Predator and Prey

Taking a few steps back, Seth's feet dragged through dust and scattered metal shards, but his gaze remained locked on a single point.

The warped opening of the door.

He couldn't blink. He couldn't look away for even a second. The door no longer offered safety, no protection at all. All that remained was uncertainty: what was coming, what was next… and what awaited him.

SHEEEHS… the wind whistled softly.

From the dark opening, one of its thin, sharp limbs emerged, moving in a slow, wavering motion.

Seeing it, his heart began to pound, his hand clenching instinctively as he remembered—with brutal clarity—the treacherous sting from before.

What can I do?! Run?!

He shook his head. No. No… that won't work.

A whisper surfaced in his mind, Grant's words:
"Without Rem energy, that thing would catch us in a few meters…"

If I look away—
I'm dead.

He continued to back away slowly, trying—at the very least—to get out of range of those deadly attacks. But his mind was already bracing for the worst as he watched more limbs emerge from the opening.

Five?
Or seven?

Seth squinted, trying to count them, but their constant undulation and shifting sizes made it impossible to tell.

CRAAAASH! The corridor thundered.

The door exploded, flying through the air and slamming into the opposite wall.

Seth threw his arms up on instinct. Hot, dense air burst outward, hitting him full force, carrying the stench of rotting flesh, acidic smoke… and something else, something his mind refused to identify, that twisted his face in revulsion.

Don't look away…
Don't… don't look away.

I can't turn my back. I can't stop watching—
That thing will kill me the second I slip...

He looked up, forcing his eyes open as wide as he could—and saw them.

Four bird-like legs emerging from the dust. Black. Deformed. Hard to describe.

They moved in a crisscrossing, irregular rhythm, like an insect that had learned to imitate predators.

Above them rose a figure over four meters tall. A body hidden beneath a living veil of dark tentacles, undulating with a sickly, almost rhythmic slowness.

Those tentacles resembled an unnatural mane of hair—an endless mane that covered its face, shoulders, chest… everything Seth couldn't see.

Even so, he felt it. He knew that something within that tangled mass was watching him.

Seth took a step back…

Another step. His breathing slipped out of control. His body trembled.

Then he saw it.

An eye.

An eye buried within that mass of flesh and tentacles, glowing yellow and red, unblinking.

And suddenly—
FWOOOSSH!

One of the limbs lashes out like a black whip.

Seth throws himself to the ground.

The impact shatters the wall behind him, pulverizing the concrete where his head had been seconds earlier.

WHAT THE—?!
THIS THING… IT'S MUCH FASTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE!

"I-I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE—NOW!"

His instinct screams, drowning out all rational thought. He scrambles to his feet and runs as tentacles hiss through the air like launched blades, snapping down like whips that shatter concrete, tear through steel, and break all sense of logic.

RUN. RUN. RUUUN!

But even in terror, Seth doesn't look away. There is only one direction—the staircase to the left, which in his panicked state feels impossibly far.

He reaches it, leaping three steps at a time, gasping as every muscle screams on the verge of collapse.

The beast, meanwhile, does not run.

It simply steps forward—one step after another—stalking with terrifying calm, advancing almost to the rhythm of a metronome. Each of its steps covers the distance of two of Seth's.

KRIIIINNN!!!

Its tentacles shoot out, driving into the walls, the ceiling, the floor, rooting themselves like living tendrils, pulling the creature forward effortlessly and unhurriedly.

The farther it advances, the more suffocating its presence becomes. It is not fast—but it is constant, precise, and inevitable.

Seth races down the stairs as fast as his body allows. The beast can't catch him…

Not yet.

But it is closing in, its lashes grazing his heels, missing only because of the desperate, reckless strides its prey is forced to take.

On the verge of collapse, Seth Harper is no longer a man—only desperate prey, with no fate beyond dying at the hands of a being that hasn't even begun to try.

A creature that merely follows its routine.

Cold.
Mechanical.
Perfect.

CRASH!

Shards of metal and a broken lamp slam down in front of him, sealing the corridor like a guillotine made of steel.

Seth stops on instinct, spins on his heel, and blindly changes direction—without thinking.

His lungs seize. His chest feels like it's on fire. The world blurs. His eyes shut, just for a heartbeat, then snap open again.

I-I can still go! I'm not dying here! I'm NOT—!

He keeps running, pushing himself harder without looking back, even as his body screams in pain.

The sudden detour leads him to the ninth floor, where—by sheer desperation—an escape route flashes through his mind.

"Keep running…!" he gasps. "There—the bridge!"

A window at the end of the corridor. "T-through the window!"
He locks his eyes on it, his speed surging with every desperate stride as he races down the hall.

KRIIIIN!

With a shriek, the beast notices and hurls more tentacles forward—but Seth doesn't look away. His gaze clings to that window as if something were calling to him from beyond it.

Below that window, on the eighth floor, lies the bridge connecting this building to the next. A narrow walkway suspended over the void was his only escape.

This is—
This is insane… BUT IT'S THE ONLY WAY—!

The beast seems to sense his plan. The tentacles continue to multiply, lashing down the hallway like a forest of black whips, tearing everything apart in their path.

KRIIIIIIIIIIIN!

Seth dodges, stumbles—then rolls. The sound of destruction engulfs him, yet his gaze never leaves his target.

"IT'S THERE!" he shouts to himself, driven by a determination born purely of survival.

With a final effort that sets his lungs on fire, he throws himself toward the window. He no longer thinks about the height, nor the risk. There is only one thought left: putting distance between himself and that lidless eye watching him like prey.

CRASH!

Seth bursts through the glass—
free-falling from the 9th floor.

A shower of shards explodes around him as he bursts through the frame and into the void. Behind him, a cluster of tentacles thrusts out through the window, grasping for him.

For a second, there is only the fall, the wind and the city of Hibüra spreading out below, utterly indifferent to his mortal struggle.