Chapter 1: First Contact

Time: 8:03 AM

Location: New York, NY, USA.

Date: December 21st. 2012 C.C.E./0000 I.E.

The streets of Manhattan were filled with the noise of busy traffic. The roar of car engines in rush hour seemed to rebound off of the tall skyscrapers that stood imperiously over all. Thousands of people walked up and down the sidewalks, their individual conversations blurring into a shapeless mass. Many wore business suits, and they talked into their phones distractedly, ignoring the populace surrounding them. Others wore casual clothes, with sweaters or parkas clenched to their body as they ate their fast food breakfasts. The traffic lights flickered; doing the job they had been made to do, ignorant of the hate filled glares they received whenever they turned red. It was a normal day in the metropolis city and financial capital of the world, and it would have been impossible to not notice this.

The girl took no notice.

She stood on the very edge of a sidewalk corner, a faint smile on her lips. She was young, no more than fourteen at best. She had extremely pale skin, so pale that it could be considered white, and it was in stark contrast with her long ebony hair and matching dress. The piece of clothing in question was flamboyant and frilly, with a pale blue ribbon tied to the bottom left of the front, and its long sleeves changed into gloves that covered their wearer's hands. From the sides of her hear curved two, black, vertebrae like horns, adding a whole foot to her height. But these were not the most striking things about her, no, far from it. That place was reserved for her eyes: those large, pale, neon green irises, in which a ring circled each pupil. Those eyes would cause many to stop and stare at her, but yet, none did.

The foot traffic seemed to part around her, but yet none seemed to even realize she was there, or that they were changing their direction of movement at all. At one point, a man carrying a saxophone case in his right hand turned to the left avoid her, but it appeared as if the case in his hand would ram into the little girl. Instead, it twisted to the right, and the man moved with his arm passing over her head, not even realizing her had done so.

The girl took no notice.

Instead, she started to hum to herself, and held her hands out to her sides, the crowd moving to avoid them, and looked down at her feet. Without hesitating, she lifted her right foot off of the ground, and placed it delicately in front of her left, as if she were walking on a tightrope. She began to move forward, placing one foot front of the other, into the center of traffic.

As soon as she started to move, people began to notice her. A few called out, and car horns blared as their drivers swerved to avoid her, crashing into each other in their haste to avoid her. The damage began to pile up around the edges, and it soon became obvious that many different insurance companies would have to pay up.

The girl took no notice.

She continued to walk into the center of the intersection, still slowly placing one foot in front of the other. A small, mischievous smile adorned her porcelain face, but it seemed to stem from some kind of inner amusement, for she did not eve react to the goings on around her.

Angry drivers began to get out of their cars, some yelling at each other, others yelling at the inattentive girl, and yet still others frantically yelling for someone to call nine one one. A few ignored them, starring at the strange girl who had been the cause of it all.

The girl took no notice.

She stopped walking when the toes of her left foot met the edge of a manhole cover, and her right foot hurried to join its fellow. Her small smile grew, until it became a white-toothed grin, with the corners nearly reaching her ears. What those observing her found disturbing, was that this description was quite literal.

The girl crouched down, placing her left arm on her knees, while she reached down with her right. She hooked one of her fingers beneath the edge of the cover with no difficulty, and with a seemingly bored flick, as if she were beckoning one closer to her, she flipped the cover high into the air.

It spun as it ascended, before it came crashing down to the pavement a few feet from her. When it had stopped spinning, all sound in the surrounding area seemed to have died, murdered by the girl's simple, yet inhuman action.

The girl took no notice.

Instead she, placed her gloved hands on the edge of the manhole, and she leaned down, sticking her head into where the sewer system would be. She made a long, low, cooing sound. It resounded throughout the silence, and it caused chills to travel up the spines of many.

The seconds stretched by, and just when a man had worked up the courage to walk towards the girl, she received a response. It was a loud hissing, and it brought terrible images to the minds of many. The his dragged on for an unknown, seemingly endless amount of seconds. When the sound had finally faded, a slithering began to echo through the streets. Smiling, the girl made a strange, mangled, garbling sound. To every person there, it sounded something like…an encouragement.

