1

"BRAVO team," I said into my radio. "Report in."

But they didn't. All I heard was static on the other end of the comms. I didn't like how this was looking.

2

WE'D been trained for this sort of catastrophe. But training doesn't compare to actually doing it for real. When the creatures suddenly emerged from the deep, we'd been taken by surprise. How were we supposed to know there was an ancient, sentient race living within a massive cavern under the sea? How were we supposed to react?

It happened like this:

Just a regular day in the world we knew. Stocks were high. The terraforming project on Mars was business as usual. The lunar bases reported clear skies in all directions -- nothing strange, nothing new.

We'd never actually faced an alien threat before. We hadn't even known if they existed. But we all felt fairly certain that alien life would have to exist out there. Somehow. Somewhere. It only made sense. If we exist here, then they must exist out there.

In a way, we were right. But we were also wrong.

Because the alien life wasn't even alien. Alien to us, maybe -- in terms of biological structure, and compared to humans, sure.

It came from Earth, though. It was older than us. It was aquatic but capable of flight and could breathe outside of water. But its closest relatives appeared to be the octopus and the squid.

3

I headed into work on the Moon the day the creatures emerged. I was stationed at Luna Outpost X1-B5. In a sense, I was one of the lucky ones. If I'd been down there on Earth, I'd've probably been one of the first to die. Like the other military forces down there. Our weapons couldn't cut through them. Not at first. Then we discovered their weakness.

But that's another part of the story.

I'd gone into work. Just another ordinary day. Used my eyes and fingertip to get me into the system. Accepting Mark O'Donnell, yada yada yada. Went in and said hi to Jack. He was my partner on Bravo team. My right-hand man. He's dead now. Was mangled by the monsters from the deep. His eyes dangling from their sockets. I'll tell you about that later.

Jack informed me that all looked clear on the lunar frontier. We went about our daily duties until lunchtime. Seemed like another boring day. Seemed like my training would never be put to use. Why'd they even bother? Wars were old news. We didn't fight 'em anymore. Humans had risen above such small-minded endeavours. After the Russians had tried to start World War III -- tried and failed. But yet we still trained for wars. Like the big-wigs knew. Maybe they did. Maybe not. They're all dead, too.

Then lunch rolled around and the first news reached our satellite.

A strange explosion in the middle of the ocean. Tsunamis rushing out from the epicentre of the blast. Islands wiped away, their bases destroyed. Then the coastal cities were hit. In too many countries. Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, USA, Canada -- just to name a few. If it was near the Pacific, it was affected.

We thought that was it. We didn't know what to do. Didn't know what was happening.

Then another explosion occurred. This time in the Atlantic. This time, we had eyes watching, waiting. This time, we saw what came out.

4

"BRAVO, come in." I waited a few kliks. Nothing, no response. I'd sent my team to investigate reports of gunfire in a nearby hospital. They'd gotten there, they'd told me that, but now the comms were dead. I wanted to know why. "Looks like I'll have to figure that out for myself."

I checked my rifle and headed out of the convenience store. I'd gone there to put an end to a hostage crisis. A customer had gone deranged after the creatures had risen. Took the store owner as his hostage. Should've been easy. Only I'd been too late. They were both dead when I'd arrived. The hostage's brains painted the walls beside her corpse, the top half of her head glued to the ceiling in chunks, some blood-soaked hair hanging with it. And based on the residue around his lips, the customer had then placed the barrel in his own mouth and pulled the trigger. A baby-smooth, clean, cauterized hole went out the back of his neck, just under the base of his skull.

The city around me was a shambles. Roads ripped away. Buildings crumbled. Cars torn and contorted. Bodies left in pieces, some of them still connected by long red-grey streamers of now-cold guts. Heads crushed like watermelons, leaking gore into the sewers.

Not a pretty sight. I'd grown tired of it. And there was a hell of a lot more of it coming. I knew that.

