked wonders, she heard.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Serena curtsied. “But as I’ve been sitting in one of the waiting chairs for several eons, my posterior is rather sore. I wonder if it would be alright for me to stand instead?”

“Hmm,” the producer nodded sagely, as if she had quoted some great truth of the world. “Yes, Serena, those waiting chairs are designed to be uncomfortable by HR, I understand. You see, Serena, one way to get less complaints is if no one is willing to wait long enough to complain to someone who matters. Alright, Serena, you may remain standing, on one leg, please.”

Immediately, Serena lifted her left leg, balancing on her right. Her high heels did not make it easy, but balancing in the offices wasn’t easy even when lying flat on the ground. She’d long learned the trick of it, so it was only a minor inconvenience, nothing more. Still, she took the minor inconvenience as a good sign – had her proposal been tossed away offhand, she would be in that iron maiden right now, no matter her wiles.

“Now, Serena, you are here about your proposal, yes? The one submitted a date and time ago?”

“Yes,” Serena confirmed.

“Well, Serena, I must say we had quite some discussion over it, it was a very good topic around the watercooler for a while, if you get my gist. Such a different approach you put forwards, Serena.”

The producer leaned forwards, glancing left and right like it was about to share a secret, “Honestly, Serena, you really owe a lot of the traction this thing got to some of the few other branches. The ones that focused on… romance,” The producer shivered, like it was saying a bad word.

“Still, those forebears of yours have proved to be successful – there is indeed a market for such a thing, Serena.”

The producer paused, as if waiting for input. Interpreting that as her cue, Serena asked, “Does this mean my proposal has been approved, then, sir?”

“Yes, Serena,” the producer said, “you may consider it approved. To the exact specifics you requested, in fact – no more, no less.”

The producer reached under the table with one of its ‘hands’ and pulled out an envelope. It tossed the envelope like a frisbee, the loose collection of papers somehow staying together until it was snagged out of the air by Serena’s hand.

“The details of your targets are inside, Serena. Good luck, Serena.”

“Thank you, sir.”

With that dismissal, Serena turned to go. As she reached the doorway, however, the producer spoke once more. “Oh, and Serena? Keep in mind that you have eyes on your little experiment yes? Do it well Serena, and make it kinky, yes?”

“Of course, sir,” She responded. “In fact, if all goes to plan, it may well be one of the kinkiest seasons we had in a time period.”

“Oh, now wouldn’t that be nice, Serena?”

---

Nate and Sarah had rushed outside, followed quickly by Alex, searching for the source of the explosions. After the first three had started, they hadn’t let up.

A fire was coming from the entrance to the resort, on the other side of the lobby, it looked like. Screams were heard from all around as people tried to grapple with what was going on.

“Is this some kinda terrorism or something?” Alex asked.

“In Tahoe?” Sarah returned incredulously.

No one had any better answer for her.

Then something fell from the sky and all three watched as a car exploded in the parking lot nearby. “Shit!” Nate cursed, raising his arms in front of his face.

After a moment, the stars cleared out of his eyes and he got his first good look on what had destroyed the car.

It was a peculiar object, best described as a large tower, made of a substance that reflected the fire around it in a way that made Nate think of obsidian. There was a peculiar green glow about it, though Nate’s view was obstructed by half a dozen cars between him and the object.

“What the fuck is that?” Alex asked, disbelief warring with fear in his voice.

“Fuck if I know,” Nate replied, making up his mind in a heartbeat. “It’s bad news, that’s all I know, so we need to get everyone the fuck away from this place, now.”

He motioned both of them back towards building 2, planning to collect their families and make a break for the ski lift – maybe it could be used to put some distance from whatever was causing these things, when Sarah interrupted him.

“Nate,” she said. “The stars.”

“Huh?” He asked intelligently. He glanced at her, noticing she was craning her neck, looking upwards.

“The stars are gone.”

Nate looked upwards. To his mounting horror, he confirmed she was right – for as far as he could see, the winter night sky was currently devoid of stars.

“Fuck.”

---

Serena practically skipped her way back home, delight at her proposal filling her with warmth as she stepped from one reality to the next. Finally, she arrived home, a familiar quasi-dimension crafted carefully for a singular purpose. A singular purpose it was now about to fulfill!

All that was required were the final touches – the things she couldn’t move forwards with without a green light. She set to work with glee, every task a joy due to how it brought her one step closer to completion.

After a few hours (her time), she was complete, and everything was set up as needs be. All that was left was to check on her charge.

She finally opened the folder and learned of the master she was assigned. After a quick skim through his dossier, she smiled. Yes, yes this would do nicely. She turned the page to her Contestants’ bios, hoping they held as much promise as the master they would come to serve.

---

“Everyone move!” Nate shouted, shepherding his family and the Ortegas out of their second-story room and down the hallway towards the back stairs, away from the parking lot. They had grabbed only the essentials to survive the cold weather and hurried out into the hallway as explosions continued to be heard outside. As the door closed behind Sam, there was an explosion down the hallway, towards the front stairs.

Nate spun towards the explosion, his heart dropping as he saw the bottom portion of one of those obsidian towers piercing through the wall above the front stairs. As he watched with horror, the bottom of the tower, shaped like a javelin or a piercing dart, split open into four pieces, a sinister green glow emanating from inside. With a slurping sound, something slipped out of the opened bottom and fell to the stairs.

Nate didn’t stand around to find out what.

He turned and ran after his family and friends, booking it to the back stairs. He took the back stairs at a run, somehow avoiding tripping over his own feet, and jumped the last four steps to land on the ground floor.

