Once upon a time, before the Zombie Robots arrived, a girl named Mara lived with her dad in the quiet town of Bartlett, Illinois.

Their house looked ordinary on the outside, but inside it was filled with blinking lights, humming machines, and headphones big enough to look like space helmets.

Mara’s dad was an acoustician—a scientist who listens to sounds from space. Every night, while Mara did her homework or drew pictures at the kitchen table, he searched the sky for strange signals and mysterious noises.

Most of the time, all he heard was static and the whoosh of far-off stars.

But one night, everything changed.

Her dad heard something impossible—something that didn’t sound natural… or human.

And that’s where our story begins.