The images flashing across the TV screen would have been disturbing enough if they had only been part of a movie. Knowing that what I was watching was real—actually happening in the world as I sat on the bed and stared—made my bones shiver.

No single phrase could sum up what I saw. But with each passing minute, I realized more and more that the terrible future predicted by both my enemies and my allies was here.

People running through the streets, screaming and looting, setting fires.

Frightened men and women cowering on the ground, hands over their ears, spooked by some unseen force.

Armies and Navies being readied for full alert status.

Airplanes crashing into the ocean, ships sinking out at sea.

Traffic jams, vehicle pile-ups, burning bridges, people abandoning their cars, buildings engulfed in flame.

But none of these things were the real news. They were only the reaction of a population that had finally learned the truth—the world was not the same one they had taken for granted for so many years.

Shadow Ka were everywhere. New York City. Los Angeles. Hong Kong. Sydney. Rio de Janeiro. Mexico City. Tokyo.

Tokyo. The capital city of Japan. They were close to us, even now.

Their evolution had progressed to an alarming state. Very few cameramen were brave enough to keep shooting when one came into view, but there were enough shots to see that almost no human characteristics remained. Black, winged shapes swooped through the cities, screaming their familiar call. The frantic masses had nowhere to run as they learned the harsh truth that the world had changed forever.

Then I noticed perhaps the most frightening thing of all. In almost all of the shots, difficult to see at first amongst the chaos, there were people … sleeping. The news commentators kept saying they were dead, but something told me they were wrong. I could possibly be the only person on Earth who understood that the Ka had no intent whatsoever to kill anyone. Thanks to Farmer and his lecture during my trip to the Tower of Air, I now knew what the Ka were doing.

Their demented mixture of fear and magic would lull us all into a special state of slumber, readying us for the onslaught of the Stompers—that formidable enemy that literally took the shape of our worst nightmares.

The Ka had begun their enormous task—preparing my world for the Stompers.

No wonder everything around us was like a ghost town—this had to have been going on for at least a few days. Things had progressed at an exponential rate while we were at sea, and like a ballistic missile to the center of my chest, I realized that our time was now up.

The Stompers were here. Any day now, the rest would arrive in full force.

A few minutes later, I couldn't take it anymore. With every new city, it was only more of the same. Chaos bred by fear of storybook monsters.

I grabbed the remote. Just as my finger pressed the on/off button, something caught my attention in the instant before the screen went dark. At first, I interpreted it as a trick of the mind—an effect of my exhaustion and stress. But I turned the TV back on anyway. The screen flared to life, and it instantly confirmed what I had seen.

I dropped the remote.

Spread across the TV, on worldwide television, a face stared at me that I had seen probably a million times during my short life.

It was me.