What does it mean to live?
What does it mean to die?
What does it mean to kill?
Can one die if they were never truly alive to begin with?
…
"Geez. What the hell is this place?"
Nicholas brushed his hand along the wall of the long hallway. The surface was rough, brittle with age. When he pulled his hand back, a sticky layer of dust clung to his fingertips.
"This is underneath the school?" he asked aloud, his voice echoing faintly. No answer came, of course.
"Need to keep moving. Can't let those guys get too far ahead. Still don't know what they're after, but…" His eyes narrowed as he stopped before a half-open sliding door. The edges were warped, as if it had been forced open.
But that wasn't what caught his attention.
A faded letter above the doorway.
"K," he read quietly.
"I don't like the look of this one bit," he muttered, stepping inside.
It looked like a lobby, or what used to be one. Now it was nothing but wreckage and ruin. And yet… the destruction didn't feel natural.
"Are those… claw marks?"
Dozens of thin slashes ran across the walls in every direction. They weren't deep, but they were everywhere—parallel, precise, deliberate. Not like a wild beast, but not human either.
Four lines. Always four.
"Do they have swords for fingers or something?" he murmured under his breath.
He kept walking, eyes scanning every surface. Large holes big enough to fit an elephant gaped through the walls. Other areas were melted, as if scorched by acid or fire.
"Just what happened here?"
Then, movement.
A flicker in the corner of his eye.
Down one of the side hallways, something slipped through the darkness, something that shouldn't have been there.
Nicholas froze. He hesitated for only a moment before moving toward it, shadows gathering at his hands, forming into solid black gauntlets.
"Come here, come here, little shadow," he whispered, his voice half-joking, half-serious. He didn't know why he was talking to it like he was coaxing a stray puppy.
Because whatever that thing was, it wasn't an animal.
This place had been sealed for years. Nothing living could have survived down here.
No… the only thing it could have been was a monster.
The hallway was filled with cages. Bars were either bent, broken, sliced, or melted.
'A research lab for monsters?' he thought.
Carefully, he checked each cell, but they were all empty… until he reached the last one. The bars there were broken, allowing for easy entry.
He gathered a small amount of darkness in his fist, ready to quickly transform it into fire if he encountered the creature.
He took a deep breath and-
Squik!
"A… rat?"
Indeed. That unsettling shadow belonged to nothing more than an ordinary rat.
He dismissed the darkness and observed the creature. The rat seemed to be looking at him intently, only to then scurry along the walls, ignoring him.
"A black rat… Actually, now that I think about it, how is the air so breathable? Does this place have a ventilation system? Is that how this little guy got in?" Nicholas mumbled.
The rat then began to approach him, albeit cautiously. Upon noticing, Nicholas awkwardly knelt down and extended his hand.
Rats were typically seen as filthy creatures, yet this one seemed surprisingly clean.
"…Clean?"
The moment his hand made contact, the rat lunged and tried to bite him, but his fingers were protected by the gauntlet.
When the attack failed, the rat suddenly went stiff and lifted into the air. No, more accurately, it was dragged upward by its tail.
Nicholas gulped and briefly wondered where he'd gone wrong in life.
Then he looked up.
And wished he hadn't.
Quickly, he rolled out of the cell, trying to put some distance between himself and whatever was above
But the creature had already grabbed his leg.
Without thinking, he formed a longsword in his hand and slashed downward, cutting through the creature's limb with little resistance.
"GOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUURAAAAAAAAAA!" the monster roared, dropping Nicholas onto his head.
'Fuck!'
Thankfully, he recovered quickly and finally got a good look at it.
A sea of blackness.
Its body resembled that of a crab, yet instead of limbs, it had long, thick, and powerful tentacles. Its "eyes" were strange, antenna-like organs—something closer to those of an insect. A tail extended behind it, but ended abruptly. Upon closer inspection, Nicholas noticed a thin line connecting that tail to the rat's tail.
At the very bottom of its body was a massive, circular mouth lined with hundreds, thousands of shark-like teeth. They were tiny, yet sharp enough to tear through flesh with ease.
And yet, that wasn't the worst part.
All around the creature's main body were human-like hands, thin, skeletal, and black, as though they'd been fused into its flesh. Every single one twitched, as if trying to move. As if they wanted to escape.
When Nicholas had first looked up, those hands had been gripping the corners of the cell, holding the entire creature aloft. The tail acted as bait. The tentacles were for capturing whatever came close.
And the mouth, with its endless rows of teeth, was meant to devour its prey slowly and painfully.
"Ugly fucker, aren't you?" Nicholas muttered. Though he tried to play it off, he was utterly terrified of the thing in front of him.
Without thinking, he lit his sword on fire, the blue flames casting an eerie glow down the hallway. The creature lunged forward, its massive body crashing against the walls. Nicholas charged at it and leapt, slicing clean through the space between its eyes and across its body.
He hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb the impact.
The creature's shell split open, releasing a blinding white light mixed with thick, black smoke. Then came an unholy screech before the monster collapsed.
From its back, hundreds of shadowy figures slipped free, one by one, while the countless hands that covered its body slowly retreated into its flesh. Its antennae coiled inward, the tail disintegrating into dust along with the rat. The shell began to shrink, as if collapsing into itself.
"Well, that was… underwhelming."
It made sense, in a way. The thing wasn't agile—it likely relied on ambush tactics, waiting for prey to come close. Trapped in this sealed place with no food, it must have weakened over time.
"Still… it's disturbing." Watching those shadows pour out felt like witnessing the release of trapped souls. It sent a chill down his spine.
He planted the tip of his sword against the ground and used it to help himself stand, silently praying the short battle hadn't drawn attention.