As the slithering grew louder, she pulled away, and a large, clawed, skeletal hand reached out of the manhole. It was covered in slime green scales that hung from it, as if there was no flesh separating them from the bone. It slammed into the ground, the claws digging into the pavement underneath it. The arm became tense, and the ground shook as something neared the surface.

A head was the second thing to come out, a long, sinewy, boney, draconic head. It was the same color as its arm, and its eyes appeared to have sunk into its skull. Twin obsidian horns spiraled up from either side of its head, and it was followed by a long, frail neck, with black spines jaggedly traveling along its apex. When the neck began to widen out, the ground shuddered again, and it stopped. It pulled back a bit, before rising with a slightly greater increase in speed than it did before. It stopped suddenly, and the ground shook violently.

Letting out an annoyed hiss, the dragon lunged forward, pulling the rest of its skeletal, scaly body behind it. Once it had fully emerged, revealing its thirty feet of length to all who watched, and had resettled its wings on its back, it brought its head down to nuzzled the girl before it. Giggling, the ebon haired girl wrapped her arms around its muzzle, cooing sweet nothings to it. The dragon almost closed its eyes, but then it noticed the audience that surrounded them. A long, black tongue, snaked out between its jaws, and it traveled along its scaly lips. A single scream rang out through the following silence.

The girl was shaken out of her trance, and she looked in the general direction of where the scream had come from, before a smirk played across her face, and she whispered something to the large creature before her. The dragon rumbled deep in its belly, then it raised its head, and roared.

The girl had taken notice.

Time: 2:37 PM

Location: Tokyo, Japan.

Date: February 23rd, 0001 I.E.

Pieces of rock and debris fell as the ceiling shook, and everyone in shelter huddled a little closer. Families and friends gathered together in small clumps, hugging each other tighter as they prayed for their safety. An explosion could be heard coming from the conflict above, and a little girl began to cry, unable to take the pressure any longer.

Kuroi Kurenai shut her eyes and hugged her children tighter, as if she was afraid they would slip away at the first chance they got. The woman's short brown hairy was filthy and dirty, as was her scratch ridden face and body. All she had on was the T-shirt she wore to bed and a pair of backwards pants that had been thrown on in a hurry. Kuroi Hiro buried his face all the harder into the stomach of her white shirt, not caring at how "unmanly" this action was. The ten year old was too scared to care at the moment, and his body trembled far to violently to be simply from the cold, which was all the more acute when he was in nothing but his pajamas.

Kuroi Mato shivered just as violently as her brother, and she nervously clung to the only family she had. The sweatshirt she'd slept in kept her from feeling the cold, but that did not matter now. Her sapphire eyes were fixed on the spider web cracks that adorned the ceiling, the four feet of cement between them and the outside world. Well-concealed fear danced at the edges of those blue orbs, and she had to swallow a whimper at the next shudder. She had to be strong; she couldn't let her mother or brother know that she was scared. She was their pillar of strength, and pillars of strength did not crumble to things like fear.

Mato licked her lips nervously, glancing down at the watch wrapped around her brother's left wrist. Ten hours. The attack had been going on for ten hours. Mato knew that there was little hope left, if had taken the army this long to beat the enemy, it was unlikely they ever would.

The next time the room shook, a large piece of the ceiling was dislodged, and it crashed down not far from where they were, crushing the family underneath it, no one made a sound, the whole family was already dead, or as good as. Mato just stared at it in mute silence, to gripped with fear to move. That could have been them, if they had sat there when this whole thing began, that would have been them. She tightened her grip all the more, and buried her face in her mother's neck, unable to maintain her strength.

The room was filled with a loud cracking, and all eyes turned towards its source, where a long crack had appeared near the edge of the ceiling. The crack wasn't large, and it wasn't wide, but light pored through it, only to be blocked out a second later by some large creature. Its heavy breathing echoed throughout the shelter, the soft rattle of its exhalations and inhalations sending chills down the spines of many.

