Spoiler:
As the light faded, the darkness’ talons began to claim their grip upon the surface of Earth. The shadows crept forward with the setting Sun, slowly growing as the rays of the distant star became lower and fainter, leaving only fleeting glances of its light between the tall and rugged trunks and branches of the forest. All across its far territory, the animal denizens started to settle down in preparation for the coming night, huddling together in herd or scarpering into holes and burrows. On the opposite spectrum, those that were brave enough to make use of the cold, dark hours that lay ahead waited in anticipation for the conditions to be right. Eager for the hunt to begin.
It was not a particularly special forest that Riku Asakura found himself standing in, just another of the many redwood bastions that spanned the Northern Californian coast. The sight of these colossal plants would have been awe-inspiring, had he not seen similar woods back home composed of the American flora’s Asian relatives. Of course, the coast redwoods and giant sequoia could reach over twice the height of the Japanese cedar that the Japanese youth was familiar with, but it was little more than meaningless trivia. From the viewpoint of Riku, size was a concept that no longer carried meaning.
He hadn’t come halfway around the world, far, far away from his home of Japan, to take in the sights of America, but for something greater. As he looked away from the towering canopy, with its dense layers of branches and leaves hindering light from reaching the soil below, the young adult trekked away from the darkening forest into the clearing chosen for him. His new location let him better track the position of the Sun as it lowered closer towards the unseen horizon. Soon, night would be upon the landscape, plunging these woods into pitch darkness, leaving every creature here, man or beast, at the mercy of nature’s judgement.
But the reason for Riku’s mission was unlike anything that nature had intended. Within the twilight hours, he would begin to make his move and seek out the abnormality that plagued not only this region, but the whole planet itself. Something malignant, repulsive and unnatural that should only have existed in camp fire stories and terrible dreams in the night, but instead held the forsaken right to walk and stalk the Earth.
Siren Head.
No one could truthfully say anything on the creature’s existence; where it came from, how it behaved or what it wanted. The common information came from tales of fiction spread across the Internet by those aiming to generate fear and interest in pursuit of becoming the next big trend in digital media. These stories were the first information that Riku found upon it, and he wished that the well of evidence had dried up there, leaving Siren Head as nothing more but another bogeyman of the 21st century to have its time in the spotlight and fade into obscurity.
That changed over 24 hours ago. A normal day was the start of the events that led him here, where the occupants of Nebula House had received a surprise visit from Zena and Moa, not as friends, but as agents of the AIB. Riku could remember the confusion that ran through his mind while Zena explained the reason for their arrival, bringing with him a video recording taken from the body cameras of a squad from the organisation’s American branch. His eyes squeezed shut, lowering his head with an expression of grimace as he recounted the details of the footage…
It was a reconnaissance and rescue operation. A transport ship had taken damage within the fields of spank junk across the planet’s outer atmosphere and crash-landed inside the boundaries of Redwood National Park, carrying almost a hundred refugees from Planet Fanegon. From what was available in RE.M’s database, it was an isolated, backwater, but fairly peaceful planet, but had been left decimated during the events of the Omega Armageddon and forced the slug-like people to find another home amongst the cosmos.
When AIB forces had secured the crash site, the majority of the population had been recovered and detained without issue. However, witnesses claimed that a few, disorientated and terrified by the disaster, had split off from the group and fled deep into the forest. With darkness fast approaching, a small team went off in search of the missing aliens while the light was still good, as locating a group of stressed-out extra-terrestrials under the cover of night would prove to be a difficult operation.
As the recording progressed, nothing appeared to come off as wrong at first, following the search party’s exploration into the towering trees, while the daylight continued to grow fainter and fainter with every passing minute. The trunks of the forest and their crooked webs of branches seemed to take on twisted shapes and forms in the low light conditions, and as the footage continued onwards, neither Riku, Laiha nor Pega could shake off a sense of dread that appeared to consume them. Although they had yet to see it, each member of the trio began to understand that something inside the recording was wrong.
Then, at the moment when the rescuers finally located the missing Fanegons, they heard it. Even after only hearing it once, hours before, the sound of that haunting, distorted siren continued to echo within his thoughts, repeating over and over in a tormenting cycle. In the footage, the siren played loudly across the forest, and he had been the first to recognise the expressions of terror that fell across the Fanegon’s faces, while the agents simply searched the air in confusion.
