Chapter 2: Requiem

August 13th, 2013, Monarch Holding Facility, Location Unknown

A florescent bulb buzzed to life three feet above. Light came to a small square room of painted cement bricks. There was a desk of pressed wood at the center and a single unfolded chair. A one-way mirror on the opposite wall presented the room's duplicate. There was a buzz as an electric lock was released. One door slid open and a young woman dressed in tough, sanitized clothing entered. The door behind her slid shut with an echoing finality. A few weeks ago the young woman would have panicked being stranded in this environment. The stale air would have suffocated her and the frozen stillness of the cement would have made her nauseous. Now they came as a balm to the madness that ate at her. The anxiety at who was watching her from behind the mirror would have once left the woman stuttering. Today though, she saw her tired, defeated double staring back at her and could not muster the slightest curiosity. The woman did not have to breathe salt air, did not had to feel the waves again, and those were the only comforts she could think to want. So she sat in the chair presented to her and waited.

The wait was not long. The door opened and a man entered followed by a woman. The man was of Asian descent and looked to be in his sixties. A small laptop was folded under his arm. The woman was Caucasian, a couple decades younger than the man and in lieu of any electronics she held a clip board and a look of intense curiosity.

"Ms. Jones?" asked the man, with a distinct Japanese accent. He held out a hand for her to shake. The tired woman in the seat was not expecting this formality but rose to greet the man. There was an unusual scruffiness about this Asian male, something she had not seen from the others in this facility. All the others she encountered here spoke and acted with trained discipline and blank demeanor. This man's tie was loose, his smile warm, and his eyes twinkled with sympathy. Though he was not a soldier his battered jacked still bore the emblem worn by everyone else in this facility- two triangles touching tips in the center to give the vaguest impression of the wings of a butterfly, or a moth. "I am Dr. Ishiro Serizawa," the Japanese man continued, giving her what he probably thought was a reassuring handshake, "Thank you for speaking with us today. This is my associate, Dr. Vivienne Graham."

The white woman stepped forward and offered her own hand. This handshake was gentle and calculated. "A pleasure," she said with reverence and a British accent before retreating back behind the older man.

"We must apologize, Ms. Jones" said Serizawa, before pausing. "How do you prefer being addressed?" he asked.

"Req," responded Req reflexively, leaning into what had become an automatic explanation, "My full name is Requiem Jones, but I usually just go by Req." The British lady made a note in her file. "Requiem isn't that unusual a name in Jamaica," Req felt a need to add.

"It's a lovely name," Dr. Graham promised, "You grew up in Jamaica then?"

"Yes ma'am," Req told her. "My mother was Irish," she provided while gesturing to the rust color of her dreadlocks and the platter of darker freckles across her already-dark skin that make her look like a living Pollock painting. Her parentage was another thing Req usually had to explain at each introduction.

"And you are a nature photographer?" Dr. Graham inquired from her file.

"Of a sort," said Req. "I don't often do the filming directly. I'm employed as a dive specialist, keeping scientists and film makers safe when they have to venture into the open ocean. Nature documentaries are my most frequent employers. Usually for the BBC or Chinese television. I won't work for the Discovery Channel. Not after those damn CGI mermaid shows."

"And this is what brought you to the South China Sea during the events of last Tuesday?" asked Serizawa. He placed the laptop in front of Req. She knew this moment was coming, ever since her eyes noticed what Serizawa was holding. Still cold electricity stiffened Req's muscles in the anticipation.

"Y, yes," clarified Req. She cleared her throat. "I was with a group from the BBC. We were hoping to film sperm whales in the open ocean. And we found them. But then…"

After Req trailed off Serizawa stepped forward. "I apologize. We would not press you for information if it wasn't of vital, global importance. I want to show you the footage we recovered from the video feed on your diver's suit. I was hoping you could describe what we are seeing. Is this acceptable?"

To her surprise Req found herself believing that if she said no, this man would actually close the laptop and leave her be. This Japanese gentleman filled every word he said with absolute sincerity. Instead she nodded, Serizawa pressed a key, and the laptop began to play.

"Don't get too close!" Came Req's own, microphone-warped voice. "Todd? TODD! These aren't humpbacks!" Part of Req still recognized how fantastic this footage was. Three sperm whales, two adults and a juvenile gracefully drifted through beams of sunlight that flickered through the waves above. But the focus from this lens was not on the aquatic mammals, but on a diver getting closer and closer to the smallest of the whales. The mother's eyes were locked on the invading diver, but he paid her little attention.

