First Light of a New Age

Chapter 146: Beautiful Woman & Incident 813

Earth, Asia, Imperial State of Japan, In a Coastal City.

Year 2001, 13th Day, 2nd Week, Month of November.

My name is Miku Nishimura. The day started like any other. I woke up to the sound of waves crashing against the harbor. My little sister, Yui, was still asleep, curled up under her blanket, while my parents were getting ready for the day. It was a school day, and I had no idea that by midday, our city would turn into a nightmare.

It began with the sirens. At first, I thought it was just another emergency drill, like the ones we practiced at school. But the moment I saw the panic on my mother’s face, I knew something was horribly wrong. My father turned on the television to see the local news, only to find the news anchors were screaming and warning everyone to evacuate. 

[Sea Monster sighted near the coast! All civilians must flee inland immediately!!]

Then came the first tremor. The ground shook violently, knocking books from the shelves and spilling my sister’s toys across the floor. My mother grabbed Yui, and my father pulled me toward the door. We barely made it outside before the screams started.

From the shoreline, we saw them emerge, creatures that had no right to exist outside of nightmares. Giant crabs with unnatural colors crawled onto the beaches with their pincers crushing everything in their path. Eel-like monsters slithered up from the water with glowing red eyes and their bodies pulsing with electric currents. 

Even fish, creatures we had always seen as harmless, had changed. Their fins had elongated into limbs and allowed them to walk on land like grotesque amphibians.

The first explosion shattered what little hope I had. A section of the city had been obliterated by one of the creatures, a massive turtle-like beast with its shell covered in spikes and tore through buildings as if they were made of paper. 

People ran in all directions, desperate to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The streets were clogged with abandoned cars, and the beasts were everywhere.

I don’t know when I lost my parents. One moment, we were together. The next, the crowd swallowed us up. I remember my mother screaming my name, my father pushing me toward an alley. Then... nothing. Just the chaos of people trampling each other, the sound of flesh being torn apart, and the salty iron-like smell of blood in the air.

I ran. I didn’t stop. My legs burned, my lungs ached, but I didn’t stop. I hid beneath a collapsed food stall and curled into a ball as I listened to the destruction around me. 

People were begging for help. Some prayed. Some tried to fight back with whatever weapons they had from knives, bats, and even their bare fist, but it was all useless. The creatures were too strong.

I don't know how long I've been hiding here. The convenience store smells like rotting food and seawater, but I don't dare leave. The windows were shattered and the aisles were overturned. Outside, I hear them, those things, the mutant sea beasts. They slither and stomp through the city like they own it, and maybe they do now.

I should be dead already.

A few hours later, I saw a man running down the street and screamed for help. He didn’t make it far when a giant crustacean with its shell covered in slimy barnacles and pulsing veins burst through a broken wall and snatched him up. I tried not to watch, but I heard his bones crunch and his cries went silent. I curled up against the snack shelves, squeezing my hands over my ears and kept whispering.

"This isn't real. This isn't real."

But it is.

I saw a little girl crying in the streets. She couldn't have been older than five. Her parents were gone, maybe dead. She was crying while holding onto a stuffed rabbit.