A Story About Hell

[Can]

Time Square was alight, a throbbing light bulb from the sky. Thousands of people crowded to the heart to New York City, the city that defined human civilization in the modern era. People of all walks of life, all kinds of beliefs, all eager to see a fresh new year in a still new millennium. It was still 5:00 PM, so the early birds set up camp, waiting for midnight.

 

Jerusalem. The city of three major religions, once again celebrating a new year, with each religion holding this date in their heart with different, special meanings. Things felt different, for better or worse. They would soon find out.

 

 

Unsuspectingly, it began. In what would soon only be described as a nightmare.

 

 

It was first noticed and picked up by DMSP 5D-3/F15, one of the America's newest weather satellites, observing currents over the Mediterranean.

 

The small temperature change a few hours ago had turned into an abnormal heat spike in the waters 200 miles north of the Egyptian shoreline.

 

A very, very abnormal heat spike.

 

The first human operator to read reports from 5D-3/F15 at about 5:12 PM Washington D.C. time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Office was puzzled, so he sent a refresh scan order to the satellite. The same readings came back 20 seconds later, though the temperature went up by 0.12 degrees Fahrenheit. Hm. The young operator immediately picked up the phone to call his immediate superior, who was at the moment enjoying a delicious Subway sandwich a few floors above the operator. Upon hearing the news and later confirming it with his very eyes, he called his superior.

 

An approximately 700-meter surface area of the Mediterranean was boiling, more than 150 Celsius.

 

-------

 

By now, it was 11:59 in Jerusalem, 15 seconds to midnight.

 

Unable to be recorded by weather satellites, waves were thrashing in a whirlpool within the 700 meter boiling range. Almost giving a finger to the laws of physics, black clouds that were not there previously 5 minutes ago were now roaring in thunder and lightning. The crew of an Egyptian fishing boat 4 nautical miles away from the phenomenon was feeling the intense heat in the water, swearing and praying when they saw what was happening on the horizon to their north.

Red lights emanated from the center, glowing, flashing then settling in a disturbing pattern, almost demonic, took place.

A curious choice of words. Demonic.

 

10

 

The waters were sucked inwards, into a center hole, along with the black, thundering clouds, pulled into the sea, still flaring lighting strikes, gaining rapidity by the second.

 

5

 

The hole gaped further, and a mighty, no, terrifying roar, the strength of cubed decibels of thunderstorms, was unleashed into the world.

 

3

 

The water, which in the past 30 seconds seemed to be purely reflecting the deep red color emanating from the phenomenon, was now flowing with rich mammal blood, seeping from the whole into the Mediterranean.

 

2

 

The noise and blood red lights grew brighter and brighter, the hole flaring lava-like plasma into the air, much like a volcano would.

 

1

 

 

Everything stopped. There was silence.

 

 

 

0.

 

 

 

Happy New Year.

 

 

Blackness erupted from the hole, bat-like screeching sounds filling the air. Massive living masses of flesh reached for the surface and plopped directly over an invisible rim of the hole, both reptilian and mammal in appearance.

Indescribable leviathans of stature incomprehensible by human emotions ripped through the silky fabric of existence, plunging into the simmering waters, to the very depths of the sea. Thousands at the smallest number of blood-skinned creatures followed shortly.

 

 

As meteorology officials in Washington asked for the third time whether the satellite was malfunctioning after 20 days in orbit and an Egyptian port losing contact with a fishing boat, mankind would forever be changed.

 

 

Whether or not God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahman or etc existed, one thing was pretty much certain.

 

 

Hell had come by for a visit.

 

 

 

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["They came out of the sea, rising like ungodly masses. Hundreds. Hundreds of them. My partner reacted quicker than I did, and emptied *pauses due to coughing fit* -emptied his clip into one of them. The monster then- no, not monster. Demon. The demon staggered and got back up again- fluidly. After that- oh Lord- after that, we ran. There were dozens of people on the beach. They were being ripped into, torn apart, and being *shudders continuously for several seconds* -being... eaten. We ran. Ran and ran. But the smaller demons, the ones that moved with evil twitches, were too fast for us. They got my partner first. I don't know how close they were behind me. I got into my patrol car, they crashed into my windshield, and then I just drove.

They're close. Oh, so close. I can still feel them..."]

 

- An unnamed Crete policeman from Ierapetra recounting the first encounter (later translated into English) with EXD species A6 and A2 respectively, six hours after he was airlifted from a car wreckage, barely conscious. He died from unknown psychological causes two hours later.

 

 

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January 1, 2001.

 

 

"...a Turkish cargo ship was the first one to report massive groups of what seemed to be Great White-sized creatures passing a nautical mile away before contact was lost two minutes later. At 0300 hours eastern Mediterranean time, Crete, Libya, and Egypt reported large naval movement not far from their shores. Greek patrol boats south of Crete were sunk soon afterward.