"I'm not much of a photographer," present-day Req confessed as a matter of explanation, "but the producers usually keep a small camera on my diving helmet just in case. Sometimes I catch something that makes it into the series. If nothing else my footage can be used for some Making of special."

"Chist on a fucking cracker, Todd! Are you even listening to me?" yelled Req in the footage.

"My audio doesn't usually make the cut though," Req admitted. A collection of words not often allowed on television then poured from the laptop, all directed at the careless diver. "Did you ever find him?" Req asked, "Todd I mean?"

"We did," said Serizawa, "I am sorry, he did not survive. Were you close?"

"Actually I thought he was an asshole," Req told him, "He kept trying to teach the local native islanders about Jesus. Always assumed he knew my job better than I did."

"No, Todd!" yelled Req's distorted voice from the laptop, "Move five more meters away. I can pull you from the team Todd. Look at mama whale. She's going to go Moby Dick on your ass."

"Almost makes it worse," said live-action Req, "If he had been a good man at least I'd know how to mourn him."

There were two others on this dive, Leslie and Xavier. They were filming back by the whales' flukes and spoke to one another over the coms as if Todd's scolding was not taking place. Now it was Req trying not to notice their voices on the feed. Both were dead, this Req already knew. The other soldiers told her as much when she was brought here. With Todd's death confirmed Req realized she was now the only survivor. It made Req wonder what these soldiers would do with her when she was no longer needed. It would be all too easy to record the survival list as zero and there was clearly a lot of power backing this outfit. For some reason Req did not worry too much about this. The future didn't feel like a place she belonged anymore.

A final moment of peace passed on the video. Grudgingly Todd kept his distance and the four filmed the whale family in relative harmony. Back in the cement room Req breathed deep, the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight. She knew what was about to happen. The horrible event was heralded by a great deal of excited cross chat on the radio feed. "One at a time!" video-Req shouted back, "One speaker at a time! Xavier, what's the problem?" And that was when Xavier gave her the simple instruction of "look down."

The camera on Req's helmet turned to the depths. At first there was nothing. Then an electric blue lit up in the inky abyss. It had no distinct shape, just a long fuzzy ellipsoid of light. A great deal of expletives cackled on the radio feed. Seeing it again in her concrete bunker Req couldn't help but marvel once more. How big was that thing? How deep? The light from the depths vanished, but only for a moment. When it re-lit, it did so only in sections. Then it lit in a wave, back and forth across whatever shape this thing made. All of Req's doomed colleagues marveled and gasped from the laptop's speakers.

"I don't suppose you know what that was," Req commented to her captors.

"We have some suspicions," Serizawa admitted.

"We would like to hear your thoughts on this," said Graham, "You've been diving as long as anyone."

"I spent more of my childhood on a boat than on solid land," Req admitted, "I've been on or in the ocean all my life but I've never seen anything like this."

"How deep would you say those lights go?" Graham asked.

"Based on the visual distortion I would guess, maybe, thousands of feet? But that would mean this thing would have to be larger than a couple of aircraft carriers. It's bio-luminescent, that I'm pretty sure of. My first guess would be an algae swell; that would at least account for the size. But it's too bright, algae are simple, single-celled organisms. The depth is also a problem- algae need sunlight to grow. Also the patterns are too complex for a collection of individual life forms. They almost remind me of the light shows cuttlefish display when they want to confuse predators. Or when they go hunting."

On the feed the glow from the deep came to a halt. You could see Leslie and Xavier keeping their cameras locked on the point the light show vanished. Todd began foolishly swimming as far down as he could. The recorded Req didn't bother to yell at him again. Instead Req's camera spun about, then locked onto the dark oval above them that was their boat. Her instincts back then were screaming in her head to get everyone out of the water, but they came too late.

"I wish I had noticed earlier," Req told her interviewers, "how fast the whales had swam away."

Then came the growl. It had to be a growl; there was no other way to describe that sound, that deep guttural bass that seemed to fill the entire ocean. It had made Req's body vibrate end to end and the video feed shivered into static a couple of times before popping back online. Req had been yelling something but even from her own microphone you couldn't hear her words until the growl came to a stop. Even then you had to wait until the ringing was out of your ears before you make out Req's screams. "GET BACK IN THE BOAT! RIGHT NOW! EVERYONE BACK IN THE DAMN BOAT!"

