Ghostwriter

I think we have a theme here of Belief.

Dime wants to believe - not so much in a religious sense, but in anything. But belief is all but dead in his world.

Belfry believes in a lie. Or rather, her belief was manufactured by the invaders. Yet, she still held it firmly herself. Even now, I would not be surprised if she still thinks of herself as the form she took for all these years.

And our two objects here. Our weapons, of a sort. The beacon and the box. The power in both of them comes from belief.

So here's something we don't have. A specific antagonist, one who reflects our theme of belief in a different way. What if it's not just any lizard alien taunting Belfry, but a particular one, one who she is disgusted by on a personal level. One who has a concept of belief that is anathema to her.

Perhaps a philosophy that there is nothing to believe in. That reality itself can be manipulated, so why care about anything. Being able to shapeshift could easily tie into this, feeding a sense that your own form is mutable and beliefs can be changed just as thoroughly.

And so, the feeling of desperation doesn't come simply from the idea that the invaders will succeed. It's that this particular invader will succeed in embodying their own destructive philosophy. That personal touch adds to the emotional stakes.