Herlic Bray has lived longer than anyone expected.
Decades after a colony ship brought a thousand hopeful settlers to the distant world of Asmarad, he remains the only survivor. The colony failed, the ship was destroyed, and Earth lies two thousand light-years away. Bray has endured the years through stubborn will, building a lonely farm and pretending the alien twilight might somehow be home.
Then one evening a certainty strikes him with shocking clarity—he will die tonight.
The knowledge itself does not frighten him. Bray has seen enough death since landing on Asmarad to accept the end without complaint. What unsettles him is the strange urgency building inside him. Pain surges through his body in crushing waves, stronger with each passing hour, while instinct drives him to prepare—gathering food, securing his house, protecting what little remains of his world.
Outside, the long alien twilight fades. Strange creatures scream in distant forests. Inside the farmhouse, Bray waits for the final moment, haunted by memories of Earth and the woman he once loved. If he dies, the last trace of humanity on Asmarad will vanish forever.
But something is happening inside him—something violent, unstoppable, and far beyond anything the old colony scientists imagined.
The end of Herlic Bray’s life may not be the end of the human race on this world.
Mike Curry’s “Metamorphosis” is a haunting piece of classic science fiction that captures the loneliness of deep-space colonization and the brutal demands of survival on alien worlds. With quiet tension and a powerful final revelation, Curry delivers a story that lingers long after the last line.
