The Blackened Land

I remember the world’s reaction when the new land arose from the pounding waters of the sea, a small island barely half the size of New Zealand suddenly appeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The island was covered in tall, leafy trees and large, rocky mountains. At first the world was in a mixture of excitement and curiosity, wondering what new adventures the new land held and how it just managed to appear almost overnight with nobody noticing. First there was simply water, and then it was there, land breaking through the water and lying there as if that had been its resting place since Pangaea. Scientists were baffled. Some called it impossible while others searched for a logical explanation to how it came to be.

America was the first nation to send explorers to survey the new land. The explorers had cameras that began filming them as they first stepped foot onto the island, and the cameras sent live footage around the world. People were glued to their computers and television sets, watching eagerly as the first documented footage of the new land was made. Surely this would go down as a key moment in history!

About 10 seconds into the broadcast, the cameras suddenly turned to static. None of the explorers, nor the boat that brought them to the island, was ever seen again.

Pandemonium ensued as everybody tried to come up with their own theories. The island was a living sea creature. The island was a camera-free zone. The island was full of gods who weren’t pleased. Finally, nations around the world tried to focus satellites on it so they could get proper images, but every camera turned into static after being aimed at the island for more than 10 seconds.

However, somebody managed to get signs of life from the satellite cameras in the first 10 seconds, one of the island’s native creatures walking through the forest. Pictures were distributed on the Internet of the new being, and people were frightened of its strange black, sleek body, lack of eyes over a gaping mouth of sharp teeth, twitching antennae and all four of its long legs. People were frantically spreading rumors about it, insisting that there were more of them and that they were going to invade the rest of the world. It was a tense few days after that, people jumping at the slightest sound… I guess somebody in power couldn’t take it anymore. The next thing we knew, news stations were telling us that the new land had been nuked. Nobody was sure who it was, nations blamed each other, and before we knew it we were on the brink of World War 3.

The arguing over who fired the nuclear missile was immediately ceased as soon as more footage came from the newly-destroyed chunk of Earth that used to be a new land. The footage was unique, in that it did not turn to static within 10 seconds. There was movement over the blackened, destroyed Earth, one of the creatures was scuttling across the barren wasteland that looked like a irradiated, black version of a field… and then more creatures came from underground to join the first one. Soon, the creature was joined by thousands of them on that tiny rock of an island, destination unknown to the world.

I don’t know if the black island is like that because of the nuke, or because of the monsters covering it. I hope to god it’s the second one… they said that they’ve scanned the island, and the monsters aren’t showing up on the scans.