The sound of footsteps echoed irregularly in the darkness, slow and faint. Gaia slipped out of the room and moved silently down the corridor. He didn't even know why he'd left. Though he'd said he was heading to the bathroom, he had no real intention of going there. He walked through the quiet hallway, his mind replaying earlier events, images of people in gray uniforms swirling in his head.
He continued toward the bathroom, but then another set of footsteps echoed around him. The sound was impossible to pinpoint, coming from no clear direction. He whipped around, but there was nothing…
Reaching a fork in the corridor, he froze. The second pair of footsteps persisted, though their source remained a mystery. He scanned the four pathways around him—empty. Where was the sound coming from? A chill crept from the back of his neck, spreading through his body. He quickly turned toward his intended path, ignoring everything else, and hastened his steps.
Until—he flinched.
The footsteps stopped. The moment he paused and looked up, they vanished. In front of him—no one. But something was wrong.
The once-smooth floor of the corridor was now damp. Small droplets left a trail, as if something had just passed through.
A faint smell hit his nose—a scent that shouldn't exist in the pristine, flawless corridors of the Elite Institute.
Iron…? No—blood, faint but unmistakable.
Gaia swallowed hard, his eyes darting to every corner. His heart pounded so fiercely it felt like it might burst from his chest. The footsteps had gone silent, but another sound took their place.
Scrape… A faint noise, like something brushing against a metal wall.
He spun toward the sound. The gleaming metallic wall was spotless, revealing nothing.
But then he saw it—a reflection, moving slowly, humanoid, eerily calm in a way that sent shivers down his spine.Gaia stepped back slowly, forcing himself to breathe. His heartbeat thundered in his skull. "Get back to the room. Get back now…"
But as he turned to leave—
The dim ceiling light flickered.
In that split second of flashing light, he saw something. It stood less than ten meters away—a tall, slender figure, gray, its head shrouded in cloth, its face obscured. In its hand, a massive silver syringe gleamed under the flickering light. The light flashed again—and it was gone.
Gaia couldn't breathe. His legs froze, his hands turned ice-cold, as if gripped by frost.
"…Not real…"
The words echoed in his mind, but his body refused to obey.He turned and ran. His footsteps pounded the floor, erratic and uneven. The silence was gone.
The sound of his heart, his ragged breathing, his footsteps—or perhaps not his alone—filled the air. He ran for his life, refusing to look back. That thing stood motionless under the flickering light, terrifyingly still. Gaia pushed himself harder, but his legs felt bound, heavy… painful… his head throbbed with agony. In mere seconds, as the light flickered again, the thing lunged forward. Its long, gangly limbs stretched unnaturally, scraping the floor and walls with a grotesque, twisted motion.
Its face was a pitch-black void, split by a wide grin revealing razor-sharp teeth, neatly aligned like a shark's, slick with saliva and stained with blood crusted in the gaps. Some spots stretched into sticky threads, connecting the teeth in a nauseating web.
Gaia didn't dare look back. He ran for his life, desperate to reach the safety of the dorm. But something was wrong...
No matter how fast he ran, the path back seemed to stretch endlessly.
With every step forward, the room felt farther away.
He turned corner after corner, but it was like being trapped in a labyrinth with no exit. It should've been so close—just right there.
His heart pounded so fiercely it threatened to burst.
His face drained of color, his legs weakening, yet he kept running.
That thing pursued relentlessly, its boneless, twisted movements leaving dull black stains on the floor—marks of something that shouldn't exist in this world.
Its gangly limbs flailed in a terrifying dance, its needle-like fingers stretching forward, lunging toward him.
Gaia's breath caught in his throat.
His chest tightened, heavy.
Every step was agony.
Every breath was torment.
***
Snap! It caught up.
Its hand seized Gaia's shoulder with uncanny precision.
An immense force yanked him to a halt.
Those wire-like fingers coiled around his body, binding him tightly.
Its towering, inhuman form nearly blocked the entire corridor.
Slowly, it twisted Gaia's body to face it.
It lifted him off the ground, pulling him closer to that eyeless face—
Nothing but a bloodstained grin filled with jagged teeth.
Haaaa…
Its heavy breathing blasted Gaia's face with a gust so strong his clothes and hair fluttered wildly. That horrifying, wide grin loomed impossibly close. It pulled him nearer, closer to its gaping maw.
Gaia's face was ashen, drained of all color, frozen in terror. He wanted to scream for help with every fiber of his being, but his trembling lips refused to move.
Its jaws stretched wider, revealing those razor-sharp, shark-like teeth, perfectly aligned, dripping with saliva and blood that stretched into sticky, nauseating strands between its upper and lower fangs. It tightened its grip on Gaia until he could barely breathe. Those grotesquely elongated hands coiled around him, pulling him so close that his head was inches from its open mouth.
***
Crunch!
Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering the walls and pooling on the floor below. It bit down, severing Gaia's head from his body. Blood gushed from the wound at his neck, streaming down his torso and dripping onto the ground—drip, drip. The creature squeezed his headless body tighter and tighter until—
Thud! — Splatter!
Gaia's body burst in two. His insides—intestines, liver, kidneys, spleen,
and more—exploded outward, scattering in a gruesome mess across the area.
____________________________________________________
Fwoosh!
Ha… Hah, hah…
Gaia jolted awake, snapping his head up. His breaths came hard and fast, his heart hammering as if it might burst from his chest. The sound of his ragged, frantic breathing filled the air. He stared into the mirror, wide-eyed and shaken. His face was ghostly pale, gaunt, and hollow. He tried to calm himself, his mind racing. Was that all in his head?
He lowered his gaze and twisted the faucet. Water poured into the sink below. He reached out, letting the cool stream run over his hands, then cupped some water and splashed it onto his face. He scrubbed his skin, then looked back up at the mirror. Droplets clung to his cheeks and forehead as he studied his reflection, scanning the room behind him in the glass. The bathroom was blindingly bright, every light blazing so fiercely that darkness had nowhere to hide. Yet…
It felt desolate… eerily unsettling. A creeping unease gnawed at him, sending a shiver through his nerves. Was it the aftereffect of whatever substance they'd injected him with earlier? His mind raced uncontrollably, yet at the same time, it felt sluggish, so muddled he could barely think.