Dark vapor wafted through the frigid room, the flickering yellow incandescent lights casting an eerie glow. In the center, the room's sole occupant hunched over a grimy metal table, his once-white uniform now a dingy gray; yellow stains pockmarking it like infected pustules on a plague victim. Bloodshot eyes peered out from sunken sockets, a haunted gaze that had bore witness to unspeakable horrors.

The man took a deep, slow breath, savoring a moment of silence before exhaling a plume of dark smoke. It curled through the air, infusing the room with the acrid scent of nicotine.

The door swung open and a woman marched in, a stack of papers clutched in her arms. "Admiral, I have those files you wanted." Her lips twisted in revulsion as she surveyed the squalid room, but she bit back any comment.

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He snarled, "Leave them and go."

The woman dropped the papers off at his desk and gave him a glare. "Asshole," she muttered under her breath.

Pivoting on her heel, she strode out, slamming the door behind her with a resounding bang.

The admiral glared after her, his eyes smoldering with loathing. Monsters, every last one of them. They should have been wiped out along with the abyssals, nothing but beasts hiding behind human masks.

Grabbing one of the papers she had left behind, he held it up to the dim light. "What did that freak drop on my table this time?" As his eyes scanned the page, his scowl morphed into a look of sheer dread.

Leaping to his feet, the admiral shouted, "Iowa, get me the president! It's CODE-BLACK!"

The satellite images splayed across the table foretold a catastrophe the world had never before seen. A disaster of cataclysmic proportions loomed on the horizon.