From her feed you could see both Xavier and Leslie turn and struggle to move as fast as possible towards the boat's outline on the water's surface. Todd was nowhere to be seen. On the com Req could hear her own gasps as she tried to follow them. Their speed looked comically slow in the footage. Their boat seemed impossibly far away. Now Req realized her eyes had been so focused on the boat's outline above she didn't see the horribly immense dark mass that was rushing toward them from the side. But now she did see it, as well as the horrible ripple on the surface it made where the fin broke through. It alone was several times wider than the boat that was their hope for salvation. At the time the only warning Req got was the screams on the coms of the workers still aboard. She heard them again now and it turned her blood solid.

It hit, and everything was chaos. Req wasn't struck directly, but the moving thing's wake tossed her violently in the water. It was more like a hurricane than a whirlpool. She remembered blood burst from her nose at this point. It took several insanely long seconds for Req to right herself and check her surroundings. Xavier and Leslie were still there, but much farther away. Xavier was inert and sinking, but Leslie was diving desperately to recover him. The feed turned upward and spun in desperation. The boat. They had to find the boat. But there was no sign of it. The surface settled back into a shimmer and was empty. That was impossible though, even if the boat was sinking she would still be able to see the damn thing.

Horribly, Req then spotted a familiar pattern of colors in the air above the sea. From god-knows-how-high the boat fell from the sky. It crashed into the surface, already a splintered wreck. She didn't remember seeing it at the time, but there in the footage the smashed boat clearly replaced the space once filled by the tiny forms of Leslie and Xavier. Poor Leslie had gotten her arms around Xavier and was pushing them both upwards but they never had a chance. The camera turned from the couple's last moment as Req tried to now swim away from the sinking wreck. Below her was a dark shape, larger than a whale, larger than a hundred whales. It was serpentine; sliding beneath her at a speed nothing that large should be able to manage. And it was rising as it swam.

Once again Req changed directions in a bid for safety and once again it was an experiment in futility. The tail of this thing was soon upon her. This size of it consumed her entire world. Her camera got a brief glimpse of an emerald scale larger than Req's body before it hit. She was flung out of the water, maybe six feet before crashing back down. The tail of the thing had barely brushed the surface, but it tossed her from the ocean like she was a bit of sea foam. After Req had crashed back underwater her camera got one nice image of a long, snake-like tail ending in a large, spiny flipper disappearing into the deep blue. After this Req would spend the next few hours bobbing on the ocean surface, struggling to stay conscious despite the pain of what would turn out to be three broken ribs and enough bruising to turn half her body purple. In the end she would get rescued, not by China, or Indonesia, or even the BBC. Req would be fished from the water by this strange organization with the triangle/ butterfly logo. They had known long before anyone else.

At least Req would not have to relive her wait and rescue. Serizawa turned off the laptop. "Please forgive me," he said, "but it is vital we understand what happened to you this day. It could have dire consequences for the future."

"It didn't attack us," Req realized, "didn't even notice us. We were just there, in its way. Just a flip of a tail. What was it?"

"We do not know," Serizawa admitted, "The creature you faced is not one our organization has encountered before."

"The glow from earlier," realized Req, "It wasn't from the same thing as the one that hit us. Wrong shape. The thing that hit us was like some serpent."

"Was there anything familiar to you about this creature?" Graham asked, "Anything about its scales, its color, its fin that you would see in local wildlife?"

"I didn't get a great look," said Req, "and nothing I did see made sense. It had scales, but they weren't fish scales. They were reptilian but with a shimmer you don't see in aquatic reptiles. The fin had irradiating spines, but those only exist in boney fish. In terms of cladistics I don't see anywhere it fits in on the tree of life."

Vivian took a few more notes, and Req took the opening to ask a question of her own. "How did Todd die?" she asked. The two doctors gave each other a terrible look. "Just tell me," Req said.

"Mr. Millar was dragged downwards," said Serizawa, "To the point where the added pressure crushed his suit and helmet."

Dr. Graham picked up this thread. "In those depths he also got exposed to extreme heat. Do you know how he might have encountered such temperatures? A volcanic vent perhaps?"

"How hot are we talking?"

"Hot enough that his suit was melted into him," Serizawa said with a grimace, "They could not be surgically separated."

Req then exclaimed a number of expressions the BBC would have not have let on air. "Was this heat damage localized to one part of the body or was it uniform?" Req asked when she was done stringing expletives.

"Uniform," Dr. Graham answered.

"Then no, it wasn't a vent," responded Req, "They only release heat like that over a very small area. Sorry."

"You are being exceedingly helpful," promised Serizawa.

"We have one last inquiry. Have you spoken much with the local island nations?" Graham questioned, "Specifically do you know of anything in local folklore that might reflect the being you encountered? As a deity or demon perhaps?"

