The Expanded Earth

'The siren came from beneath their feet, rumbling through the earth, a low and melodic growl. It infiltrated living rooms, punctured windscreens, swept up and over steering wheels, past helmets and spectacles, hunting for a way inside. A number of people, several million perhaps, tried to pinpoint its origin, but for those brief moments, it seemed that every object in human earshot resonated with the eerie, aberrant thrum. To Giles, it wasn't a siren, but a thousand drunken trumpeters, clumsily announcing some grand arrival, far away. Then the sky brightened, and with little to no ceremony, the entire human race shrank to one-tenth of its previous height'