A minute later, as the last beams of sunlight peaked the horizon, the broadcast came to a sudden halt, and there was silence across the woods. Complete silence. No bird song, deer calls or rustling of the wind in the leaves. The sensation of terror gripped the viewers in its vice-like grip.
And only minutes later did it arrive. The Siren Head, as he would later learn was its name.
It wasn’t a battle, but a scene out of a slasher movie. With his eyes closed, the images flashed before his vision as clear as ice. Riku remembered how he could only stare in horror at the bloody carnage that flashed across the screen as the thing ripped through the pack of aliens, innocent and armed alike, with brutality unlike nothing he had seen. Nackle, Serpent, Keel, Zamu – all powerful alien races whose members had been amongst the AIB’s ranks that should have stood a chance against the mysterious creature. It tore them all apart with ease, but not haste. It used the forest’s dark and claustrophobic setting to stalk and prey upon its victims, picking them off one-by-one. Sometimes, it was obvious, but others… people would simply step out of the camera’s focus and never appear again.
The violent scene was enough to bring innocent Pega to tears, and Laiha, normally so stoic, was broken by the horror before their eyes. Riku felt fear, and he felt sorrow, but above all of that, a stronger emotion burned at the monstrous images. One more primal that linked back to the genes behind the youth’s creation. There was no misunderstanding what this creature was and what it wanted. It was a monster, in both the plainest and extremest terms, and thus it was the responsibility – no, the duty of the AIB and himself to oppose and defeat.
And now here he was, in the middle of practically nowhere, far from the nearest point of civilisation on the hunt for the mysterious creature. Aside from the gruesome footage captured and the poor and conflicting evidence gathered from the “stories” of Siren Head, there wasn’t a way from Zena and Moa or RE.M to locate or track it down. At the moment, the two agents, plus Laiha and Pega were situated around two miles out from their location inside the ship form of Nebula House, monitoring the vast area while communicating with AIB HQ in their best efforts to try and pin down whatever it was they were facing.
But the fact of the matter was, no one knew what to do, or even what they could do with the revelations provided by the deceased agent’s recordings. They were going in blind against an enemy that was impossible to understand or acknowledge. The concept was frightening.
That was why, in spite of their heavy protests, Riku had chosen to go it alone for this mission. He couldn’t be the one to let his friends be put at the mercy of this unearthly monster. It had to be him alone who took up the task of confronting the entity before it took any more lives. But more than that, Riku felt that he had to be him that did this, drawn to answer the call to arms, as if destiny itself had organised events to ensure that this encounter came to be, for whatever unknown intentions it had for the innocent youth.
Long ago, Riku had fought tooth and nail to reject the plans of fate and forge his own legacy amongst the universe, away from the foul shadow cast upon his name by the reputation of his now-departed father. But here and now, the circumstances were different, with the stands of Destiny’s web pointed towards an outcome that he was determined to make happen.
Whatever happened tonight, Riku would embrace his destiny as an Ultraman.
He opened his eyes, sensing a change in the atmosphere. Silence. Moments before, the clearing was filled with the last bird song of the evening, and in the distance, the eerie calls of elk and wolves as they prepared for the activities of the night. Now there was nothing at all. Even the wind had fallen quiet, no longer whistling through the forest, rustling the tree tops. For the first time since setting foot in the forest, Riku could hear nothing but himself. It was if nature had called for silence and the forests had obeyed, as animals did when they wanted to avoid drawing the attention of a stalking predator.
But what kind of predator could instil such paralysing fear into nature itself? Riku looked across and around the clearing, holding his breath as he waited for the answer to reveal itself. He wanted to be right, but at the same time… his trembling hands gave away the weakness in his courage.
Finally, a new sound broke the tension in the air, causing Riku to turn his gaze towards North. It was an artificial, distorted sound, a dull beep or buzz, like a warning siren, that played over and over in a loop, echoing far across the park’s slopes and valleys. It was not a sound that would be expected to hear deep in the Californian wilderness, but there was something more than that. Something not quite right with the blaring noise that Riku couldn’t pinpoint, but it sent a tingle of anticipated dread running down the length of his spine. This was the same sound that had played throughout the horrifying encounter with the AIB and the lost refugees, the proof that the youth needed, but never wanted to hear. It was still here.