Alex and Sarah were looking out the back door, terror on their faces, while the rest cowered further away from the windows and doors. Hearing Nate land, Alex’s head whipped his direction. “Dude, there are fucking praying-mantis-raptors out there!”

Nate hustled over and looked out himself. Indeed, the best descriptor of the massive green creatures currently wreaking havoc on the snowy resort was something like a cross between a gorilla sized praying mantis and some kind of dinosaur. It had sharp teeth like a prehistoric predator, with insectoid features dominating a musclebound frame, and a pair of wickedly sharp blade in place of forearms.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, that’s an alien invasion, alright.” Nate said, trying to keep his cool. As the de facto man of the house, this was a situation where he needed to step up and get everyone to safety. Glancing around for something he could put to use, he noticed three things. He turned back to Alex and Sarah and motioned them over to the rest of their families.

“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said, struggling to keep an even tone. “I’m gonna grab that fire axe, then we’re going to pull the fire alarms and book it out that fire exit there,” he pointed to a fire exit on the opposite wall from the main back doors. “Once we’re outside, everyone run towards the ski lift, does everyone remember where that is from here?”

He got hesitant nods from everyone, so he did his best to nod back confidently. “Our goal is to get to the ski lift and see if we can get up the mountain, because the thing that is dropping those black pillars at us is way too huge to outrun by foot. Okay?”

Again, nods all around, though a little more confident this time. Having a plan seemed to help.

“Okay,” Nate agreed, then he ran over to yank open the fire axe container. It was locked, but with a flimsy lock that tore open easily – it wasn’t intended to be a barrier in an actual time of emergency, after all. He snatched the axe, the weight of it in his hands somehow comforting despite it being outclassed by the forearms of every creature stalking around outside, the ran over towards where everyone had gathered by the fire exit, yanking the fire alarm on the way.

As the fire alarm began to blare, Nate and his family burst out the back of building 2, relief causing stumbles here and there when they saw no immediate danger. They left the building behind, running past building 3 and towards the ski lift, everyone doing their level best to ignore the explosions and screaming that inundated the resort air.

As they rounded the corner, a surge of hope hit them. They had not been the only ones to think of the ski lift, and despite the late hour, it looked like someone in the crowd had gotten the lift up and running again.

“The lift!” Viv shouted in glee.

Her uplifting cry was immediately overwhelmed by a monstrous screech to their left, as on of the monstrous creatures tumbled out of a third story window, landing on the ground with a crunch.

Everyone froze on instinct, hoping the creature would lie still.

And then the thing huffed and rose back up again.

---

Serena pat the dust off her hands as she finished making the final tweaks necessary to accommodate her upcoming guests. She had been quite pleased with the Master’s list of fetishes – she had plenty to work with, plenty to make her season stand out even more.

Speaking of the Master, she should probably check in on him, to see where along his timeline he was. It wouldn’t do to be late, after all. Taking a quick glance, she smiled, pleased to see that everything was on track.

Serena took a deep breath, and let it out, then took one more for good measure. She composed herself, then opened her eyes, determination blazing.

She saw it was finally time, so she reached out-

---

“Run!” Nate shouted, pushing Sam in front of him. He raced after his fleeing family, sparing a glance back over his shoulder towards the monstrosity.

He wished he hadn’t a moment later, as fear raced through his system to the sight of the mantis-raptor charging their direction. And despite the creature’s apparent gangliness, it was gaining on them. Fast.

Shit.

Dammit.

Without a word, Nate spun around, sliding through the snow to a stop. He held the axe in front of him, knowing he had no martial skills, no training in any kind of combat. He was a volleyball kid, a guy who spent his days working on the computer or hanging with friends.

And he was staring down a space monster with swords for arms.

Things didn’t look good, they didn’t even look alright. They looked like shit.

But he was the one with the axe, he was the one who had took charge and given orders, he was the man of the house – he had been since his dad had died.

He was the best bet for his friends and family to make it to that ski lift.

And so Nate raised a wordless yell as the monster grew close, and **** his legs to move, pushing himself to meet the creature with some kind of momentum. He thought he heard someone call his name from behind, but couldn’t spare a glance backwards before the creature was upon him, all ten feet of **** bearing down to tear him apart.

He got lucky, narrowly dodging a rapid strike towards his left shoulder, he managed to step inside of the creature’s guard, brining the axe down to try and crack its head open. And by some miracle, he landed the hit.

Only for the axe to bounce off like he’d struck steel.

The vibrations rattling up his arm bones were enough of a distraction that he didn’t have a chance to dodge the creature’s backhand, which sent he sprawling across the snow, blood in his mouth.

As his head rang from the blow, he **** himself upward, managing to turn around just in time to see the creature’s blades fall down…

And hit a door?

…

Yeah that’s a door.

To be specific, a sliding glass door, like you might see at a gas station or shopping center, was standing freeform in the middle of the snow, in a space he had just passed through moments before when he was backhanded by the creature.

Even more surprising, the door, which appeared to be made of glass, had somehow stopped the creature’s attack without shattering.

Nate looked through the glass to see a similar look of confusion on the space monster’s face. It looked at him, looked at the door, smacked its forearms a few times on the glass as if to confirm it was real and not shattering, looked back at him, and then it finally wised up. It was just a door, after all, the creature could easily walk around.

Except the moment it moved to do so, the sliding glass door slid open, revealing an empty void to Nate, and with a suction he could only attribute to the vacuum of space, Nate was sucked through the door and out of reality, the door sliding shut and vanishing a moment later.

Leaving a very distressed and confused alien monster behind.