Presswire Special Report The confirmed death toll has passed the hundred thousand mark with almost another million people missing as the demonic outbreak continues unabated from an estimated 2,000 gateways scattered throughout several cities. Electricity has been out for a fourth consecutive month, and widespread fires have been burning unchecked due largely to a lack of water and decimated emergency services. The origins of the outbreak can be traced to a teleportation experiment gone awry within a company laboratory. The experiment, which surviving lab personal describe as an attempt at instantaneously transporting an object between two distant points, or gateways, resulted in a portal being opened to what can only be described as hell itself. Within the first twenty-four hours of the disaster, an estimated twenty thousand demons poured through the gateway, rapidly deploying additional gateways and slaughtering everyone in sight. Despite a desperate escalation of resistance from company, police, and military forces, the demons have effectively taken control of the entire region. Decaying corpses — both human and demon — fill the streets, and those buildings that have not been destroyed by fire are pocked and blackened from the fighting. With the outbreak reaching its sixth month, the only remaining resistance comes from company-organized and company-supplied mercenaries who are battling the demons, both individually and in groups, throughout the streets and buildings of several cities. Scientists have now cataloged more than a dozen unique specializations of demons, with the creatures ranging from relatively small and weak to those of simply staggering proportions and devastating armaments. |  | | A fire blazes unchecked in the warehouse district near downtown after a neighboring building had been torched by demons. |
Radioactive poisoning continues to be a serious threat in and around the gateway sites, as well as near the devastation wrought by the dying military's attempts at using low-yield nuclear devices against the demonic outbreak. Company intelligence reports that an estimated half of all infested areas have been damaged by fire or are still burning. Transportation between infected sectors remains difficult at best, with roads blocked by debris and downed power lines. The company reports that their helicopters continue to be the most reliable and safe form of mercenary transportation. A company spokesman said that they continue to be optimistic that they can turn the tide against the demons. "We continue to see a very large number of volunteers sign up every day as mercenaries," the spokesman said, adding that "while conditions continue to be extremely hazardous, the weapons and training available to our mercenaries are the best." |