The hospital was a half-klik away, but I didn't need a map to find it. Thanks to the destruction all around me, the big H was a beacon. I simply headed in that direction, maneuvered around whatever was in my way and there I was. At the hospital. It looked more like a battlefield. Ambulances strewn about upside-down, on their sides. Any way except rightside-up. Nurses and doctors and paramedics lay dead in a heap. And laying on top was my unit. Jack with his eyeballs hanging by their optic nerves. The skin on his arms and legs flayed down to the blood-red meat, and in some places to the pale-white bone. The other boys and girls in Bravo were in a similar state of disrepair. Dougal had his head ripped off, missing in action.

"Jesus H. Christ..." I swallowed the puke rising up from my belly. Tried to keep myself together.

What kind of monsters could do something like this?

I'd soon find out for myself.

I entered the hospital.

5

WHAT came out of the Atlantic was a big one, alright. When the immediate spray of seawater subsided, we saw firsthand what caused that second explosion. Let me just say this: Lovecraft was right. It was a kin of Cthulhu, risen from the depths of the Earth. According to Lovecraft's writing, R'lyeh would've been where the creature from the Pacific explosion had come from. I don't know where this Atlantic beast once dwelled, but it must've been a similar sunken city.

Surrounded by huge waves that looked like mere ripples in a pond, there was the monster. A great elongated skull with reaching tentacles at the front. Six searching black eyes, three on each side. Two batlike wings attached to more masses of pinkish-red tentacles. Twelve hearts visibly throbbed through its translucent chest, its ichoric blood pumping through its body, making the creature appear black for a split-second at a time. It let out a long warbling shriek that broke our speakers and sent waves raging through the sea in all directions. Apparently people all the way in both England and Newfoundland, Canada were able to hear it. And, boy, did it scare the living piss out of them.

We didn't know what we were seeing. We didn't know if we were supposed to believe the signals our eyes were sending to our brains.

And then the wee sprout of Bravo -- Dougal -- he whispered to that dead-silent room: "H-Holy sh-- It-It's Cthulhu!"

We had to ask him what the hell he was talking about. He gave us the scoop, told us that bit about R'lyeh from Lovecraft's tales.

6

WE were shipped back down to Earth shortly after that. Orders straight from high-command. We couldn't disobey, even though we could've and nobody would've done a damn thing about it. But we couldn't. It went against our code. Our humanity. These creatures defiled the very memory we had of our home planet. We wanted their enormous skulls on display in any remaining stadiums we might've had left.

The boys and girls in X1-A6 -- Alpha team -- had already taken the elevator back down to Earth. We went next. Charlie -- X1-C4 -- came after us. Etcetera, all the way down to Zulu -- X1-Z1.

I remember during that short ride down the elevator, we all stood around. Didn't say nothing. Just stood and avoided each other's eyes. Stayed in our own places. Separate. Gathering our thoughts. Memories. Trying to bury ourselves. Think of the ones we loved. What we'd say to them, if only we could. What we said to them last. The fights, perhaps -- always over something stupid. Not hugging or kissing them, because we were late for work. How much we wished we could go back in time. Take a little more time and spend it with them.

When the elevator touched down, we nodded to each other. Locked and loaded our guns. And headed on out into the city.

The damage done was already apparent.

7

THE hospital appeared abandoned. Not a sorry soul in sight, or any soul for that matter. The artificial lighting, the cold and clinical white walls. The smears of blood along the polished tile floors, clotted in the cracks. It all provided for a rather dreary, depressing search.

Something had killed the staff and my team. Something was going to die by my hand.

I heard weeping on the second floor. Tucked away in a locked room. I hammered on the door. Told whoever it was to open up. Said I was military, from the Lunar Division.

"Go away!" they said. A man's voice. "You'll only draw them here! A-A-And then they'll kill us both!"

"Not when I'm around," I told him. "I'm gonna kill every last one of those damn ugly monsters, or die trying. You have my word on that. Now open this god damn d--"

I stopped speaking when I heard the snarling whine from behind. Eased my finger against the trigger. Slowly turned to face my enemy.