By four in the morning, Greek armed forces on Crete were repeatedly engaging an overwhelming mass of red-skinned, undiscovered species. First recorded as highly malevolent, it became rapidly apparent that no such type of creatures exists on our planet. I repeat, all of this information is not a hoax or some sort of sick prank- we have received this information directly from The Department of..."

- An excerpt from Peter Jennings, ABC News Emergency Broadcast, 11:56 AM Eastern Time

 

 

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As the world came to stop partying from New Year's, they turned on their TVs.

 

And saw what was happening.

 

By then, Crete was a battlefield against... who knows what.

 

The demons seemed to be intelligently planning attacks targets and areas, targeting military bases/strongholds as well as large population centers. Libyan and Egyptian armies were fighting a large number of these creatures, but were not as overwhelming as the ones on Crete, hinting at what seems to be a small shore landing in comparison, though no sane person would label the 500+ creatures already on the shores of northeast Africa a small number.

 

The RAF and Royal Navy were just capable of defending Cyprus in such a short time frame for mobilization. It is unclear when or what the British government ordered for them to do, but reports of massive naval torpedo launches and naval bombardments just 20 miles from the beaches of Cyprus showed that massive operation was underway. Quite.

 

Regarding Crete again, it could only be described as a nightmare. Compared to what had just happened- it made sense. Compared to what was to come, the word nightmare was an overstatement. Heavy artillery fire rained down from the safer mountains of the terrain, using the natural valleys between the mountains the channel the demons into a kill zone. Already by 3 PM, when NATO rapid-response forces carried out sorties over already twelve mile 'beachhead' established by the creatures, the city of Ierapetra and neighboring towns were unrecognizable, twisted in a fashion that even days of continuous artillery could not inflict.

It was the work of the demons.

 

 

For the monsters themselves, the massive, bulking leviathans first reported to be detected, almost 900 feet in width (correction, 900 meters in width), were nowhere to be seen. There were more pressing matters. The demons came in several 'classes/ranks', not unlike animals would, though with an organization found only in militaries.

 

The most common were the 8-foot tall, 300 pounds demons, hulking muscles and twisted horns sprouting then curving forward from their forehead, like a goat's horns spiked forwards. Dark blood-red skin, covered in what may seem to be black and soggy hair, made the creatures easy to spot from the sky and afar. Their head was like that of a goat, though that's where similarities end. Large eyes gaped with no apparent eyelids, like those of a fish. For the mouth, it may first appear to be a small, lip less one. In fact there seemed to be no concrete jaw. What their mouth actually did was expand and stretch, with four small bones literally expanding the elastic hide to reveal several rows of sharp cartilage, not bones, for teeth. Their body was what was strikingly alarming- it was nearly identical to the limbs of humans with a thick, 3-foot long tail. What seemed even more strange was that they possessed the same genitalia (for the demons are in human sense, naked) as those of men, minus the testes. How the functions of such a creature have not been clear yet as of the end of the first season.

 

Additionally, these demons could be fast. Fast as in Olympic Gold Sprinter fast. Though they lumbered onto beaches and generally moved slowly, lunging for victims and prey seemed lighting quick, nigh unavoidable when within 10 meters. Even pumping a magazine of AA-12 automatic shotgun rounds has little effect on the momentum of the killing lunge. This brings us to the durability of this type of demon. The hides are relatively thick and much tougher than leather, even when corpses of demons had not yet gone into rigor mortis. Though they can be forced back by the blast of say, a fragmentation grenade detonating at point blank range, the force and shrapnel combined would merely wound the demon, which would heal and recover from such wounds within hours.

 

Multitudes of witnesses and first-person accounts have described them to rip into automobiles and crush the walls of a modest brick home with ease. Human torsos and limbs are no stronger than refined aluminum or cemented brick, so demons fed on humans, ripping limb by limb off, then proceeding to expand its 'mouth' to swallow such pieces whole.

 

The fact that even the 'elastic jaw/mouth’s hide is just barely stretchable by a human adult pulling with full effort goes to show how strong such demons were.

 

By 4 PM Eastern Mediterranean time, the world was stunned and shocked. Images from news helicopters barely showed the battles fought on the horizon in Crete, yet columns of smoke and massive bangs emanating from the center of the image, hour after hour, merely slowed the limitless tide. Already 100,000 of these demons were thought to be decimated already, but with each passing hour, they gained more and more land. Ground forces and armor had little effect against such an enemy in the terrain of Crete, so massive artillery and air sorties, ranging from MOABs to napalm runs were all that seemed to be working.

