April 1st, 1977.
The government created a contingency.
A quiet one.
A department that did not officially exist, formed to answer a question no one wanted answered.
What if we weren't alone?
At first, it was treated like paranoia.
Cold War nerves.
Men in black suits preparing for little green men that would never come.
Then, on August 27th, 1977, Las Vegas burned.
Not because of an alien invasion.
Not because of war.
But because of something far worse—
A dragon, dragged from a world never meant to touch ours.
The Strip melted into glass.
Thousands vanished.
And for hours, the sky glowed red.
By morning, the truth had already been smothered beneath paperwork and lies.
A gas leak, they said.
A terrible accident.
A tragedy.
Three days later, on August 30th, 1977, the contingency was given a name.
A.E.G.I.S.
Advanced Eradication of Ghouls, Interstellars, and the Supernatural.
The truth had a name now.
And for years, A.E.G.I.S. hunted in silence.
Demons.
Monsters.
Things that borrowed human faces.
Anything that was not human was classified as an Other.
And anything classified as an Other was meant to be erased.
Then came June 25th, 1982.
Deep beneath the Antarctic ice—far below where sound should carry and life should exist—something was discovered.
A cocoon.
Colossal.
Ancient.
Sleeping.
Sensors confirmed it was alive.
No one knew what was inside.
No one was willing to cut it open.
Those stationed closest to it reported headaches.
Nosebleeds.
Insomnia.
And, worst of all, the unshakable feeling of being watched—
even when the thing never moved.
A.E.G.I.S. responded immediately.
The Erebus Research Facility was built around the discovery, burying it beneath layers of steel, concrete, and secrecy.
They gave the creature a name.
Azathoth.
They believed it was an alien.
A living nightmare from somewhere beyond Earth.
How long it had slept beneath the ice, no one could say.
Only that it was there.
Waiting.