It was a smaller beast. Dare I say it: Uglier, too. This one had five legs and tentacles coming out of its mouth. No wings. It looked like a mongrel dog went and got swallowed by a big squid and then started throwing up the worms it'd been eating. Mangy, red-raw patches all over its body, like sores. Ugly grey skin. It didn't woof at me, though. It did that weird snarling whine again. Cocked its head to the side. Stared at me with black eyes that seemed too knowing for such a stupid-looking creature. Sent chills up my spine.

I didn't think. Just reacted. I pointed the barrel at the creature and pulled the trigger. A blast of shrapnel exploded out of my gun and shredded the thing. It screeched, went down and started dragging itself to me. Ropelike guts trailing it. Its black eyes rotating around and around, showing the whites like a shark's eyes do when they attack. Its tentacles waving this way and that, rolling inward and out again, slapping against the floor, sucking up the dried blood. I stomped on the nearest sucker -- it shrieked again -- then I sent another shot straight into the dark hole at the centre of its tentacles. It blew to pieces.

I wiped its guts off my cheek. Black. Like its eyes.

Turned around and hammered the door again. "Open up. Just killed one."

The door came open. Little guy stood on the other side. Thin, not too tall. Looked like he had some serious baggage weighing him down. Like the world was on his shoulders and all he wanted to do was let go of the damn thing. He had dark shadows under his eyes. His thinning hair was a mess, sweaty and wild. He reeked of onions. Like he hadn't showered in a while. Or he'd been deeply afraid. Fear-sweat smells the worst. It's more potent.

"Who are you?" I asked him. Stepped inside and closed the door. Locked it.

"Are they dead? Did you kill them all?"

"I killed one," I said. "How many more are there? This one was a small one compared to the giant I saw on satellite."

He laughed like it was the funniest joke he'd ever heard. "Many more. Many, many, many more. Too many. We can't win. I've seen it. I knew this was coming. I-- I felt it."

"Felt it? The hell do you mean?"

"I've been getting these... headaches. For the past few months. And when I get them, I see visions. The visions showed me these... these things! And I saw them rising from the sea. I saw them invading us. Killing us. Destroying us. Everything. They conquer the universe. They've done it before. They're meant to do it again..."

"Do you see a way to stop them? Any way at all?" I asked him. Couldn't believe I was. The guy was nuts, clearly, but he'd claimed to have seen the monsters before. In his visions. Maybe he was important. I didn't know. But I was out of ideas. "Is there any way to send them back?"

"Maybe. But I don't know how." He collapsed against the wall and sighed. Ran his fingers through his hair, made it even messier. "I never saw us stopping them. I saw them conquering the universe. I saw us going extinct."

8

THE guy shook, then sobbed. He ripped his hair out. Patches of it fell to the floor in clumps, stuck together with sweat. He bobbed back and forth. Hugged himself. Started chattering his teeth. Started talking to himself, muttering things, smiling, frowning, laughing, weeping. The whole shebang.

He was losing it, and fast. Had to get him back down here among mere mortal men.

"Get a hold of yourself, man." I backhanded him across the jaw. Spit flew off to the side.

He looked shocked. Like he'd never been struck before. Probably hadn't. A guy like that, in a world like this -- or how it used to be, anyway. Unless you're military like me, you just don't get into fights or feel that kind of punishment.

Until now.

"You calmed down now?" I asked him.

He nodded wordlessly.

"Good. Now tell me more about these visions. Do you see anything specific? Anything familiar? Locations, dates, people, etcetera. Does it happen the same way every time? Gotta give me some details, buddy."

He shook his head. "It's hopeless." Sighed. "It's the same thing every time. I'm... I'm not even seeing it, if you know what I mean. I'm not a part of it. I'm just observing it. Watching it. Like a movie. I see everything peaceful and tranquil. Then I'm over the ocean, and I hate water so it's pretty horrible, y'know. And then the first monster breaks through the glass of the sea. It's huge. It's got wings. It's got these, uh... What do you call them--?"