 

As a rather abrupt call for an emergency UN meeting came at 6:23 PM, Egyptian, Libyan, American and Israeli joint-efforts weathered the landings on northeast Africa, but compared to the numbers on Crete, the thousands of demons that the Egyptians and Libyans spent a whole day fighting seemed to nothing more than a reconnaissance operation to test the forces there.

 

This is what scared the governments around the world the most. Intelligent operations, literally demonic forces, endless numbers, and a shocking encounter.

 

 

T'is was only day one.

 

 

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4 Weeks Later

 

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There’s little in the world that can give you fear when nothing much is happening to you- almost nothing really able to make you see things when they’re not really there.

Before his first encounter, Michael Keegan thought that this ‘nothing’ would be the resounding sound of the CH-47 Chinook’s dual rotors. After all, riding in one for a few hours waiting to landing at what-was-its-name-again was pretty nerve-wracking. The sound of the rotors might not have been the exact origin of what was frightening him, but it was certainly adding to his fear.

Afterwards, he would have a very different answer.

 

But, for the time being, just hours before his first encounter, Michael Keegan wasn’t too sure what was going on. The booming, thundering sound of the Chinook he was in at the moment made his thoughts barely audible- so he decided to keep his head clear for a moment. Michael was rather good at doing this- he wasn’t unintelligent (quite on the contrary, in fact), but doing so simply helped him ease whatever mental qualms he had at a moment.

His brief moment of Zen was interrupted by the thick and hoarse voice of his squad sergeant.

“Specialist, I need you to cover our six when we get off this bird.” Sergeant Richardson ordered. “Understand?”

Specialist Michael Keegan was a bit confused. “Uh, sir? Isn’t that… Mendez’s job?”

Sergeant Richardson looked at him with little to no emotion for a second, then briefly sighed, a sigh of both disappointment and annoyance. His next words seemed to reflect the latter. “Goddammit Keegan,” He growled. “If you’d been paying any fucking attention, you’d notice that Mendez isn’t on this fucking transport.” Richardson pronounced ‘fucking’ with extra emphasis, especially on the ‘fuh’ syllable.

“Oh- I see- uh- of course, sir.” Michael stammered back. “I’ll take care of it.”

Richardson grunted and muttered something along the lines of “Fucking airhead…”

Michael deeply exhaled. This was not the time to fuck up, and he swore at his momentary incompetence.

 

The Chinook that Michael was on, along with formations of several other transports, was making its way to the south-western portion of Crete- the main site of engagement between NATO forces and the enemy.

 

The enemy.

 

That was the name used in official orders and reports, used to describe the forces that Michael’s unit would soon encounter. No, that wasn’t even correct. It was used to describe the beings that his unit would soon encounter.

 

Soon engage. And soon fight.

 

As Michael’s mind started to drift to the events of the past few weeks, he consciously shook himself out of it.

No. ETA fifteen minutes. Can’t wander the fuck off now.

The sergeant, who was watching Michael intently for a short while, apparently also had the same thoughts.

“Keegan, stack the fuck up.” Richardson growled again (Michael wondered how the sergeant managed to do so without damaging his throat). “Did you not hear the pilot say we’re descending?”

Michael, suddenly startled because his calculations were off and that he wasn’t explicitly listening to the local radio chatter, quickly grabbed his rifle and checked his magazine clips as his sergeant continued, now addressing the entire squad.

“Alright people, this LZ is supposedly under NATO control, but the area is still ver-y-fuck-ing hot.” Richardson emphasized the latter part the same way he emphasized the swear words as he stood up. Every head in the transport (except the pilots) immediately turned, with each soldier either very scared or very good at hiding it. “We’re the first solid Army division apart from the paraboys from Vicenza. As their logistical abilities are different from the 172nd, we as 1st Battalion must assist NATO units in taking back the outskirts of Ierapetra to make way for the heavies from 3rd Battalion. This is to help us make the final push.”

“Can’t we do it with the forces at hand, sir?” A fellow soldier asked.

The sergeant clarified. “Look, Ierapetra is virtually a fuckin’ crater right now, and that’s not caused by our side. The 173rd and the Greeks lost a lot of men in containing the fuckin’ devils. Word from the brass is that we make the push as soon as 3rd Battalion lands or expect enemy reinforcements. Don’t ask me how the hell they’re getting reinforcements, they just ar-.”

And with Sergeant Richardson almost finishing that sentence, a massive blast rocked the descending Chinook, throwing him off his feet and into the ceiling. The entire cabin started to vigorously shake and in the midst of the chaos, Michael could feel the g-forces of the spiraling helicopter press him and the other soldiers against one side of the transport.

 

That was pretty much one of the last things he recalled, the other being a large metallic object hitting his forehead.

 

 

Time to black out for a while.

[Mercurial]

Cool story bro.

Seriously though I want MOAR!