Dazed and devastated, Lucas managed to drag himself back to his small apartment located in an old building on the outskirts of Shinjuku. He closed the door and fell back against it, slowly sliding until he was sitting on the floor.
He held his head in both hands as he tried to process the horrible situation he found himself in. How could what that strange man told him be true? That his own body was disintegrating and that he would die within hours?
"No, there has to be a solution, a cure..." he said to himself desperately. He stood up as best he could and headed to the bathroom, stumbling awkwardly. She turned on the light and looked at herself in the small, stained mirror that hung over the sink.
Her haggard face and eyes reddened by crying returned a look full of fear and disbelief. He removed his shirt and examined his torso, looking for any physical signs of the supposed "dimensional contamination," but saw nothing abnormal.
Suddenly, his hands began to become transparent once again before his eyes. Lucas uttered a cry of terror and clung to the sink, as if contact with the cold porcelain could restore solidity to his blinking body.
After agonizing seconds of distortion, his bodily matter stabilized and regained consistency. Gasping in panic, Lucas sat down on the floor. He punched the tiles helplessly until his knuckles bled.
"Damn it! Why me?" He sobbed furiously and scared. He felt like a laboratory rat, condemned to an atrocious death by forces he could not understand. How could reality itself reject him and erase him from existence?
Weakened both physically and mentally, Lucas went to his bed and fell on his back, staring at the ceiling with lost eyes. What was the point of continuing to fight? Perhaps the best thing was to resign and try to sleep so as not to feel anything when the end came...
But as he sank into exhaustion, a small voice inside him refused to give up. "No," Lucas thought, "I won't just give up. There must be a solution..."
He remembered what the masked man told him about eliminating the creature that had contaminated him. It was almost a suicide mission in his condition, but he had no alternative. If he had to die, he would at least hold on to that small possibility.
With renewed determination, Lucas stood up, leaning against the wall. He searched his apartment until he found a knife, his only available weapon. Without wasting any more time, he staggered out into the night in search of the hideous creature that had caused his misfortune. Somehow he would find her, or die trying.
Clinging to his only remote chance of salvation, Lucas staggered out into the night, wielding an old kitchen machete. He had no idea where to start looking for the horrifying creature, but his instinct led him to head to the outskirts of the city, towards a more unpopulated area.
After walking several blocks, he came to a huge abandoned building that once housed a research center before falling into ruins. Surrounded by weeds and graffiti, the sinister place seemed a likely refuge for the dimensional anomaly.
Gathering his courage, Lucas climbed a rust-ridden metal fence and entered the grounds of the old complex. The crunching of rubble under their footsteps was the only sound in the night. Pointing the machete at the shadows, he meticulously searched every corner between crumbling walls and empty rooms.
But after an hour of fruitless searching, he was forced to accept that his quarry was not hiding there. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, he sat down on a cement bench outside the building.
He looked up at the star-studded night sky, fighting back the inevitable tears at his fate. He cursed himself for harboring the foolish hope of finding the creature. Even if he had found it, what could he have done against that horror with a simple machete?
Resigned to the fact that his hours were numbered, Lucas decided to at least enjoy that beautiful starry sky before the end. Perhaps the calm of the night would help mitigate his terror of fading into nothingness. He had to try to find some peace before the inevitable advent of absolute darkness.
Sitting on the bench under the starry blanket, Lucas tried to find serenity in the face of his imminent end. Suddenly, the rustling of branches put him on alert. Something was moving in the nearby bushes. Lucas held his breath, praying it was just a nocturnal animal.
But his worst fears were confirmed when the amorphous mass emerged from the shadows, crawling towards him. Lucas was paralyzed by terror as he saw before his eyes the person responsible for his misfortune.
The abominable creature approached slowly, like a predator savoring the fear of its prey. In that moment, Lucas' life flashed before his eyes. His childhood, the loss of his parents and how he got here.... would now end in the worst way.
But then something rebelled inside him. Even in the midst of terror, a voice screamed not to give up. If he was going to die, it wouldn't be without a fight. Gathering courage out of nowhere, Lucas narrowly missed one of the creature's appendages as it lunged at him.
Rolling on the ground, Lucas grabbed a stone the size of his fist and threw it with all his strength, hitting the creature's repulsive eye. The aberration backed away in a daze, giving Lucas a few seconds to flee into the nearby bushes.
Panting agitatedly, Lucas stumbled through bushes and debris, trying to throw off his pursuer. But the creature always seemed to know where it was hiding, forcing him to run back and forth in vain. Finally, Lucas made his way to the abandoned building, closing the heavy metal door behind him.
He knew he wouldn't hold her back for long, but he had managed to buy some time. Lucas backed up until he hit the wall, brandishing the machete in a defensive pose as he listened to the monster's attacks against the door. The metal began to dent, slowly giving way.
He had to think of something quickly or in a matter of minutes that thing would reach him. He looked around desperately for an escape route or a more effective weapon, but there was nothing useful in the dusty reception area. Just a lonely metal desk against the opposite wall.