Steeling his nerves, the artificial teen drew out the flare pistol stashed in the inner pocket of his jacket, clenching the grip and trigger in a hold like iron as he mustered up the courage he would undoubtedly need. The park had been closed down by order of the AIB, using the cover story of an overnight rescue training exercise to explain away the events of tonight and the night before. In theory, there shouldn’t be another human around for miles except for himself and his companions, but in this scenario, the room for error would have consequences that Riku would not allow himself to bear.
Perhaps there were campers or hikers still within the boundaries that hadn’t received the closure message, unaware of the danger they were now in. Or maybe, instead of hunting for its prey, the creature might use its mimicry of sound to lure in unsuspecting peoples from the numerous towns that surrounded the forest. He couldn’t run the risk of it choosing another target upon the eve of the forthcoming night, so to preserve their lives, Riku had to do the unthinkable. He had to draw out its attention.
With a puff of smoke, the red radiance of the emergency flare showered the clearing as it shot up into the orange sky, casting twisted shadows across the moss and bark that littered the forest floor using the gnarled branches that hung above. For miles around, the glowing orb would be visible like a second sun upon the horizon and unmissable to the naked eye. Riku loosened his grip, allowing the empty flare gun to clatter to the ground as he craned upwards to track the rising signal. His heightened senses listened out for any form of response from his quarry, sweat forming upon the teen’s brow and hands shaking nervously. Would the living nightmare take the bait?
The broadcast cut off suddenly, allowing serenity to fall back over the woodland. Stuck between a breath of relief and a wave of terror, Riku’s heart felt like freezing up inside his chest while he waited longer. His fists stopped trembling just enough for him to cross his fingers, silently praying to every name that crossed his mind for this plan to work.
‘Please, please, please…’
A horrible noise sounded out, like a cross between a broken tornado siren and the unearthly scream of something spawned outside of this world. It knew.
In the distance came the faint sounds of demolition as the source of the call began to move towards the flare’s location. Riku was left surprised by the speeds that it seemed to be achieving, as the quiet chorus slowly and steadily began to rise in volume to signify its approach. It meant there was little time to make his own move. No time at all to hesitate and second guess his actions, forcing the teen to take responsibility for the choices made this evening. No running away now. It was time to face a new destiny, whatever it may be.
He equipped the Geed Riser to his hand and raised it before him. His knuckles turned white from how tightly he clutched the item, with only his steeled nerves stopping the youth’s arm from shaking. In the flare’s crimson glow, however, his brown eyes appeared to shine bright with courage, as he chanted the words that had kept him going in the moments of despair that came before.
“Sitting around doing nothing won’t get us anywhere!”
It was not a particularly special forest that Riku Asakura found himself standing in, just another of the many redwood bastions that spanned the Northern Californian coast. The sight of these colossal plants would have been awe-inspiring, had he not seen similar woods back home composed of the American flora’s Asian relatives. Of course, the coast redwoods and giant sequoia could reach over twice the height of the Japanese cedar that the Japanese youth was familiar with, but it was little more than meaningless trivia. From the viewpoint of Riku, size was a concept that no longer carried meaning.
He hadn’t come halfway around the world, far, far away from his home of Japan, to take in the sights of America, but for something greater. As he looked away from the towering canopy, with its dense layers of branches and leaves hindering light from reaching the soil below, the young adult trekked away from the darkening forest into the clearing chosen for him. His new location let him better track the position of the Sun as it lowered closer towards the unseen horizon. Soon, night would be upon the landscape, plunging these woods into pitch darkness, leaving every creature here, man or beast, at the mercy of nature’s judgement.
But the reason for Riku’s mission was unlike anything that nature had intended. Within the twilight hours, he would begin to make his move and seek out the abnormality that plagued not only this region, but the whole planet itself. Something malignant, repulsive and unnatural that should only have existed in camp fire stories and terrible dreams in the night, but instead held the forsaken right to walk and stalk the Earth.
Siren Head.
No one could truthfully say anything on the creature’s existence; where it came from, how it behaved or what it wanted. The common information came from tales of fiction spread across the Internet by those aiming to generate fear and interest in pursuit of becoming the next big trend in digital media. These stories were the first information that Riku found upon it, and he wished that the well of evidence had dried up there, leaving Siren Head as nothing more but another bogeyman of the 21st century to have its time in the spotlight and fade into obscurity.
