The air reeked of stale beer and sweat. The guy with the green mohawk—the one they called “Slick”—tightened his grip around his glass of cheap liquor until his knuckles turned white. He couldn’t get the sounds out of his head. The muffled screams. The crack of bones reforming. And that sweet, childlike whisper that followed him like a curse.

  She was hunting more test subjects, he thought, swallowing hard. His glass trembled against the filthy table. She hunted us all. The whole gang.

  He could hear her approaching, even here, deep inside that dive bar. It was like a buzzing in his ears, a distorted rhythm that didn’t match the heavy music blasting through the speakers. In his mind, he could still hear the silent shrieks of his crew as they fell one by one.

  He remembered how it had all started—a classic night of drunken celebration with his gang, enjoying the loot stolen from one of the few grocery stores still left in the city that didn’t belong to the corporations. Thanks to places like that, they could keep surviving in this rotten excuse of a city.

  They hadn’t known it then, but that was when everything began. Something as simple as a door opening with a creak.

  All eyes turned toward the newcomer. She was petite, with blue bangs so vibrant they almost hurt to look at, completely covering her right eye. She wore a short, loose dress—far too childish for the place—and she smiled with unsettling curiosity.

  “Hey, baby, you lost?” shouted one of his crew, a big guy with scars along his arms. Drunken laughter filled the room.

  She didn’t answer. She simply tilted her head, like a bird studying a worm. Her one visible eye—glacial blue—scanned the room until it settled on Slick.

  “My dear test subjects,” she whispered.

  Yet her voice rang clear above the noise, as if she were speaking directly inside their heads.

  The big man who had mocked her stood up, swaying. “What did you say, brat?”

  Before he could take a step, something happened. He grabbed his throat violently, as if invisible hands were choking the air from him. His breathing grew ragged. The music cut off abruptly. An uncomfortable silence fell over the bar, broken only by his desperate attempts to inhale.

  Then the transformation began.

  His skin paled, turning an unnatural cerulean before darkening into something black and viscous. His body lost shape, melting into a pulsating, amorphous mass that dripped onto the wooden floorboards. His panic-filled eyes were the last thing to disappear—absorbed into the oily darkness before extinguishing entirely, leaving behind a hollow, will-less void.

  Chaos erupted.

  Men screamed, trying to flee, to hide, to fight something they couldn’t see or touch. But it was useless. One by one, they fell victim to the same unseen force—like an invisible hand clutching their throats, stealing each breath before the transformation consumed them.

  Some became those same shapeless black masses. Others—the “lucky” ones—kept their human form, but their skin turned a crayon-bright crimson, and their eyes glowed with an animalistic fury.

  Slick watched, paralyzed, as his world turned into a nightmare. He was the last one. The only one left from his original crew. I have to get out. I have to warn the others—

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  “I found yooou.”

  The playful, sing-song voice echoed right beside him.

  He spun around desperately. No one was there. Only the deformed bodies and the black masses slowly dragging themselves toward him.

  Suddenly, unbearable pain pierced him. Something was strangling him—like a rope tightening around his neck. Just like the others, he clawed at his throat, trying to tear away whatever was suffocating him. He doubled over, screaming, as a burning sensation devoured him from within. It felt as if his blood had been replaced with acid.

  He stumbled and crashed in front of a cracked mirror hanging on the wall.

  He saw his reflection: green mohawk, wild eyes full of terror. And then his face began to change. His skin flushed, turning the same intense red as the others who hadn’t become those things. The burning was infernal—like being incinerated from the inside out.

  “Looks like you’re one of the lucky ones,” the voice chimed, almost like a nursery rhyme.

  He looked up.

  She was standing there, smiling—but the smile didn’t reach her cold eyes. And for the first time, with his newly sharpened senses, he saw beyond the facade. In the darkness beneath her blue bangs, he glimpsed two rows of razor-sharp fangs—and a depth that promised eternal madness.

  He woke up hours later in a filthy alley.

  He felt… different. Strange. Filled with energy that tingled beneath his skin. But most of all, he was flooded with power—and a pure, burning fury. A murderous rage demanding release.