"I don't speak many of the local languages," Req admitted, "This is a bit far from my home surf. But…" She paused a moment to fish out the memory. "There was one moment that stood out for me. It wasn't for this job; it was a couple years back and a bit closer to Indonesia. A young boy was playing with a hand-made toy, a snake made from bits of wood that made a slithering movement when you held it right. I had something like it as a kid. This one was a little different though, its face looked more like a lion than a snake and it had little legs pinned on each side of its body. The child called the toy Manda. He wasn't the only one; I heard most of the children mention Manda at some point during the shoot. I asked the village matriarch, she was fairly fluent in English. According to her Manda worked like the European bogeyman, a tale to scare children into obedience. Story was Manda was a mischievous dragon that lived deep below. It loved playing with disobedient children, so if you caused trouble Manda would swim up at night, grab you, and drag you down to the Drowned City to play with him forever and ever. It wasn't exactly a god, but the story stuck with me."

"What was this Drowned City?" Graham asked.

Req shrugged. "I didn't understand that part. Maybe it's something like the lost city of Mu? A purgatory for the souls of disobedient children? I got the impression it wasn't somewhere you wanted to be."

"Do you remember where this island was?"

"Not off-hand. I could probably figure out if I looked up my travel history. I would need my phone back though. Sooner would be better than later. Rising sea levels are already starting to swallow up some of those islands. Entire cultures are already being dismantled and scattered wherever the natives find sanctuary. Who knows what's already been lost."

"We will get you your phone, soon as we can," promised Serizawa.

There was an uncomfortable silence, which didn't get any more comfy when Req bluntly asked them, "Am I going to be shot? For what I've seen?"

Graham and Serizawa exchanged a look. "No," Serizawa insisted, "Monarch is not in the habit of killing witnesses."

"We do ask you be guarded with others regarding what you have seen," Graham was quick to add, "The world is full of monsters like this serpent. We are doing what we can to prepare for the day when their existence will be obvious to all. And we would like to push that date as far in the future as we can."

Serizawa slid a black business card towards Requiem. It carried the Monarch logo and a single phone number. "In fact it has been unofficial Monarch policy to recruit those who have gotten swept into our field of study," he said, "Your expertise in underwater exploration would be of great value to us."

"But of course we also understand that today's events have been traumatizing," Graham added, "that number can also connect you to a number of councilors employed by Monarch specially trained to deal with the trauma caused by an encounter with a Titan."

"Please though, only discuss what happened today with those who can trust to remain silent," Serizawa finished.

"But why?" Req asked, "If these things are out there and they are that much of a threat, why not tell the world? We could pool the planet's resources, come up with a plan to protect ourselves."

Serizawa took a good moment to consider his response. "Ms. Req," he said, "You mentioned these islands disappearing thanks to rising sea levels. Why is it that the sea is rising?"

"Climate change," Req said with a shrug.

"A threat that has been well known to the world for decades, one with viable solutions that have never been acted upon in any meaningful way. Thanks to greed, ignorance and superstition any attempt to alleviate the damage has been circumvented. It is our opinion that the best way to proceed is to do so without the influence of politicians, religious leaders, the military and men of industry for so long as they can be avoided."

And that was that. The official story was that Req's team was hit with a freak storm that destroyed the boat and left her the only survivor. Requiem's phone was returned, she gave the two doctors the rest of the information they asked for, and she was let go with a blank ticket to anywhere on the planet Req wanted to go. Jamaica was out; Req couldn't live near the sea anymore. Even the smell of saltwater triggered her flight or fight mode. Req had a brother that married an American girl in Michigan- far from any shoreline. They didn't need much convincing to take her in. Everyone accepted that Req was suffering some kind of PTSD, and maybe she was.

Stubbornness kept Req from calling one of Monarch's councilors. Req's brother set his basement up for her, and for Req it was perfect. She wanted to be left underground. Months went by and Req rarely even ventured to the ground floor. Her brother and his wife never mentioned it, but Req could see the worry in their eyes every time they spoke. The question of 'how long do you plan on staying here' was always in the air but never spoken. Requiem wouldn't have an answer anyway. It felt like she was living in a different reality as everyone else. Try as she might she couldn't make her way back to the simple, cozy, monster-less universe her brother inhabited. In the end though, she wouldn't have to.

It was on Friday, May 16th 2014. There had been an unusual prolonged silence from the house above. Even from the basement Requiem could feel the tension. After ascending the stairs she found her brother and his wife together on the couch wrapped in a blanket. They were barely bothering to blink while their eyes were fixed on the television, on some breaking news report. Requiem turned to see what had memorized them and witnessed Monarch's collective shit hitting the world's fan.