That's when a desperate idea crossed his mind. Running towards the desk, Lucas began to push it with all his might in the direction of the entrance. The heavy piece of furniture slid inch by inch, leaving grooves on the dirty floor.
Blocking the entrance with the desk, Lucas bought some precious time. But he knew that the creature would soon tear down that fragile barricade. He had to find a quick exit from that building or a more effective weapon than his machete.
Stealthily walking through the dark, ruined hallways, he found only empty rooms and stuck doors. The complex had been stripped of all useful equipment. When Lucas was about to give up, the door at the end of a hallway caught his attention.
A faint bluish light filtered from below. Would there be anyone else here? Wielding the machete, Lucas walked over and kicked the door open. Inside he found what appeared to be an abandoned laboratory.
Several overturned tables and chairs filled the room. But what caught his attention was a huge metal machine that emitted the mysterious blue light from a panel full of buttons and levers. On the side it read: "vX4 Quantum Analyzer."
Lucas cautiously approached and examined the controls, wiping off the accumulated dust. To his surprise, the machine still seemed to have power. Some lights flickered faintly on the panel. Driven by curiosity, Lucas began pressing switches at random.
Immediately, the machine came to life with a growing hum. Lights and screens turned on as the cylindrical core between the controls began to emit electrical discharges. The quantum analyzer was active.
At that moment, a roar shook the building, followed by an inhuman scream that chilled Lucas's blood. The creature had knocked down the barricade and was approaching quickly. Without thinking, Lucas walked around the machine and crouched behind it just as the lab door burst open.
Holding his breath, Lucas listened to the slimy movements of the creature as it searched the laboratory. The electric shocks crackled centimeters away from him, partially deafening him. It took a superhuman effort not to run away in panic.
Suddenly, a tentacle slithered down the side of the machine, groping. Lucas brandished the machete and cut it off with one accurate blow, causing a supernatural scream. Taking advantage of the confusion, Lucas walked around the machine and positioned himself behind the controls, using them as cover.
The creature finally burst into his field of vision, more hideous than in his memories. Lucas began to operate all the levers frantically, causing the energy released by the quantum analyzer to become erratic and intense.
A powerful flash emerged from the core, hitting the abomination squarely. The machine shook and black smoke poured from the controls, but Lucas didn't stop. Volley after volley hit the creature, which screamed madly, unable to withstand the concentrated power.
After what seemed like an eternity, the creature finally collapsed to the ground, gruesome smoldering burns covering its misshapen mass. Lucas activated the final lever, releasing one last volley that blew out the controls. The machine went out with sparks, leaving only the sound of silence.
Panting exhausted, Lucas shakily approached the smoking body of his fallen nemesis. Had he achieved the impossible? Had his destiny really changed? Gathering his determination, Lucas approached the creature's smoking body to deliver the final blow with his machete. But just as he reached the dejected mass, it suddenly stirred. Before Lucas could react, one of the abomination's appendages elongated and pierced him in the abdomen.
Lucas screamed in pain and fell to his knees, dropping the gun. The wound bled profusely, paralyzing him with shock. But the creature also lay still, as if that last effort had sapped the last of its energy.
Suddenly, the powerful voice of the analyzing machine echoed in the laboratory: "Electric shock test period completed. Initiating quantum explosion sequence."
Lucas watched in horror as the core of the machine began to emit intense flashes of light. Without the controls in place, the process was uncontrollable. Weak at first, the energy blasts increased rapidly.
As if in slow motion, Lucas saw one of the flashes hit the cracked containment tube of the core, finally breaking it. The next explosion escaped the reactor and hit the dying creature. Upon contact, something impossible happened.
The very texture of reality seemed to tear around the creature, opening a kind of tiny black hole that began to absorb everything around it with irresistible force. Lucas tried to cling to the floor, but felt himself being dragged by the singularity.
In an instant, the abomination and Lucas were swallowed by absolute darkness amidst a whirlwind of debris. Seconds later, the portal closed, leaving only a trail of surrounding destruction.
Dazed after the devastating explosion, Lucas opened his eyes in an impossible place. He was in a kind of infinite, shapeless void, coursed by powerful currents of pure energy. Myriads of subatomic particles moved in intricate patterns that defied logic.
Lucas looked at his hands and his body, which had taken on a spectral appearance, as if he were now made of the same energetic substance that surrounded him. I didn't feel pain or fatigue, just deep confusion. Was he alive or dead? Was this the afterlife?
Suddenly, he glimpsed near him the twisted remains of the dimensional creature, floating inertly in that plane of existence. Lucas tried to move away from the remains, but to his horror he discovered that he could not move at will in that strange space.
Unfortunately for him, the remnants of the monster began to slowly approach him, as if attracted by an invisible force. Lucas struggled desperately to get away, but it was useless. When it was within reach, the deformed mass of the creature began to amalgamate with Lucas's right arm.
He screamed in pain, but the sound was muffled by the void. It felt like thousands of needles were piercing every cell in his arm. The flesh grotesquely fused with the alien tissue before his eyes. Lucas thought he was going crazy with horror and suffering, until he finally vanished, plunging into darkness.