Chapter 1:
Marteria slumped down on the couch, beer in his hand, and looked over at the television.
"Yup," he thought to himself, "It's still there. No surprise there."
The ship was still there, on the screen. It had been hovering over the center of Berlin for weeks now, never moving, but always hovering. The area directly beneath the ship had to be evacuated, in case the ship suddenly fell onto the streets below. The whole of Germany was talking about the ship, what was it? What do they want? Is it aliens? Why would they come here, and hover over Berlin?
All that he knew was, the whole world was watching Germany very carefully right now. Marteria was worried, this was maybe the one and only time that he had regretted the move from Rostock to Berlin, he would have gone back to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern but everyone else in Berlin had the same idea: get out. And fast. And so, all the roads were blocked, closed, a great mass of people surrounded the city, trying desperately to get out. Only a few hours later, the areas surrounding Berlin began to reject people crossing this new 'border'. Brandenburg had effectively shut the people of Berlin inside their own city. And Berlin was a big city, it was clear that not everyone would be able to get out. Marteria had left it far too late. Still, he hoped that this 'ship', whatever it was, and whatever was inside, was peaceful, friendly and harmless. Who knows, maybe he would be one of the first to meet a real life friendly alien? Just at that moment, he was dragged from his thoughts from a large crashing sound coming from somewhere outside. He looked over to his window to perhaps see what it was, when suddenly, the ground began to shake. Marteria dropped his beer in shock and it splashed against the floor. His whole house was shaking now as he clung to his sofa for dear life, deeply regretting not leaving Berlin when he had the chance. The shaking continued, and grew stronger, Marten could only hope that his house could take it. Marteria closed his eyes, perhaps this was it? The end? Oh, but there were so many things that he had wanted to do, so many places to see, people to meet. It couldn't end like this, could it?
After five terrifying minutes, the shaking abated, and then finally, stopped altogether.
"Please... please let it be over," Marteria said, he stood up from the couch, shaking.
He looked around the room, some things had fallen over, but, on the whole, he had been a very lucky man indeed. The television was still on, he hadn't noticed until now, that somehow it had managed to stay upright. And there was something else. The ship on the TV screen. The ship was now open.
"No..." Marteria slowly realised what had happened. The so-called 'alien' spacecraft floating above them had somehow caused an earthquake.
"But... how?"