Edelweiss is a short Sci-Fi Visual Novel written by Linus Borgström and powered by Midjourney AI.
May 21st. The alpine air on the Hofmann farm was electric, as filled with the static of a thunderstorm looming on the horizon. The farmhand Fritz looked out of the window towards the town of Innsbruck, 55 kilometres away. A strange myriad of lights sailed silently through the late-spring night like a million fireflies.
As he stepped outside, Fritz could hardly believe his eyes. The myriad of small lights converged into a horisontal line of lights that swiftly and silently descended on the farm. Fearing for his life, he ran inside to wake the owner of the farm and gather their hunting rifles.
As the lights descended, they flickered on and off, showing themselves to the workers of the farm. The mechanical structure inside shifted and transformed, and as they landed, they started to mimic the equipment out in the field.
Fritz and his coworkers watched in amazement as one of the craft started to shift and emulate the glass-paneled green houses in the field. But the silent, electric night air suddenly shifted as the man next to him, Ludwig, fired off his shotgun at the craft.
The craft shot effortlessly straight up into the sky and dispersed into a million lights once more. "Aliens?" asked Fritz. "No" said Ludwig. "An omen".
May 22nd. Fritz opened the door to inhale the chilly air on this misty spring morning. Still shaken by the events of the night before, he was eager to grab the newspaper to see if anyone had reported the strange visitors. Surely, someone in the region of Innsbruck had seen the same phenomenon?
But to Fritz surprise, he was not alone this morning. In the garden two strange men in black awaited him; warning the farmworkers not to tell anyone of what they had witnessed. As Fritz and his surprised coworkers turned to look at each other, the two men had vanished into thin air.
June 1st. Some strange events never seem to carry a greater meaning. However, this time, the framhand Ludwig was right. The visitors were not only an omen, but a bad one.
From the deep mists of the Alps, strange lights and Zeppelin-like craft emerged into the summer night. Slowly they hovered, blinking, waiting. Drawing attention as if they really wanted the people of Innsbruck to see them.
From the summit of the Hafelekarspitze a shifting, transforming almost office-like craft descended towards the north side of the city. Awe and wonder among the witnesses below would soon turn to fear.
The air raid sirens echoed through the night as more and more craft descended on all parts of the city. As people on the streets ran for safety, some turned to prayer. But the military, had another plan. Four Eurofighter Typhoon were scrambled from Aigen Air Force base; swiftly making their way towards the city of Innsbruck in the eastern part of the nation. Low flying, ready to intercept the alien threat as they crossed mist covered peaks and valleys.
On the streets of Innsbruck, strange mechanical creatures moved swiftly from building to building, searching for those hiding from the monstrous visitation. As the creatures passed lammposts and cars, they seemed to emulate the objects, creating a strange visage that would haunt the unwilling onlookers.
The fighter jets broke the sound barrier just outside the city, sending a signal to both friend and foe: we have arrived.
The pilots locked onto the transforming Zeppelin-like craft about to descend on the city centre and fired several high-yield missiles towards the alien visitor as fighting broke out in the streets, ravaging the city with enormous explosions.
The craft exploded in a bright flash, as if it had emulated the gas-filled original it was trying to copy. As the fire spewed from it's mechanical carcass; for a second, the night sky turned to day.
If the arrival of the Air Force wasn't a clear signal; this surely was. All out war between the people of Innsbruck and the otherwordly visitors had begun.
One by one they fell from the sky on the smouldering city below, exploding into millions of embers in the smoke-filled Austrian sky.
With every craft destroyed however, new ones would form. Small and impossible to attack, they attached themselves to the Eurofighters; swiftly and brutally tearing them apart.
But just as it seemed that the enemy had gained the upper hand, the mighty mountains surrounding the city awoke from their slumber. Stories of watchful kings and legendary armies that would awake as the people were threatened; might not just have been stories after all.
From the mists, dark hooded figures appeared; summoning a strange magic to thwart the visitors.
On every street corner, the enemy were stopped in their tracks by dark wizards from the ancient past. The legends were real; and whatever strange source this threat had crawled from, it would seem the mountain guardians would have something to say about it.
Engulfed in a blue flame, the enemy were evaporated, lighting up the night sky like a beacon of hope.
From every mountain, cave and forest, ancestral warriors rushed forth to stop the advance of the dark visitors; sending myriads of lights hurtling towards the sky.
Like ghosts they appeared from the mists, taking physical form to walk the streets whose very stones they had once laid themselves.
The battle raged on and on, and throughout the night the booming shots of spectral blunderbusses and rageful hissing of blue flame-magic created an otherworldly soundscape to this alpine apocalypse.
In what seemed like a miraculous moment, the front of the war had shifted; causing the alien fire to flee towards the edge of the mountains as a great wall of fire and smoke reached the heavens above Innsbruck.
Then it happened. The myriad of lights gathered towards a central mass, creating a single gravitational source.
The ancestral guardians stopped in their tracks, gazing towards the blinding light rising into the sky.
As the last orbs of light flew towards the heavens, the ancient ones silently watched it reach orbit and once more dissolved into the mists from which they had just as suddenly appeared.
As the celestial gateway opened - and closed; the people of Innsbruck would never again doubt the stories of the ancestral heroes.
Never again, would they take for granted the stars in the night sky.
Never again, would they take for granted the serenity of the sun rising above the mountains.
Never again, would they take for granted the beauty of the Edelweiss. The symbol of their home.