Age of Monsters

Outside,the storm thunders its rage...Tongues its lightning at the towers of steel and glass...Spends it full force upon the city...Yet the towers stand.The storm is but an echo of the fury this city has seen.Safe and warm within my tower...Surrounded by the comforts of a mordern world...I hear that echo...And I tremble like a frighted child.The squall may pass by morning...But the memory of that day never shall.The memory of the day the towers fell...The day the world...My world,changed forever...The day he awoke...

A sound disturbed his slumber...Cut through his ageless dream os a world as fresh and green as creation...THE CALL...There were other things too,unfamiliar scents...A disquieting syncopation in the rhythms of the earth...But it was THE CALL that wakened him...

In the years since that time,many theories have tried to pinpoint The Begginning.Some tie it to the sightings of the Thunderbird in the remote parts of the world...Still others clam it began with the plague of locust...But I know it began with my father's discovery.It began with the Joseph Bell.

"It looks like a big bell,father"He took hold of my hand.

"Yes,but a very important bell,Noriko.My entire department is working on translating the carvings..."the bell was in a building site and the head builder shouted to father.

"HEY,YOU! YOSHIWARA! It's been two weeks,and this stinkin' bell still holding up construction ! and now one of your lab boys says the thing's radioactivity is increasing!"

"By a very small degree,yes.I assure you,Mr.Helzer,there is no need to worry"father started walking down a wooded brige covering the thick mud."Wait there Noriko".Mr Helzer contiued.

"I told your bosses at the university I'd give you a week for an on-site examination before we moved the bell.But nobody said nothin' about the "radioactive" business!" down next to the bell a man was putting his hand under the Joseph Bell.

"Please,Mr.Helzer,these things take time.You must understand to importance of the bell"
"I understand that you're holdin' up my companys project for a stupid bell"
"Not just a bell !The Joseph Bell is of great antiquity and as important in resolving ancient mysteries as the Rosetta Stone was in deciphering egyptian hieroglyphics.Its radioactivity is just one more reason to-eh?"A sceam came from the Joseph Bell.The worker was trying to force his arm from under the bell.Father and Helzer ran to him and helped.

"PULL!"
"NO! my arm!"

"He's almost free"A small slash of blood flew out and hit everyones faces,but what was on the end of the workers hand was heart freezing.Gripping onto the mans arm was a huge,monsterous,white snake with big souless eyes and razor shape fangs.Everyone was staring in horror as the man sceamed in pain.My father ran to the tools

"Don't just stand there!"he grabed a spade."KILL IT!" black blood was everywhere and the sound of the spade.THUNK,THUNK,THUNK.Then I came back to life again.

"Papa,I had a nightmare...Papa?" In the weeks after the construction site incident,father became withdrawn...He'd spend whole nights in his study,staring at his reports and scrolls and clippings,like a small bird tranfixed by the hypnotic movements of an appoaching rat climing up the tree to the nest of eggs.I remember wanting to tear them apart.Believing that the destruction of those omens might free my father from the doom they portened.But though my father documents could foretell the future,they could do little to forestall it...The world's fate was sealed...And the knowledge of that fate rested on my father's shoulders.I understand now the wight my father struggled with at the time...My mother was behind me.

"Its late,what are you doing out of bed,dear?"
"I had a bad dream,mama.About the white snake and the Joseph Bell"

"Oh,a nightmare? poor darling! your father and I explained to you that the white snake is dead.There's nothing for you to worry back to bed".I understand now why my father looked like a drowning man who had just been throw an anchor...

THE CALL...A roar in the silence...A light in the depths...A fire in his bones he could not ignore.After a sleep of centuries,he was awake.

Considering the strain my father was under,he should have been forgiven for his burealicratic short cuts...

"Dr.Hikeda,professors! I must speak with you!"
"You're too late,Yoshiwara! Dr.Hikeda has already given me permission to move the Joseph Bell to the university today!" Drowing men seldom observe formalities...

"The university? NO! you must take it out to sea and dump it! I have deciphered the carvings on the Joseph Bell.They are a warning about an "Age Of Monsters"

"Monsters? You're crazy,Yoshiwara!"

"According to the carvings,the Joseph Bell was put here,on Honshu thousands of years ago,before it was settled,to protect the rest of the world from the ravages of the "Disaster Monsters.Every three or four thousand years the monsters wake,an are somehow drawn to the Joseph Bell.I believe several of these monsters.

Warbeak,the Thunderbird

Asmodues,the Snake-King

And the fire monster,Cluny the Scougre

Have already awakened and are headed this way.Cluny the Scougre is especially to be feared,the carvings say" the men look at him as if he came out a mental hospital."You don't believe me.But you must! I have clippings.I have proof!" his superiors at the university were not forgiving men.

"Mario! You're home so early whats wrong?"asked my mother.

"Tomi...I have some bad news...Dr.Hikeda the others,they would not listen to me.They fired me from my post at the university...They said I was crazy"
"Fired you? how could they fire you after all the hard work you've put in?"
"Tomi,you don't understand.If my colleagues...My friends don't believe me,how can I warn the rest of the world before it's..." I shouted to them from the window.

"MOTHER! FATHER! Come quickly! something's happening outside!" they ran next to me."Look at all the locust!"

Before him fled the smaller creatures of the sea,made fearful by his stirring...They did not matter.The strange new taste in the deep did not matter...All that mattered was THE CALL...

I remember that afternoon in fragments...The mad dash from our apartment building,the air alive with winged,multi-legged bodies...And a sound like dried leaves crackling underfoot...

"Mario! Slow down! Why are you running?"
"TAXI!" The smell of the inside of the taxi...The smell of my father's fear..."Take us away from Tokyo,as fast as you can! ANYWHERE! JUST DRIVE!" The sound of it in his voice...

