Prologue:

The bridge that sheltered Rob and Beth caved in. Giant debris sealed the two young lovers into a chasm of hell under the earth. Around them, an inferno of flame engulfed surviving foliage, giving more to the massive darkness consuming the sky.

The Air Force had leveled Central Park. Buildings burned, crumbled, or simply no longer existed. The infamous Manhattan skyline was no more. The night time war had left the city in complete devastation.

The heavy woodland that used to overrun Central Park, was now an enormous wound in the heart of Manhattan. Little life remained; once a famous landmark, was now a collection of charred soil and death.

However, something alienated from the rest of the battleground: Clover-shaped depressions, fifty foot strides, crossed the landscape. The creature which appeared the night before that had absolutely vanished.

Distant sonic booms and explosions were slowly overcome by growing vibrations in the air. They became as loud as a B2's sonic boom from the night before. However, this was clearly a different kind of craft. The sound was that of two military choppers setting down in a rescue mission. Six heavily armed marines leaped from one chopper and rushed to the site of the fallen bridge. The burned skeleton of a recently mutilated Hudson Platt struck horror in the eyes of the soldiers as they rush by.

The leading officer signaled the first chopper. The chopper hovered and lowered a large net from its underbelly for the marines to began piling up chunks of debris in manageable levels. Two of the soldiers, however, kept watch with long range binoculars in case of a surprise appearance of it.

Within two minutes, the debris cleared and the unconscious bodies of Rob and Beth were pulled from piles of white dust. Four marines rushed back a chopper and returned with stretchers and lifted Beth and Rob on. Giving the signal, the commander let one chopper lift off to look for more survivors. The remaining marines returned to the other chopper and reunited with the air.

Without warning, whipped a massive tail striking the first chopper. The fuselage shattered in half: parts flew by the first chopper to the devastating shock and awe of the crew. The broken pieces of the craft hit the ground in a furious pair of fireballs. Everyone aboard dead.

Out of the darkness, a massive scream shattered windows of the chopper, out of the plumes of dust the monster roseunshaken.