July 15, 2213
Geneva International Research Facility
Dr. Sarah Chen stared at the quantum resonance readings with growing horror. The energy spikes were off the charts, far beyond anything their instruments were designed to measure. Behind her, banks of monitors flashed urgent warnings as reality itself seemed to buckle under some unseen pressure.
"Dr. Chen!" Her assistant burst through the laboratory doors, face pale. "The anomalies—they're appearing worldwide now. London, Tokyo, New York—"
The rest of his words were drowned out by a deafening crack that split the air like thunder. The reinforced windows of the facility exploded inward as a wave of otherworldly energy rolled across the Geneva countryside. Sarah watched in terror as the sky itself began to tear open, revealing glimpses of something that shouldn't exist—a writhing darkness filled with countless gleaming eyes.
"Lock down the facility!" she screamed into her comm unit, but it was already too late. The first of them had arrived.
It burst through the dimensional tear like a nightmare given flesh—a creature that defied description, its body a twisted mass of chitinous plates and crystalline growths that pulsed with an inner light. As it landed on the facility's outer walls, its massive claws carved through reinforced steel like paper. More tears appeared in the sky, disgorging dozens, then hundreds of similar abominations.
"Get everyone to the secure levels!" Sarah ordered, rushing to the vault that contained their prototype defense systems. They'd been developing these weapons to counter theoretical extradimensional threats, but she'd never truly believed they'd need them. Now, as screams echoed through the facility's corridors, she realized how naive they'd been.
The vault door wouldn't budge. "Override code Chen-Alpha-Seven-Nine!" she shouted, pressing her palm against the biosensor. Nothing happened. The power was out.
A thunderous crash shook the building as something massive landed on the roof. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and Sarah could hear the metal support beams groaning under immense pressure. Through the observation windows, she watched in horror as more creatures descended on the city of Geneva. Some took to the streets, tearing through civilians and military personnel alike. Others soared between buildings on impossible wings, raining down destruction from above.
The security teams were fighting back, but their conventional weapons might as well have been spitballs against the monsters' armor. A soldier emptied an entire magazine into one of the smaller creatures, only for the bullets to bounce off harmlessly before it lunged, taking his head clean off with a single bite.
Sarah's hands shook as she tried to transfer the research data to the backup servers. The world needed to know what they'd discovered in the weeks leading up to this catastrophe—the subtle changes in background radiation, the unexplained energy signatures that had appeared with increasing frequency. All the warning signs they'd dismissed as equipment malfunctions.
The ceiling finally gave way with a thunderous crash. Sarah dove beneath her desk as debris rained down, followed by something far worse. She could hear it moving, its crystalline appendages clicking against the floor as it searched the lab. Her breath caught in her throat as a tendril of darkness slithered past her hiding spot.
Then she felt it—a strange tingling sensation throughout her body, followed by a surge of... something. Power? Energy? The air around her hands began to shimmer with an ethereal blue light. Without thinking, she thrust her palm toward the searching tendril. A blast of pure force erupted from her hand, sending the creature staggering backward.
Sarah stared at her hands in shock, but there was no time to process what had just happened. More security personnel burst into the lab, and to her amazement, some of them were manifesting similar abilities—blasts of fire, shields of solidified air, spears of ice materializing from nothing.
Through the gaping hole in the ceiling, Sarah could see the Geneva skyline burning. The dimensional tears had grown larger, now stretching across the horizon like bleeding wounds in reality. This was only the beginning, she realized. Humanity's darkest hour was upon them, but with these newfound abilities, perhaps they had a fighting chance.
A deep, resonant sound echoed across the city—not quite a roar, not quite speech. The largest tear in the sky pulsed with malevolent energy as something began to emerge. Something big.
"God help us all," Sarah whispered, watching as the true invasion began. Behind her, the quantum resonance readings continued to spike, recording the moment that would become known as Monstrosity's Dawn—the day that changed everything.
The blue energy continued to course through her body as she stepped out from behind the desk. Around the world, others were discovering similar abilities, their bodies adapting to combat this otherworldly threat. But would it be enough? As Sarah watched more tears open in the sky, she knew humanity was about to find out.
The war for Earth's survival had begun.