Image scalability and aspect ratio test

At 4:17 a.m. UTC, September 2, 2041, Reykjavik residents saw a crimson haze spreading in the sky. Satellite data confirmed it was Martian dust — identical to rover samples. No one could explain its arrival.

Two days later, silent “pillars” of shifting metal appeared in Johannesburg, Rio, Shanghai, New York, and Cairo. The air vibrated with a bone-deep hum, then electricity failed across each city. Around the bases, strange glowing patterns formed.

On Day 3, the New York pillar “unfolded.” Three-meter-tall beings emerged, their forms shimmering like woven threads. They spoke directly into human minds: We are here to take what is ours.

Military attacks failed instantly; missiles and shells disintegrated mid-air. The aliens ignored soldiers and politicians, focusing on geological sites. Then came the red rain — living dust, each particle a self-replicating nanostructure.

It disabled power plants, data centers, and aircraft without harming people directly, collapsing global infrastructure.

By Week 2, new pillars appeared, their fields warping compasses, GPS, even time. In the Amazon, entire ecosystems crystallized overnight, leaving deep glowing pits. Scientists believed they were mining Earth’s magnetic and gravitational “memory.”

Governments fractured. Refugees fled to rural pockets outside the blackout zones. Some cities emptied without force — residents walked away in silence after a psychic wave passed through.

In Month 2, a final human counterstrike briefly disrupted a pillar in Sydney before the city was sealed under a translucent dome. Organized resistance ended. The pillars sank slowly into the ground, reshaping landscapes into alien “Gardens” of spiraling stone and redirected rivers.

By Month 6, humanity was confined to “reserves” in unused regions. The Martians occasionally visited, taking individuals — some returned with enhanced senses or the ability to perceive alien resonances. Many never returned.

Now, one year later, I write from the outskirts of what was Lisbon. The city is gone, replaced by an obsidian tower humming endlessly. The air tastes metallic. Survivors agree: humanity is no longer Earth’s dominant species. The Martians do not negotiate. They tend the planet like a garden — and we are weeds.

Two days ago, I found a working relay station. If you hear this, know the truth: the Martians won not through violence, but by making us irrelevant. They erased the foundations of human civilization, then rewrote the planet.

The red dust still falls. The pillars still hum. And Earth is no longer ours.