The numbers went down, and when it reached 1, the screen went black and a middle-aged man appeared. He was wearing a dark blue business suit, standing up straight with his hair perfectly combed.
He was sitting alone on a yellow-orange TV set, facing the camera and all the viewers watching across the country.
Everyone recognized him. It was James Garette Owlsen, a famous presenter who had been accompanying people and bringing them news since he started 20 years ago.
James looked straight at the camera, his face impassive, his eyes closed. He immediately created a serious atmosphere and tension, and he remained there, motionless, saying nothing for a few seconds.
Then he smiled, a joyful smile, almost childlike, his two beautiful blue eyes opening wide.
"Hello, citizens of the United States of America," he said, almost laughing.
"As some of you may know, my name is James Garette Owlsen, and I will be accompanying you this evening."
He spoke in a calm, gentle, almost charming tone.
"I know that tonight's meeting has been announced with great fanfare, and the government has gone to great lengths to ensure that every citizen will be in front of their screens tonight.
They have even covered all possible losses for workers who will be disturbed or prevented from doing necessary work. We all know that it is quite rare for the White House to be so generous.
He said, almost laughing, his teeth incredibly white and pure. "And of course, it didn't go unnoticed, and it caused a lot of panic. Absolutely everyone was afraid of what would be announced tonight. The announcement with the Monarch logo wasn't reassuring enough, but if Washington is being nice on top of that..."
The journalist looked anxious and panicked
"Shit, we're screwed..." He shook his head gently, looking tragic.
Before quickly returning to his normal charming face
- And all this mystery gives free rein to a whole range of preoccupation and theories.... And boy, are there theories... He said with a slight chuckle, moving a little closer to the camera, leaning forward and hunching over the table as if to share a secret
- Personally, my favorite is the one where, apparently, tonight it will be announced that JFK was actually assassinated by a titan...
"Oh... that's just genius..." he said, raising his hands as if resigning himself to one of the funniest things he had ever read on the internet.
But he quickly took on a serious air, his jaw clenched, his face closed and focused.
"Yes... there have been theories..."
James spoke softly.
"Everyone was giving their predictions, their opinions, cafes and bars became places of heated debate, social media was on fire, TV channels were accompanied by guests adding their grain of salt to the mix," said the man in a serious tone, no longer smiling or laughing at all.
"You were all just simply… worried..." he finished calmly, in a low voice.
There was a moment of silence as he stared intently at the camera.
"And so was I... Until a few hours ago, at least," he said, regaining his childlike smile, as if happy with the news and happy to know it before everyone else.
"Well, let's start from the beginning... We recently discovered that the world is populated by creatures that were previously unknown to us, a whole ecosystem that we knew nothing about..." said James calmly, looking straight into the camera.
"They were here long before us, even before prehistoric times. Some new studies show that dinosaurs could be their bastard descendants. We've called them MUTO, which stands for 'Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism.' There are thousands of them, maybe millions..."
"That sounds scary when you put it like that, but most of them remain underground, and the majority can be eliminated with human weapons and our scientific advances... They are a threat but not an extinction threat... at least that would be the case if it stopped there..."
The presenter's voice was now low.
- Among them are the Titans, the Muto at the top of their species... A Titan is defined as a being at least 60 meters tall or wide, capable of withstanding most human weapons, including missiles, bombs, and even nuclear warheads. Most of them are capable of absorbing radiation, and quite a few live on the surface... All have abilities related to radiation, atomic breath, electromagnetic pulses, telekinesis, etc. It seems that only the mammal-type Titans do not have special abilities, but they do have enhanced physical abilities.
- If given enough time, they could easily destroy a country in a week... And each of the Titans is capable of destroying a large city with a population of 10 million in a matter of hours...
"But we already know that," he said. James had stopped smiling long ago, his gaze sharp, almost cold.
"On that fateful day known as G-Day, humanity learned a hard lesson, a lesson we had forgotten for thousands of years. Humanity is no longer at the top..."
He said nothing. One, two... five seconds of silence passed as he stared silently at the camera. It was barely noticeable, but his lips trembled in a grimace.
Then he resumed his monologue.
"And it was three people who were the first to discover this truth in 1954, and that date is not insignificant. It is no coincidence that it was in that year that they were discovered..."
"During our first nuclear tests in the Atlantic Ocean, we woke something up..." said James, his jaw clenched, the skin on his hands turning white as he spoke of what human cruelty and greed had awakened...
"We woke them from their deep sleep where they had been for thousands of years... It's pretty funny when you think about it..." James had a small, ironic smile on his lips.
"Absolutely all of us were aware that nuclear war would redefine the rules of the game, create a new era where nothing would ever be the same again, change the world..." But who could have imagined it would be like this, he said softly, his voice tinged with bitterness.
He closed his eyes silently for a second before opening them again.