The crunching of lose pavement could be heard as it shifted its weight, and the ceiling shook again. The crunching grew more prominent, and large, saw edged claws pried their way into the crack. Red drops of blood dripped from the black tips, forming a small pool on the floor.

Everyone froze, staring in horrified fascination at the beast they would soon see. The crack widened, and soon a second pair of claws joined the first. As more and more of the talons became visible, ebony black gradually faded into ruby red. Mato belatedly realized that some of the red was its actual color, not just a dye from the liquid covering them. Now, with a firm grip on either side, the beast pushed all the more, until the crack was wide enough fit its thin head through.

It looked like a cross between a feline and a serpent. Its dusty red scales were smooth and streamline, elegantly framing a pair of raging yellow, slit pupiled eyes. Its snout was short and thin, with large, cat like fangs curling from either side of its upper lips. Broad, muscular shoulders could be seen at the end of the thick, stubby neck, framed by the unwanted sunlight. The monster opened its maw, and roared. The roar was reminiscent to that of lion's, fearsome and terrible. Those closest to the exit rushed for it, pushing each other aside as they struggled through. But the Kuroi family just stayed where they were, watching the ominous figure with blank, fear filled eyes. They were the farthest from the door.

Mato knew, with absolute certainty, that they were going to die. The invasion had started over a year ago, and there had never once been a case of the monsters willingly letting people live or escape, even if it cost them their own lives. And this one was looking right at them, its lips pulled back in feral grin. It opened its mouth, taking in a deep, deep breath…before letting it out in a gushing inferno.

Mato's mind went blank as the flames raced towards them, all she could do was stare in utter terror at what was coming. It was different for Kurenai, who barely had time to fling her son and daughter behind the pillar ten feet away from her. She knew she wouldn't have been able to run behind it in time, so she decided to save her children instead, using her adrenaline infused muscles to do what she couldn't normally.

Mato's stared in horror at where the flames roared past from her new position, barbecuing everything in their path. She couldn't see it, but the beast started to rotate its head, swiveling around to burn everyone in its path. When the flames had passed, and were pointing in the opposite direction, towards the door, the remains of the dead were revealed. Ash. Not even the cement under which many had just sat remained, all of it had been turned to ash. The fifteen year old's eyes darted about frantically, trying to find the impossible proof that her mother had survived.

She heard the pained cries of agony that were quickly cut short, and Hiro's frightened whimper, but she didn't care. She could only stare, pleading to every deity in heaven or hell that her mother had survived, that she wouldn't abandon them like dad had. But, of course, no such miracle happened.

The debris that littered the floor crunched as the monster lowered itself into the shelter, and Mato frantically clamped a hand over her brother's mouth, stifling any sound of terror he could have made. She was terrified, sad, and miserable, but she wasn't about to let either of them die. The creature began to lumber about, its large bulk making it impossible to hide its movement, sniffing the air around it. As quietly as she could, the fifteen year old raised herself to her feet, keeping a tight hold of her brother.

She heard it begin moving to her right, and she peaked around the left corner, catching a glimpse of its hindquarters as it stalked out of sight, its scaly, cat like tail swishing lazily behind it. She hurried after it making sure to keep the steel pillar between her and it. She fought the instinct to lean against the scorching steel, knowing that the half liquid metal would only burn her.

Cautiously, she took another glance around the corner, just in time to see it inhale, its head shoved through the door. She ducked back as it breathed out, the heat wave traveling back all the way to where they hid. After breathing those flames for over a minute, she heard it let out a contented grunt, and turn. The black haired girl ducked back to where she had first hidden, allowing the beast to haul itself up through the crack.

She and her brother waited in tense silence for a long time, waiting for it to return and finish them off. They did their best not to make a sound, hardly daring to breathe for fear of what their raspy breaths might bring. Finally, the twintailed girl collapsed, her mind numb from the after affects of terror and sorrow. Hiro took this as his queue to start sobbing quietly. He buried his face in his sister's sweater, stifling the already quiet sounds. Mato absent mindedly patted the back of his head, not really concerned with giving him comfort. Her eyes stared blankly in the general direction of where her mother had been, her damaged soul feeling hollow and emotionless.