  He sat up and saw three other figures nearby. They had been part of his gang. But now they were… more.

  One had skin gray and rough like stone. Another had sharpened bone spikes protruding from his knuckles and forearms. Slick looked at his own hands. He felt an impulse—a desire—and before his eyes, his skin turned into a metallic silver sheen, hard as steel.

  A cruel smile spread across his face.

  He felt powerful. Unstoppable.

  He wanted more.

  Without hesitation, he led the way toward another nearby bar—one where he knew he’d find more of his kind. He didn’t need to say much. His new presence—his aura of fury and power—was enough. A dozen men followed him, their glassy eyes already glowing with that same furious red spark.

  He guided them toward more convenience stores. He remembered one in particular—a bald redheaded guy owed him. Time to collect. His primitive instinct smothered any rational thought.

  That’s when he saw her.

  In one of the alleys near his destination.

  A girl. Light purple skin. Pink hair styled in two large odango buns. She stood beside a puddle of filthy water, staring at her reflection with an expression so sad and irritated that it awakened something inside him—not pity, but possession. The urge to dominate that fragility.

  “Hey there, pretty,” he said, his voice rough and metallic.

  She flinched instantly, stepping back. Her yellow eyes widened in panic. He couldn’t hear anything she said—if she said anything at all. The roar of his own blood drowned everything else. He saw only a target. Prey.

  He hurled one of his companions at her as a test.

  To his surprise, she reacted. A bubbling pink liquid shot from her hands, striking the man, who screamed in agony as his skin smoked where it made contact.

  Slick only smiled wider.

  She launched the same liquid at him—but he didn’t flinch. He blocked the stream with his arm, already coated in metal. The substance burned through his sleeve but didn’t penetrate his skin. He didn’t care.

  He closed the distance instantly and drove his metallic fist into her stomach.

  The sound was dull and brutal.

  She collapsed, gasping, unable to breathe.

  He watched her writhe. Watched her crawl. Euphoria flooded him. He enjoyed her fear. Her desperation. He loomed over her, his red metallic shadow swallowing her completely.

  He was about to take what he wanted.

  “Tell me, girl, are you pink all ove—”

  PAIN.

  A massive impact—like being struck by a hydraulic press—launched him into the brick wall of the alley. Even with his body made of metal, the force was so brutal he felt something crack inside him. The air left his lungs in a sharp hiss.

  Dazed, he saw the figure standing between him and the girl.

  A tall man wrapped in a wine-red leather trench coat. His eyes—glacial amethyst—were fixed on him. There was no anger in them. Only cold, lethal evaluation. Like he was observing a particularly disgusting insect.

  Did he detect me? No, that’s impossible.

  With a growl, Slick transformed his arm into a sharp metallic blade and charged, aiming for the man’s heart.

  The man, focused on his victim, detected him at the last second. It was too late to dodge.

  He simply let the blade pierce through him—to safeguard his prey.

  For a brief second, Slick felt the ecstasy of triumph.

  He had done it.

  Then—

  Another blow.

  Faster. Stronger.

  It smashed into his face. He never saw it coming. The world spun. His metallic jaw cracked. And then—absolute darkness.

  Pain.

  Sharp. Familiar.

  It dragged him back to consciousness.

  He opened his eyes slowly. He was no longer in the alley. He was in a cold, dark room—bound to a metal chair. His body still throbbed from the beating. The euphoric rage was gone.

  He tried to turn his skin to metal again.

  Nothing happened.

  “Well, well,” said a voice that sent chills down his spine—and, for some strange reason, triggered instant obedience. “It seems you didn’t turn out as I expected.”

  He lifted his gaze.

  There she was.

  Sitting at a desk in front of him, gently rocking, smiling—fangs far too sharp visible between her lips. The girl with the blue bangs.

  Her smile was no longer merely playful.

  Now it was the smile of a beast toying with wounded prey before delivering the final strike.

  “Now,” she said, leaning forward, her single blue eye glowing sinisterly in the dimness. “Tell me, little puppet… what happened there?”

  And trapped between pain and that primal fear, he felt his will fading once more—

  And absolute darkness swallowed him whole.