Zzz-zzz-zzz—
"Sorry," a man's face appeared close to the camera, his expression still etched with lingering panic. Glancing over his shoulder with a look of alarm, he then addressed the camera,
"I'm Justin Balk, head of the software security department at Stella Core Space Station. Out of a need to save ourselves, I must make this video public—there are monsters on the space station!"
The screen flickered several times before the view switched to a camera positioned above a corridor.
Jalal was running for his life down the corridor, chased by a dense fog. His face was stricken with panic as he dashed without regard for direction, quickly being overtaken by the enveloping fog that shrouded half of his body.
For some reason, as the fog spread out, it seemed to be poisonous. Whenever it touched the black man's arm, he screamed in agony and convulsed onto the ground as if electrocuted.
At the end of the hallway, in an unnoticed corner, a small round device was thrown, hissing softly as it released a chemical agent that quickly spread throughout the corridor.
The black man's pupils dilated. When he stood up again, there was an unnatural look in his eyes, as if controlled by some monster, staggering towards the end of the corridor.
He was eventually completely engulfed by the thick fog, disappearing at the end of the hall as if he had truly become a zombie puppeteered by the monsters.
The screen then switched back to Balk whose pupils were dilated, swallowing nervously, obviously very afraid. He lowered his voice and said, "I don't know why my superiors wanted to block the news, but now the space station is filled with the monsters' presence. We've been hiding, some are dead, some have vanished..."
"My colleagues and I found some astonishing and top-secret experimental data in a lab on the space station that should never have been made public. We don't know if the appearance of these monsters is related to the experiments, but we believe the public has a right to know the truth behind it all."
"I knew we couldn't just let things go on, so we decided to take some action. We had to, even though this might result in us getting hurt or bleeding," said Balk, his face a mask of mournful despair that was suddenly filled with courage.
"We will do our utmost, and no matter the outcome, I hope that others, like me, will not be kept in the dark. We will fight against the evil to the end, and in the meantime, don't forget to think about who brought that evil here."
After these words, the transmission screen went black.
The video quickly went viral on the global internet.
Because, in any case, Balk's theory seemed more plausible; someone conducted evil experiments on the Stella Core Space Station, leading to the monsters' emergence. And those who discovered the evil data of those experiments, resulting in the behind-the-scenes manipulator wanting to destroy the space station to silence everyone.
And who else could have conducted those evil experiments?
Suddenly, the government and the public were at odds, with people accusing the official government of being the manipulator behind this series of conspiracies, not only the culprit but now also attempting to cover up the truth and put on a facade of normalcy, hence the delay in rescue operations.
Despite numerous technicians coming forward to claim that those things were simply special effects, even pointing out traces of effects identical to the previous Flame Monster incident, conspiracy theories were rampant, and the voices of clarification were like a drop in the bucket.
Meanwhile, another prevailing opinion was that the official government was delaying rescue because the public didn't understand how many calculations and studies it takes for such a large ship to come close to Earth, and what risks are involved without proper preparation.
They just felt that if the rescue ship didn't appear above the space station in the next second, it would conclusively prove a government conspiracy, rendering all explanations useless.
Some even more pessimistic individuals believed that even if ships were dispatched now, it might not be for rescue at all, but rather for silencing those involved.
Numerous online media personalities and ordinary netizens began to follow the account of Justin Balk, urging him to keep safe while loudly declaring that if anything went wrong with the account, it would definitely have been silenced.
As a result of this rumor, the pressure was greatest on America and China, as America had indeed done such things and been caught, while China was the perpetual 'Big Devil' in the Western media narrative, automatically scapegoated whenever issues arose. Other countries were either not the focus, or simply lacked the capacity, leaving nearly all fingers pointing at China and the US.
As the managers of the Supernatural Organization in these two countries, the directors of SWORD and S.H.I.E.L.D. had no choice but to hold an emergency meeting. However, for some reason, when faced with inquiries from domestic higher-ups later, both of them didn't seem very anxious. Even when threatened that a mishandling of the situation could cost them their positions, they responded dismissively as if the matter was of no consequence to them.
Shiller was in his office, bandaging a female staff member. The recent power outage had indeed caused some chaos; the young female researcher, while attempting to escape, had accidentally kicked the leg of a fallen stool and sustained cuts to her ankle and lower leg.
The wound was not very deep initially, but because the researcher was nervous and unaware of it, and had accidentally come into contact with water, after more than an hour, the cut had begun to show signs of infection, causing her to develop a mild fever.