"Tentacles?"

"That's right! Tentacles. Couldn't remember the word. Anyway, I see it marching onward. And these massive waves -- though compared to it, they're puny -- these massive waves surge outward in all directions. Then I'm seeing different coastal cities. I'm seeing the water come crashing in, flooding everything with so... much... water... Cars go flipping cartwheels before the water comes back and takes them, too. The people panicking... drowning... dying. The ones not dead yet are the ones who reach higher ground. They look like frightened monkeys, shrieking and lifting their kids over their heads as the water rises to reach them. As if that will do anything but delay the inevitable.

"Then the monster is flying around, over the ocean, over land. I see another one coming out of the water. Another tsunami. Both of them flying now. A third one joins them. A fourth. A fifth. A sixth. So many. They blot out the sun. Cities are destroyed. The little monsters are out now. Hungry for blood. They find it. They feast on the entrails of us. They screw on our corpses, lay eggs in our brains, and then more of them are born."

Lay eggs in our brains. I thought back to Dougal's missing head. Jesus...

"And then Earth is a wasteland. So much dust. There's no sunshine. Even the plants are dying. But those monsters still roam the planet. They hunger for more. They live off chaos. They don't need to eat. But they still do. Because it makes them stronger. It makes us weaker and it makes them stronger. Then they leave this planet. They have no use for a dead world. They head to the Moon. Mars. Conquer them both. Then beyond."

"Beyond?" I asked.

"Other worlds. They're out there. They've seen these monsters before, too."

"Before? That means they were beaten, right?"

"No. They went to sleep. So they could wake up and do it all again."

I'd begun pacing the room. There wasn't much room to pace. I'd done so many laps I'd lost count. "There must be some way."

"There isn't. It's hopeless. Give up."

"I won't!" I shouted at him. His apathy pissed me off.

Suddenly, a banging at the door. A snarling whine.

I readied my weapon.

"Don't go out there! Please!"

"I have to," I said. "Someone's gotta do something." So I opened the door and walked out of the room.

There was just the corpse of the one I'd killed before. Then I heard the pop-pop of suction cups being pulled from the floor. A squealing growl to my left. I spun and fired. My aim was off. Put a huge hole in the wall. And pegged the beast in the shoulder. It shrieked and kept coming for me. I fired again and ripped it into two pieces. Its front half tumbled over and stopped. Its back half slid in its own self-lubricating juices and came to a halt at my feet. I went ahead and shot it again. Felt good to do that.

"It's dead," I called out. Turned around and went back to the room.

The guy was bleeding from his neck, all over the floor. He had a bloody razorblade in his hand.

9

"YOU asshole," I said to him while he bled out.

He smiled, gargled blood through his neck-wound. The wound bubbled and foamed, coughed, burped, farted, sprayed. Not very dignified, though in death we rarely are. It wasn't a pretty sight. A very inhumane way to die.

I put my gun to his temple.

His head jerked, his eyes blinked. As good a nod as he could give.

I fired. Blew his head right off. Now that's what I called dying with dignity.

Expedited his delivery to the afterlife.

Hoped it was safe on the other side.

10

I went back out into the city. What was left of it, anyway. Not much, that's for damn sure.

Then I saw one of those pulsating monstrosities off in the distance, dwarfing the tallest towers. It was like Godzilla in those movies from way back when. Didn't roar, though. Didn't look like a dinosaur, either. I sighed and started walking in its direction.

Some more of the smaller ones attacked me while I journeyed yonder. They were a cinch. Too easy to kill. I was getting bored. Getting restless. Certainly wasn't any challenge in them. I wanted to try my hand in taking down one of the big ones.

As I walked toward the big ugly, I got the idea in my head to record my story. So I started from the beginning -- or the furthest back I felt like remembering -- which was the part where Bravo stopped responding. Then I started remembering more, and you know how the rest goes.

