The skies over Earth had been quiet for a generation. The great monster incursions were fading into history, something grandparents told wide-eyed children about. The massive defense cannons that dotted the cities were silent, their barrels slowly rusting.
Then Kaelis came.
He didn't mean to cause a panic. He was simply following a scent, a faint thermal signature laced with Thorne magic and a familiar, bitter pain. But when a creature the size of a battleship, with scales of obsidian and wings that blotted out the sun, suddenly descends through the cloud layer, people tend to notice.
Sirens that hadn't wailed in twenty years began to scream across coastal cities. News channels broke into their broadcasts with shaky, zoomed-in footage of the dark shape moving with impossible speed and grace. Social media exploded. The word on everyone's lips was the same, whispered in terror and disbelief: "Kaiju."
Is it back? Are they back?
