For a brief, fragile moment after the message appeared, Ethan's mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing.
It clung desperately to logic.
To reason.
To anything that could explain away the impossible.
A system.
A mission.
Death as a consequence.
No… this had to be mass hallucination. A chemical leak. Some kind of psychological attack. Something human. Something that could be understood, categorized, solved.
But then—The growl came again.
Low...Wet...Too close.
And whatever fragile illusion of control Ethan still held onto… shattered completely.
Slowly, almost against his own will, he turned.
At first, his brain failed to process what it was seeing. The image didn't fit into anything familiar, anything safe. It was like staring at something that existed outside the boundaries of human understanding—something that should not have been real, yet stood there, undeniably present.
The café entrance… was gone.
Where there should have been glass doors leading to the quiet street outside, there was now only darkness. Not the absence of light, but something deeper—thicker. A void that seemed to absorb everything around it, bending the edges of reality itself.
And from that void—It stepped forward.
The creature was tall, unnaturally so, its posture slightly hunched as if its spine had been twisted and reshaped into something unstable. Its skin looked burned, not freshly, but as though it had been charred long ago and left to rot without ever healing. Dark cracks ran across its body, faintly glowing from within, pulsing like dying embers.
Its arms were too long...Its fingers too thin.
Ending in jagged, claw-like points that scraped softly against the floor as it moved.
But it was the face ; If it could even be called that ; That froze Ethan in place.
Its mouth stretched far beyond what should have been possible, splitting across its cheeks in a grotesque imitation of a grin. Rows upon rows of uneven, needle-like teeth filled the space, overlapping, shifting slightly as if alive on their own.
And its eyes—They locked onto him...Not empty...Not mindless...Aware...Hungry.
Ethan's breath caught sharply in his throat, his entire body going rigid as a wave of cold fear surged through him. Around him, the café erupted into chaos, but the sounds felt distant, muffled, as though he had been pulled into a separate space where only he and that thing existed.
Someone screamed.
Another person knocked over a table in a desperate attempt to run.
A chair crashed to the ground.
But Ethan didn't move...He couldn't.
His instincts were screaming at him to run, to get as far away as possible, but his body refused to respond. His legs felt heavy, rooted to the ground, his muscles locked in place by a fear so overwhelming it bordered on paralysis.
"This isn't real…" he whispered, though the words carried no conviction.
The creature tilted its head slightly, as if observing him, studying him.
Then—It moved...Fast...Far too fast.
One moment it stood near the entrance, the next it was already among them.
A blur of motion....!A flash of claws.
And then—Blood.
It sprayed across the floor in a violent arc, warm and vivid against the dull colors of the café. The man in the gray suit didn't even have time to scream properly before his body collapsed, lifeless, the sound of it hitting the ground dull and final.
The room exploded into panic.
"RUN!!"
"GET OUT!!"
"HELP—!"
People rushed in every direction, pushing past each other, stumbling, falling, clawing toward anything that looked like an exit. Some ran toward the windows, slamming against the glass in desperation, others diving behind tables as if thin wood could protect them from what was coming.
It didn't matter...Nothing mattered.
Because the creature didn't chase randomly.
It chose. .And when it chose—There was no escape.
Ethan watched, frozen in horror, as it tore through the crowd with terrifying efficiency. There was no hesitation in its movements, no wasted motion. Every step, every strike was precise, deliberate, as if it had done this countless times before.
Like this… was natural to it....Like killing humans… was its purpose.
"Move…" Ethan whispered to himself, his voice trembling. "Move!"
But his body didn't listen.
Not until !!
The creature stopped.
And slowly—Turned.
Its gaze locked onto him again.
This time, there was no distance. No confusion. No distraction.
Just him.
Ethan felt his stomach drop, a cold, sinking sensation spreading through his chest as the weight of that attention settled on him.
"No…"
The creature took a step forward.
Then another.
Its claws dragged lightly across the floor, producing a sharp, grating sound that sent chills down his spine.
[New Objective: Kill or Be Killed]
The message appeared abruptly, cutting through his thoughts like a blade.
Ethan's eyes flickered toward it instinctively.
Kill… or be killed.
The words felt heavier than anything he had ever read before.
More real...More immediate.
This wasn't a suggestion...It wasn't a warning...It was a rule.
And for the first time since all of this began—Ethan understood.
This wasn't a game.There were no second chances.No resets.No respawns.
If he failed—He would die...The creature lunged.
Everything happened at once.
Time, which had seemed to slow to a crawl, suddenly snapped back into motion.
Ethan's body reacted before his mind could catch up, instinct finally overriding fear. He stumbled backward, narrowly avoiding the creature's claws as they slashed through the space where he had been standing just a fraction of a second earlier.
A table shattered...Wood splintered...Fragments scattered across the floor.
Ethan fell, his back hitting the ground hard, the impact knocking the air out of his lungs. Pain flared through his body, sharp and disorienting, but it barely registered.
Because the creature was already turning.
Already coming again.
"No—!
His hand moved blindly, grasping for anything—anything—that could be used.
His fingers closed around something solid.
A broken piece of wood.
A chair leg...Rough...Heavy enough...Not a weapon.
But it would have to do.
His hands shook violently as he pushed himself up, his grip tightening around the makeshift weapon.
"I can't do this…" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the chaos around him.
He had never fought anyone...Never hurt anyone...He wasn't strong...He wasn't brave.
He was just—Normal...And normal people didn't survive things like this.
The creature moved again...Closer...Faster.
Its mouth widened further, stretching impossibly as it let out another low, distorted sound that might have been laughter… or hunger.
Ethan's vision blurred slightly....His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
And in that moment—Something inside him broke...Not physically...Not visibly.
But something fundamental shifted.
The fear didn't disappear.
It didn't lessen...But it changed...It sharpened...Focused.
Turned into something else...Something dangerous...His grip steadied.
His breathing slowed—just slightly...And as the creature lunged toward him again—
Ethan didn't run.
He stepped forward.
And swung.
....