THE CALL...

I reamember mother clutching my hand very tight...And then tighter still...

"What's holding up tarfic?" my father shouted.

"I don't know! Somethings happerning at the docks!" shouted a man.

"Come on,we must walk" I reamember the look on father's face...The same look I have seen before...The rat was approaching...Seemingly against his will,father led us to the harbor.The waters of the bay were gone,displaced by a seething,writhing crush of life...Every living creature for a hundred miles must have forced their way into the harbor...Porposes sceamed their last fearful breaths to the crowd on the docks...Those creatures who were able,made their way across a landscape of staring eyes and fluttering gill slits...The sharks rose up in fear,as though even their own savagery was about to be eclipsed.I wondered what could make them all so fearful...But a glance at father told me it was the same thing he feared.

"We have to get away...That motorcycle RUN!"someone shouted from the docks

"Look! something's coming out of the bay!"

The terror rose from the bay...Its eye glared down at the crowd...As bright as fire..As cold as death.Its roar split the sky and shattered the towers of glass.But above the roar I heard my father shout.My father gave the terror a name...

"CLUNY THE SCOUGRE!" the age of monsters had began.

He stared at the unfamiliar world to which he'd awakened...A world the scurrying creatures at his feet had transformed.He remembered the world he had once ruled...And voiced his displeasure at the change.He had awakened in an age of monsters.

"Tomi,Noriko, hold tight! I have to get to the construction site!".

"Yoshiwara?"

At the construction site Helzer,In the frist time that I've seen him,had fear in his eys."Yoshiwara! What's going on? what's all the noise and smoke from the harbor?".For the first time in weeks I saw the fear go out of my fathers eyes.

"What's going on?! It's the very thing I warned you about.The monsters have awakened" behind him,with only a building in between,the terror stode."CLUNY THE SCOUGRE IS HERE!"

THE CALL.Its source was close...Very close.

Helzer started to run but father stoped him."Stop,Helzer! You can't run.There is work to do!

Somewhere,in the Pacific Ocean,a bird the size of a

plane flew in silence like the coming of dawn.

THE CALL...

"If you run,Helzer,the city is doomed!"
"But there's no time!" sweat poured from fathers face.

"You have two helicopters here.I will use one to buy you the time you need.But you must fly the Joseph Bell out to sea and drop it into the Japan Trench" he then came over to us and held mother and I close."Tomi...Noriko...I love you both...Tomi,take care of our daughter"

"Morio,no!" begged mother.

"Good-bye,Tomi.Good-bye,Noriko" Helzer continued

"Do you know anything about flying one of...."

"I can fly it well enough for what I must do.GO!".As they ran to the helicopters mother kissed me gently on the cheek.

"Hush,darling.Don't cry.Papa will be all right.

In one of the Hawaiian island the native people chanted

"Otara vey rama Asmodeus" and a gight egg hacth and in a cloud of wings and six legged locust.A huge adder slithered out.THE CALL...

The bird had overcome the fear of the rat.As father got in one of the helicopters and Helzer the other they took off.Helzer hooked the Joseph Bell and lifted off the ground.

"I hope this baby can lift the Joseph Bell by itself.While he was busy with that Cluny the Scougre turned his focus to mother and me.Seeing use as ants ready to be squashed.We started to run.Father saw this.

"NO! Stay away from my family" Cluny the Scougre looked up.

"That's right,monster,look up here! I'm going to send you back to hell !" suddenly he zoomed towards the gap in between his eye and his pacth.BOOM! he crashed into the terror.

THE CALL...So close...but the pain was closer...The fire...(Not his own!)...burned him and clung to him.And THE CALL...Grew fainter...Distant.The scurrying creatures would pay.

Cluny the Scougre stamped down out the building.My mother and I where in the path of the rubble of bricks.

"RUN,NORIKO!"

"Mama?" she sceamed as a ton of stone fell on top of her.After the dust cleared mother was completely covered over."Mama..." Cluny the Scougre turned and strode away.The pain and destruction he lef behind meant nothing to him.He was only interested in...

THE CALL.

Warbeak was insite of Cluny the Scougre and Tokyo THE CALL.

Asmodues slipped into the sea as his worshippers continued their chant"Rama Asmodeus!"THE CALL...

Meanwhile Helzer out the docks with Cluny the Scougre hot on his tail.

"Faster,baby,faster!"he said to the helicopter.Cluny the Scougre dived into the sea summoning huge waves."FASTER! Cluny the Scougre's gaining"the farther he got the more Cluny the Scougre was gaining."I'm not gonna make it! I've got to dump the Joseph Bell..."he pushed the button from the release but nothing happen."Huh?Somethings wrong with the release! It's jammed"SHREEAAAH! "What's that.Warbeak was flying obove the helicopter."ANOTHER ONE!"he voilently kept on push the release button."RELEASE,DAMN YOU RELEASE!" Cluny the Scougre's jaws filled with dagger like teeth breached out the sea below the helicopter.Suddenly Helzer heared a click and a splash."Thank god" the two titans dived for it.

THE CALL!

THE CALL!

Birds are not blit for swimming .THE CALL.She flapped out the cold water...So close...

Meanwhile Cluny the Scougre swam deeper...And deep...So close...Another time...Another age...

The age of the mosters was ended...For now.My world was ended...Forever.I lost my father and mother that day.But I found something as well...One of Cluny the Scougre's hairs...Something it has taken me all these years to decipher...To understand.A key...A key that will unlock the door of death for Cluny the Scougre...Sleep Cluny...Do not let the storm disturb your slumber...But remember,should you ever awaken...I will be waiting...