"In this new world, man is no longer at the top, it's a simple truth," he said calmly.
"We are no longer the apex predator..."
"At least that's not entirely true..." said James, and this time... since he had begun to mention the alarming truth that everyone had recently become aware of, his smile... a broad, joyful, childlike smile returned.
There was a trace of excitement in his eyes, a burning fire that was small but promised something big, something absolutely big...
He took a black, square object out of his pocket, held it behind him, and pressed a button. The yellow background, which was just an image on a screen, changed.
The screen began to show an island, with bright green plants and trees. There was no sign of human activity. Nature had reclaimed its rights, and the island was populated with animals, but not only animals... it was also populated by MUTOs. The island looked more like a prehistoric jungle.
"The island you see behind me was discovered less than 50 years ago. It was hidden until then under a thick storm cloud. It has a strange skull shape, hence its name, Skull Island, but above all..." he said softly, before continuing
"It is an island populated by MUTOs..."
Behind him, images appeared, video clips of a spider moving above the trees, so large that its thin, slender legs seemed to stab the ground as it walked. The creature was easily four to five times the size of a human being.
Then a video showed a beach, or at least a cliff, with a grayish-white stone in one corner, a huge rock that looked as if it were covered in chalk, but it was just a stone...
And on the screen we see a man in military uniform with a hammer in his hand. The soldier slowly and quietly approached and stopped a few meters from the rock, then raised his arms as high as possible and brought the hammer down, shattering the ground.
We heard the crack of the impact, which even made the earth tremble slightly. The soldier wasted no time, dropped the hammer and moved away quickly. A few seconds passed without anything happening, and suddenly the rock began to shake and break into three pieces on its own. and on the left and right sides, two huge things emerged, wide and thick, covered with something like white, dusty scales, and at the end of what looked like a limb, two large, thick ends separated by a void, like a U, both ends equipped with serrated hooks each as long as a human head.
And with the claws emerging, the thing that had been a stone rose from the ground, higher and higher until it reached a height of 8 meters, carried by eight huge long, curved legs, and on what appeared to be the gray head of this thing, two small eyes opened.
The giant crab moved slightly, cracking its body and limbs, emitting a rather crunchy and hollow sound. The huge crustacean looked around but saw no predators or attackers. It lowered its eyes and looked at the mark on the ground with the hammer next to it.
It stretched out its head, observed the strange object it had never seen before for a few seconds, then simply turned around and left, its legs moving mechanically in rhythm and its body shaking the ground as it headed off in search of another place to sleep.
And in this scene that sent a shiver down the spines of everyone watching at home, James' voice rang out.
"Not a pretty sight, huh?"
The presenter spoke with a slight grimace, his eyebrows furrowed, a hint of disgust palpable on his face.
"I think I owe an apology to all the arachnophobes out there. A lot of them are going to have nightmares about this..." he said, shaking his head and laughing slightly at the thought.
After a few seconds, he turned his gaze back to the camera, became serious again, and in a deep, low voice, like a whisper, he said
"But of all the nasty creatures, that one is the worst..."
The screen behind him changed again, showing the forest once more, but this time it was a clear, treeless area with fairly low grass, like a plain in the middle of a forest with a few small mountains a hundred meters away. From the screen, you could see some pieces of white fabric, a few tables, chairs next to them, a campfire surrounded by several white tents, weapons, machine guns lying on the ground, and larger weapons such as rocket launchers and grenades in a case that looked like an armory.
There were soldiers walking around or sitting at tables playing cards, some in a corner carving what looked like spears with a knife and a thick piece of wood. There were also scientists and researchers scattered among them, looking at screens, machines, and devices displaying data and real-time simulations.
It seemed that the camera was at the heart of the human encampment, showing the outpost a few meters before the expanse of the plain took over. Given the camera's plunging angle, it seemed that the small improvised human base was 3-4 meters above the ground, probably on a small hill.
At first glance, everyone seemed rather relaxed, with snippets of conversation punctuated by small laughs. Given the mood of the scene, the camp was probably located somewhere other than this nightmarish island.
But as the scene of daily life continued, the camera zoomed in on a spot on the plain, showing a mountain about 300 meters away on the right. The mountainside began to shake slightly, Several large rocks fell to the ground, and a few seconds later, looking closely, we could see what appeared to be three long claws digging into the mountain, clinging to the rock. A mouth appeared, and even from a distance, we could see that it was huge and cavernous, grayish-white in color.
Seeking something in the forest on the horizon, it advanced, stretching its length across the top of the mountain, and we could immediately see that despite its similar dirty gray color, it was not the giant crab from earlier. This thing resembled a reptile, and almost only its mouth and skull were visible, as if it had no skin, just a skull with two eyes, which were white.
The rest of its very long, strange body was a sickly green.
It sniffed the air and turned its head sharply toward the human camp...
Where no one seemed to have noticed it...
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