As the creature's remains evaporated into smoke, he gave it a few cautious kicks, just to be sure. Once he confirmed it was dead, he exhaled in relief.
"Now then, to-"
He froze.
Footsteps. Several of them.
'Shit.'
By the time he turned, five armed thugs stood at the entrance of the hallway, blocking his only exit. Each wore night vision goggles, their guns raised and ready.
'Well then, how do you suppose you'll get out of this one, Nicholas?'
And now he was talking to himself.
'And now I'm talking to myself…'
With only a moment to think, he spoke first.
"Sorry about the entrance. Hope I didn't ruin the mood. Not my first time, y'know. I'm kinda famous for it."
The men hesitated, clearly confused that whatever they were looking at could talk.
'I guess I must look like a monster to them, huh?'
Their gazes shifted toward the still-dissolving corpse behind him.
"Oh, don't mind that one," he added, nodding toward it. "He was already having a bad day."
'Being hungry for human flesh and all…'
Met with silence, Nicholas sighed. "Any chance I could just ask you nicely to leave?"
Of course, he had no intention of letting them go even if they agreed.
"No-" one of them started, then opened fire.
Nicholas reacted instantly. One of his gauntlets shifted into a dark shield, blocking the bullet with a metallic clang.
"Ah."
'So they've chosen violence.'
"Can't say I didn't try."
He lifted his other hand, letting the sword dissolve into black mist. Then, from his palm, he unleashed a surge of darkness toward the thugs.
He really didn't want to use that move again, but if it forced them to scatter, that was enough. He just needed space.
If they screamed, he couldn't hear it.
"Hm… Looks like it even cuts off sound. And considering I can't see anything inside, I'm assuming they can't either."
He took a deep breath and sprinted into the fog.
He knew he couldn't breathe inside it, so he held his breath for as long as he could.
As soon as he entered, his senses began to vanish one by one—sight, sound, touch. It was strange the first time, but even stranger now.
When he finally emerged on the other side, he collided with one of the thugs, and both of them went down.
"Oi!" the man shouted, dropping his gun from the impact.
Nicholas didn't give him the chance to react. He snatched the weapon and crushed it in his gauntleted hand, shattering the goggles too.
Then he vaulted over the receptionist's desk for cover and recalled the mist, waiting silently.
"Kha-khaugh!"
All he heard was coughing.
"Where'd that fucker go?"
"I dunno! He knocked me down and broke my damn pistol, look here!"
Nicholas controlled his breathing and grinned beneath the mask. It was time to have some fun.
…
It didn't take long for the thugs to panic. One by one, Nicholas ambushed them, crushing weapons, shattering goggles, then vanishing into the shadows again.
They started checking every room in the facility, unaware that he was stalking them the whole time.
Eventually, they split into pairs to cover ground faster, leaving their boss to guard the corridor.
Nicholas debated going for the boss, but the man was too cautious, eyes sharp, posture tight. Instead, Nicholas slipped through the ventilation system, dropping down silently on the less alert pairs, destroying their gear, and disappearing before they could shout.
Now he understood why monsters in horror movies always picked their prey off one by one. It was more fun that way.
"I'm so fucking scared."
"You're telling me! My gear's been broken from the start!"
"Shut up, you idiots. Keep watch. The boss still has his loot."
"Like that's gonna help us against that creepy super."
"Unknown." The boss's voice silenced them immediately.
"What was that, boss?"
"We're dealing with that vigilante… Unknown."
"Unknown… Why's that sound familiar?"
"It should. That's the guy the demon shot down, right?"
"Then how the hell's he still alive?"
"Doesn't matter." The boss's tone turned grim. "We got a few samples. It cost us some gear, but if we get out of here with them… he'll forgive us."
The boss was deliberately vague, avoiding any names or details, clearly assuming Unknown might be listening.
They had grabbed everything they could to mislead him.
"And what might those samples be?"
The air froze.
"This has been fun and all," Nicholas said, stepping out of the shadows, "but I think it's time to end this."
"I couldn't have said it better myself," the boss snarled, opening fire.
Bullets flew. Nicholas dodged most of them, though a few grazed his suit, igniting a flare of irritation.
"Go! Complete the mission!" the boss barked.
"No, wait—"
"Now!" he roared, firing another burst.
The grunts hesitated but obeyed, running for what they hoped was another exit.
Nicholas cursed under his breath. He couldn't go after them, not yet. Not with the boss still spraying bullets.
When the man stopped to reload, Nicholas charged.
He slammed into him, tackling him to the ground. He pinned both of the man's wrists with one hand and crushed the weapon with the other.
"Now then," he said, taking a slow breath. "Shall we talk nicely?"
"Fuck you. You're not getting anything from me, you hear me?"
Nicholas tilted his head. "Come on, man. I beat you and everything."
"Then kill me! 'Cause I'm not giving you shit, you hear?"
Nicholas sighed. "Well. Now you're just being unfair."
"I—I got it, boss!"
Both turned their heads. One of the thugs had returned, something clutched tightly in his hand.
"What is that…?" Nicholas muttered.
The boss's eyes widened in horror. "No! Jer, don't!"
"You're more important than me, boss. You gotta get outta here."
Nicholas saw it then, a glass vial, with a dark liquid inside, in the thug's grasp.
"Oi! Don't do anything stupid-"
CRACK!
The vial shattered in his hand.
And then—
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A scream tore through the air, raw and inhuman.
"We have to get out of here, now!" the boss yelled.
Nicholas didn't move.
He could only watch in terror…
A scene he never wished to see again.
A scene that would burn itself into his eyes forever.
The man was changing—into something else.
Into a monster.