That changed over 24 hours ago. A normal day was the start of the events that led him here, where the occupants of Nebula House had received a surprise visit from Zena and Moa, not as friends, but as agents of the AIB. Riku could remember the confusion that ran through his mind while Zena explained the reason for their arrival, bringing with him a video recording taken from the body cameras of a squad from the organisation’s American branch. His eyes squeezed shut, lowering his head with an expression of grimace as he recounted the details of the footage…
It was a reconnaissance and rescue operation. A transport ship had taken damage within the fields of spank junk across the planet’s outer atmosphere and crash-landed inside the boundaries of Redwood National Park, carrying almost a hundred refugees from Planet Fanegon. From what was available in RE.M’s database, it was an isolated, backwater, but fairly peaceful planet, but had been left decimated during the events of the Omega Armageddon and forced the slug-like people to find another home amongst the cosmos.
When AIB forces had secured the crash site, the majority of the population had been recovered and detained without issue. However, witnesses claimed that a few, disorientated and terrified by the disaster, had split off from the group and fled deep into the forest. With darkness fast approaching, a small team went off in search of the missing aliens while the light was still good, as locating a group of stressed-out extra-terrestrials under the cover of night would prove to be a difficult operation.
As the recording progressed, nothing appeared to come off as wrong at first, following the search party’s exploration into the towering trees, while the daylight continued to grow fainter and fainter with every passing minute. The trunks of the forest and their crooked webs of branches seemed to take on twisted shapes and forms in the low light conditions, and as the footage continued onwards, neither Riku, Laiha nor Pega could shake off a sense of dread that appeared to consume them. Although they had yet to see it, each member of the trio began to understand that something inside the recording was wrong.
Then, at the moment when the rescuers finally located the missing Fanegons, they heard it. Even after only hearing it once, hours before, the sound of that haunting, distorted siren continued to echo within his thoughts, repeating over and over in a tormenting cycle. In the footage, the siren played loudly across the forest, and he had been the first to recognise the expressions of terror that fell across the Fanegon’s faces, while the agents simply searched the air in confusion.
A minute later, as the last beams of sunlight peaked the horizon, the broadcast came to a sudden halt, and there was silence across the woods. Complete silence. No bird song, deer calls or rustling of the wind in the leaves. The sensation of terror gripped the viewers in its vice-like grip.
And only minutes later did it arrive. The Siren Head, as he would later learn was its name.
It wasn’t a battle, but a scene out of a slasher movie. With his eyes closed, the images flashed before his vision as clear as ice. Riku remembered how he could only stare in horror at the bloody carnage that flashed across the screen as the thing ripped through the pack of aliens, innocent and armed alike, with brutality unlike nothing he had seen. Nackle, Serpent, Keel, Zamu – all powerful alien races whose members had been amongst the AIB’s ranks that should have stood a chance against the mysterious creature. It tore them all apart with ease, but not haste. It used the forest’s dark and claustrophobic setting to stalk and prey upon its victims, picking them off one-by-one. Sometimes, it was obvious, but others… people would simply step out of the camera’s focus and never appear again.
The violent scene was enough to bring innocent Pega to tears, and Laiha, normally so stoic, was broken by the horror before their eyes. Riku felt fear, and he felt sorrow, but above all of that, a stronger emotion burned at the monstrous images. One more primal that linked back to the genes behind the youth’s creation. There was no misunderstanding what this creature was and what it wanted. It was a monster, in both the plainest and extremest terms, and thus it was the responsibility – no, the duty of the AIB and himself to oppose and defeat.
And now here he was, in the middle of practically nowhere, far from the nearest point of civilisation on the hunt for the mysterious creature. Aside from the gruesome footage captured and the poor and conflicting evidence gathered from the “stories” of Siren Head, there wasn’t a way from Zena and Moa or RE.M to locate or track it down. At the moment, the two agents, plus Laiha and Pega were situated around two miles out from their location inside the ship form of Nebula House, monitoring the vast area while communicating with AIB HQ in their best efforts to try and pin down whatever it was they were facing.
But the fact of the matter was, no one knew what to do, or even what they could do with the revelations provided by the deceased agent’s recordings. They were going in blind against an enemy that was impossible to understand or acknowledge. The concept was frightening.
That was why, in spite of their heavy protests, Riku had chosen to go it alone for this mission. He couldn’t be the one to let his friends be put at the mercy of this unearthly monster. It had to be him alone who took up the task of confronting the entity before it took any more lives. But more than that, Riku felt that he had to be him that did this, drawn to answer the call to arms, as if destiny itself had organised events to ensure that this encounter came to be, for whatever unknown intentions it had for the innocent youth.