I reached a large vacated construction site. Stood on a hill, overlooking the area. It was a nesting site, or whatever the hell these creatures called their baby-making rituals. I saw the smaller ones doing just as What'shisface said -- never did catch his name. Shagging atop a mound of dead people. Tearing off their heads afterward and seeming to shit into their ears. That must've been the egg-laying part. It wasn't pretty. Nothing was. Not anymore.

When they mated, the creatures made warbling sounds. Sounded like banshees. Ghosts. The dead and the damned and the depraved. All wrapped up together and warped beyond comprehension. I hated it. I hated seeing it. Hated hearing it. It was hell.

I wanted to take my gun and blow 'em all away. Make a mess of it. But I knew that was a hopeless endeavour. There was no reason to ruin my surprise. Not yet.

My eyes found the behemoth on the horizon. Saw more of them flying in, preparing for landing. Their blood pumping through them, making them flicker black and then back to pink-red. Their tentacles flapping in the breeze. Their black batwings beating and cracking the sky with their might. A sharp snap! with every wingbeat. A droning sound, like a ship's horn. But more alien. Off-key. Maddening.

They joined each other. Fought a little bit. But obviously they weren't being serious. They backed off after a few blows. They gathered in a circle. A high-pitched, ear-piercing sound went off. I could barely hear it. My ears were still ringing from shooting my gun off.

But the smaller ones heard it. They jolted to attention. Looked up into the sky like they'd been waiting for the signal. There it was. And then they took off running. Like a machine. One mind. Racing off in the direction of the big ones.

I followed. As fast as I could.

When I got as close to the big creatures as I dared, the smaller ones were gathered around them. Doing that snarling whine, all together. One voice. The big ones changed their tune and sounded out like a blast from a trumpet. The ending of each note wavered. And hissed.

I stood and watched this... ceremony with my finger itching against the trigger. Couldn't believe how massive the creatures were, standing so close to them. They were too big to kill. There wasn't any hope for me. I should've just blown my own brains out and hoped for the best.

But I couldn't. Not yet.

I watched them flash faster and faster, their blood pumping. The song changed its tune, warbled now. The big ones were singing different anti-melodies. Weaving them together. Providing counterpoints to each other. It was hellish, devilish. It just went on and on. Unpleasant sound after unpleasant sound. This wasn't music, it was murder. On the ears. It was a perversion of the soul's language. Probably did it just for that reason alone.

When their sounds faltered for just a second, the skies went black. A swirling vortex opened above me. Above everything. Like a curtain above the world had been swept aside. And now we all got to see the real magic at work.

Then a black-red entity poured itself from the portal, taking over the sky. All over its form -- or body, if you could call it that -- it had what appeared to be bursting boils and cancers and oozing wounds and chancres. Bolts of black lightning arced around its form. As if in fast-motion, violent-coloured toadstools mushroomed and exploded. Spewed their spores out into the air. Where they touched ground, spawned more mushrooms. It repeated, and soon everything in sight was covered. Long tentacles reached out, stretched in ways that seemed impossible.

Another -- similar but different -- came after it.

And then another.

Rinse and repeat.

11

TELL me: What the hell am I to do?

We're dead now. All of us. Humanity itself. All we've done, all we've achieved, all we've created. Done and dead and gone. Like the dinosaurs before us. Life on Earth is at an end. Except for these eldritch monsters.

Maybe there are survivors out there. Maybe they'll outlast these chthonic abominations. Start civilization all over again. Maybe it's happened before. If so, it can happen again. Maybe their descendants'll find our bones buried under the ground, etched into the Earth. Wonder what the hell happened to cause a mass extinction such as this.

Maybe.

A lot of maybes.

All I know is this: I've recorded the last of my logs. I hope you're out there, listening. I hope you find this. I hope it tells you what you need to know. Fills in all the gaps of your history.

Now I've got some creatures to slaughter.

I just hope I can bag a couple hundred before I die.