Kofu's UFO Ambitions

     A cold sweat prickled beneath Katsuhiro's starched dress shirt. Fifty years. Fifty years since the hovering silver saucers, the eyeless alien with its rasping voice, and the stolen hours of his childhood. Beneath a bruised twilight sky, a monstrous metal armada blotted out the once-familiar constellations. Kofu City, once a canvas of twinkling fireflies, was drowned in an eerie, cobalt glow emanating from the alien vessels.

     "Looks like they finally decided to RSVP," Tokutake rasped, his voice tight with a mixture of morbid curiosity and primal fear. He clutched the microphone in his clammy hand, his once-booming radio persona replaced by a nervous tremor. 

     Katsuhiro forced a humorless snicker. "Yeah, party crashers from beyond the stars. What our anniversary needed." He hadn't spoken to Tokutake in years, their childhood bond severed by the chilling encounter and the subsequent media frenzy. Being thrust together, these reluctant allies faced this cosmic nightmare. 

     A low, rhythmic hum vibrated through the air, setting Katsuhiro's teeth on edge. It resonated not in his ears, but in his bones, a primeval thrum which spoke of something ancient and unspeakably powerful. Far below, the once-jubilant crowd had devolved into a panicked mass. Shrill screams pierced the humming, drowned out by the frantic thump of fleeing feet.  

     "What... what do we do?" Tokutake stammered, his voice barely a whisper over the deafening drone.

     Katsuhiro gawked at the colossal, hair-thin appendages lowering from the bellies of the ships. They writhed and pulsed with an unnatural luminescence, casting grotesque, insectoid shadows on the terrified city.  His mind, once a repository of childhood memories, was a graveyard of forgotten terror. Images, long repressed, flickered into existence: the guttural rasp of the alien's voice, the searing scent of ozone following its descent, the stolen hours of his childhood. 

     He didn't have an answer. Fifty years ago, they had been scared children. Today, as they stood as men facing an unimaginable horror, they faced a cosmic entity choosing their once-peaceful city for reasons they couldn't even fathom. In the face of the overwhelming alien presence, the monument they had planned to celebrate their childhood encounter became a cruel joke, a monument to their naivety.  

     "We run," Katsuhiro said, his voice hoarse.  "We run and pray it's enough." He grabbed Tokutake's arm and yanked him towards the narrow alleyway, the metallic hum intensifying with each panicked step. The city of Kofu, once a beacon of hope for UFO enthusiasts, was a stage for a chilling cosmic horror, a horror born from a childhood encounter which had come back to claim them all.