"The Last Mission" by Adam Carlton (and ChatGPT)

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The sun set, a bloody disc sinking over the hills. Shadows crept long over the scrub surrounding their homestead. 

Inside the dwelling, Alice kneaded dough with calm precision, the flour coating her hands like a second skin. 

George, her husband, cleaned a rifle at the table with steady, practised movements.

Their daughter Martha, just fifteen years old, set the table, her eyes distracted by the screens, shimmering with thermal outlines of the grounds.

Rob, two years younger, sat cross-legged on the floor, tinkering with a small drone. 

---

The perimeter sensors suddenly chirped - a faint, rhythmic signal. George’s head snapped up - this was far from routine. The drone’s hum stilled as Rob turned it off. His sister froze, clutching a glass. Alice wiped her hands on her apron, slow and deliberate, and went across to the monitor.

“Another patrol,” she said, her voice steady. “But this time they’re approaching.”

“They’ve finally registered us,” George said, no doubt in his tone. He leaned the rifle against the wall and crossed to the cupboard. Inside, rows of sleek, black weapons gleamed. He handed his wife a sidearm, then passed another to Martha. Rob reached out, eager, but George hesitated before tossing him a compact blade.

“You stick close to your mother,” George said. “No heroics.”

Rob didn’t argue. He never argued with George when his voice went like that - hard and final. 

Alice loaded her weapon. “They’ll test the perimeter first,” she muttered

“They’ll probe the defences, then they’ll swarm,” George said. “We’ll hold them back as long as we can.”

“How long do we need to hold?” his daughter asked in a worried voice. Her fingers curled tight around the grip of her small pistol.

George didn’t answer. There was no clock on this one.

---

The attack came in waves. First, the alien drones - small, insectile things with serrated claws. The automated turrets at the perimeter cut them down, shredding their metallic bodies into useless fragments. Then came the foot soldiers - sleek, bipedal forms with eyeless helmets and limb-like rifles. These, too, fell. Mines detonated in sudden bursts of flame, and razor-wire traps snared the alien troopers like flies in a web.

Inside, the family fought on in silence. George issued clipped commands. Alice moved through the chaos like a ghost, her aim precise, her hands steady. Martha’s shots were fewer but lethal when they landed. Even Rob, crouched behind Alice, used his drone carefully to scout enemy positions, relaying critical data to the house defences.

But the enemy didn’t stop.

---

Hours later, they huddled in the main room. Smoke seeped through cracks in the walls. The defences were failing. Their ammunition was almost gone.

Alice sat on the couch exhausted, her face pale. Martha’s little hand trembled as she reloaded. Rob stared at the broken drone in his lap; it had flown back to his arms to die. George stood at the window, watching the erratic, flickering lights of the last barely-functioning turrets.

“We’re not getting out of this,” he said, almost to himself, turning to face them. 

The room went still. The words hung heavy, final.

“We still have one option left,” George continued, his voice low but firm. He looked at his wife. She met his gaze, her expression unreadable. They’d discussed this outcome before, but not in front of the kids.

“What option?” Rob cried from the floor, his voice small and wavering. He was on the brink of tears.

George crouched down, eye level with his son. “Do you trust me?”

Rob nodded. 

George looked to his daughter, Martha. She hesitated, then nodded too.

“Okay,” George said, standing. He took a deep breath. “The truth then… we’re not here to survive. Not in the way you think. Our mission was never about escape or rescue.”

“What are you talking about?” Martha asked, her voice rising, terror barely kept at bay.

George glanced again at Alice. She stood and took Martha’s hand. “We’re going to end this,” she said, “All of it. The aliens. The war. That’s what this mission is all about.”

“How?” Rob asked, his face a mix of confusion and fear.

George didn’t sugarcoat it. “We’re not just human anymore. We’ve all been… altered. If we die here - when we die here - our bodies will transform. We’ll become something new. Something the aliens can’t fight. A new kind of life that spreads. Grows. Adapts.”

Alice tightened her grip on Martha’s hand. “We’ll still be us, though,” she said softly. “We’ll still be together.”

Martha shook her head. “No. That’s crazy. You’re saying we just… going to die? Right now?”

George’s face hardened. “We don’t have a choice.”

---

They prepared themselves together, in silence. Alice gathered the family in a circle, her hands trembling only slightly as she pressed a kiss to each child’s forehead. Martha cried but didn’t pull away. Rob clung to her like he had when he was small, his arms tight around her waist.

George armed the last of the explosives: shaped charges rigged to explode in an ever-widening circle of destruction. But in the centre they would be unscathed, their bodies already primed for the change which would engulf them. 

“Positions,” he said, his voice gruff. 

They stood together, backs straight, faces set. Martha reached for her brother’s hand. He took it.

The aliens breached the last-ditch defences. They poured in like a tide, the last few metres towards the house, black and chittering, their weapons glowing with lethal energy.

George hit the trigger.

---

There was pain. Searing, blinding. Then… silence.

Darkness.

And then… light.

---

The wind swept over the savanna, rustling the tall, golden stalks. The plants swayed in unison, their movements synchronised, almost deliberate. Beneath the soil, roots intertwined, forming a vast network of thought and memory.

Alice was the first to wake. Not as she had been, but as something new. She felt the sun on her leaves, the warmth sinking deep into her core. She felt George beside her, his presence steady and familiar, like an old tree anchoring a forest. 

Martha and Rob stirred next, their thoughts blooming in vibrant colours. They reached out, connecting, their consciousnesses merging and separating in a fluid dance. There was no fear now. No pain. Only a profound sense of being.

The savanna spread, unstoppable, consuming everything in its path. The planet would be theirs, a haven of sunlight, rain, and wind.

Together, they would grow: forever.

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Author’s note: I wrote a 400 word character and plot outline for this Young Adult story and then asked ChatGPT (in its writer’s variant) to author it. I then spent about twenty minutes in a final edit, changing a few phrases here and there. Scary, isn’t it?