Long ago, Riku had fought tooth and nail to reject the plans of fate and forge his own legacy amongst the universe, away from the foul shadow cast upon his name by the reputation of his now-departed father. But here and now, the circumstances were different, with the stands of Destiny’s web pointed towards an outcome that he was determined to make happen.
Whatever happened tonight, Riku would embrace his destiny as an Ultraman.
He opened his eyes, sensing a change in the atmosphere. Silence. Moments before, the clearing was filled with the last bird song of the evening, and in the distance, the eerie calls of elk and wolves as they prepared for the activities of the night. Now there was nothing at all. Even the wind had fallen quiet, no longer whistling through the forest, rustling the tree tops. For the first time since setting foot in the forest, Riku could hear nothing but himself. It was if nature had called for silence and the forests had obeyed, as animals did when they wanted to avoid drawing the attention of a stalking predator.
But what kind of predator could instil such paralysing fear into nature itself? Riku looked across and around the clearing, holding his breath as he waited for the answer to reveal itself. He wanted to be right, but at the same time… his trembling hands gave away the weakness in his courage.
Finally, a new sound broke the tension in the air, causing Riku to turn his gaze towards North. It was an artificial, distorted sound, a dull beep or buzz, like a warning siren, that played over and over in a loop, echoing far across the park’s slopes and valleys. It was not a sound that would be expected to hear deep in the Californian wilderness, but there was something more than that. Something not quite right with the blaring noise that Riku couldn’t pinpoint, but it sent a tingle of anticipated dread running down the length of his spine. This was the same sound that had played throughout the horrifying encounter with the AIB and the lost refugees, the proof that the youth needed, but never wanted to hear. It was still here.
Steeling his nerves, the artificial teen drew out the flare pistol stashed in the inner pocket of his jacket, clenching the grip and trigger in a hold like iron as he mustered up the courage he would undoubtedly need. The park had been closed down by order of the AIB, using the cover story of an overnight rescue training exercise to explain away the events of tonight and the night before. In theory, there shouldn’t be another human around for miles except for himself and his companions, but in this scenario, the room for error would have consequences that Riku would not allow himself to bear.
Perhaps there were campers or hikers still within the boundaries that hadn’t received the closure message, unaware of the danger they were now in. Or maybe, instead of hunting for its prey, the creature might use its mimicry of sound to lure in unsuspecting peoples from the numerous towns that surrounded the forest. He couldn’t run the risk of it choosing another target upon the eve of the forthcoming night, so to preserve their lives, Riku had to do the unthinkable. He had to draw out its attention.
With a puff of smoke, the red radiance of the emergency flare showered the clearing as it shot up into the orange sky, casting twisted shadows across the moss and bark that littered the forest floor using the gnarled branches that hung above. For miles around, the glowing orb would be visible like a second sun upon the horizon and unmissable to the naked eye. Riku loosened his grip, allowing the empty flare gun to clatter to the ground as he craned upwards to track the rising signal. His heightened senses listened out for any form of response from his quarry, sweat forming upon the teen’s brow and hands shaking nervously. Would the living nightmare take the bait?
The broadcast cut off suddenly, allowing serenity to fall back over the woodland. Stuck between a breath of relief and a wave of terror, Riku’s heart felt like freezing up inside his chest while he waited longer. His fists stopped trembling just enough for him to cross his fingers, silently praying to every name that crossed his mind for this plan to work.
‘Please, please, please…’
A horrible noise sounded out, like a cross between a broken tornado siren and the unearthly scream of something spawned outside of this world. It knew.
In the distance came the faint sounds of demolition as the source of the call began to move towards the flare’s location. Riku was left surprised by the speeds that it seemed to be achieving, as the quiet chorus slowly and steadily began to rise in volume to signify its approach. It meant there was little time to make his own move. No time at all to hesitate and second guess his actions, forcing the teen to take responsibility for the choices made this evening. No running away now. It was time to face a new destiny, whatever it may be.
He equipped the Geed Riser to his hand and raised it before him. His knuckles turned white from how tightly he clutched the item, with only his steeled nerves stopping the youth’s arm from shaking. In the flare’s crimson glow, however, his brown eyes appeared to shine bright with courage, as he chanted the words that had kept him going in the moments of despair that came before.
“Sitting around doing nothing won’t get us anywhere!”