She knew she should be sad, that she should be crying at the loss of her mother, but the tears wouldn't come. All she felt was, confusion. Why did this happen, why did they come here, why did they have to kill her mother?

But she knew it had been coming, she knew it been coming since what had been coined "the prophesized day" had appeared on the news. The enemy had covered the United States in just four months, although it had taken another two to completely entrench themselves in it. And the rest of North America had fallen in the following six. She knew that they would get to Japan soon, it was only slightly out of their way if they traveled through the Bering Strait, as they did.

She knew they were coming, but she had squashed that fear with false reassurances. They were just monsters, they had no sense of geography, and they wouldn't know that Russia was just twenty five miles from Alaska. Even if they did, she had told herself, there was no way they could cross it.

When a very, very large number of them, numbering in the hundreds of millions, did just that, she had told herself that the Japanese government would pull something amazing out of their asses, and she was ecstatic when it was announced that three Ivan Bombs, the ones that the Soviet Union used in '61, would be dropped on Cape Dezhnev, where they had stopped after their crossing. But it had been a false hope, the things were like cockroaches, their bodies tough enough to handle the shockwave, and their anatomy immune to the resultant radiation. That isn't to say that those close to ground zero didn't die, but the ratio of monsters dead to bombs used was ridiculous, scientists estimated that the amount of bombs required to stop the westward invasion would have made three earths uninhabitable. The worst part was that an invasion force about half its size was making its way through South America.

At that point, two months ago, she had just pushed all thoughts of the oncoming wave of doom out of her mind, hoping that everything would just go away, like many Japanese. Now, they were paying for their foolishness with their lives.

Time: 5:43 PM

Location: Saitama, Japan.

Date: February 23rd, 0001 I.E.

A lone girl walked through the destroyed streets, a dirty, tattered blanket over her shoulders. She placed one tattered shoe in front of the other, willing herself to keep moving, ignoring the pain that lanced up her right leg when ever she put her weight on it. The buildings burned all around her, and she heard a few faint, desperate cries for help, but she ignored them. She leaned heavily on the twisted, half melted, metal pole she had found on the ground. It looked like it might have held a street sign at one time, but it was impossible to be sure.

Her platinum blond, almost white, hair fell about her shoulders, having lost the hair bands she used to keep it in its twintails. Her breath came ragged as she went, as if she would fall over at a moment's notice. Her hazel-red eyes stared unseeingly in the distance as she went.

The attack had happened early last night, around six or seven in the afternoon, and when most of the city had been raised, they had moved south, heading towards Tokyo. That was the direction she was heading now, she didn't know why, only that something was pulling her there. It was…not a longing exactly, but something similar to it, almost as if she needed to be there. Something was calling her there.

She was nearing the southern most edge of the city, and she felt her strength beging to wane. Her body felt so sluggish, so…heavy. She wanted to lie down, just lie down, close her eyes, and let the sweet abyss of nothingness consume her. It sounded so…nice, so…peaceful, that she almost did just that. But the sensation in the back of her mind wouldn't let her, it told her that she had to-

As her thoughts wandered, her right foot tripped on a piece of torn up asphalt. Her weak, tired body didn't stand a chance against gravity. Her small body fell to the torn road. But before it could land on the hard, unforgiving ground, littered with sharp and dangerous pieces of debris, a pair of strong arms caught her.

She raised her head slightly, and saw a member of the SAT, wearing riot gear, staring down at her. Her vision seemed to be going black for some reason. She faintly saw his lips move, but it was as if he was speaking through a glass window. She heard the word "name" and licked her cracked lips with her dry tongue. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too sore and it was painful. She managed to rasp out her name, but it took a colossal effort.

"Shiroi…Nuguu…"

…and then she fainted.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

So? What do you think? Yes, I realized that I should work on my other two stories, but I lost the feel for them. Its like I wrote them just to get their ideas out of my head, but had no idea as to where they were going. I want to hear your thoughts on this, and no, I don't have the other chapters done, but I will try to update on a weekly or biweekly basis. Please review! :3.