Chapter Text
On the floor, there is a torn-off arm, blood flowing from the visible flesh and bone. A guard, in pain and shock from one of his missing limbs, fearfully looks up at the figure above him. On the other side of the room, another guard is seen, witnessing the sudden horror. Both fixated on the intimidating prisoner, the security guard closest to her has his head ripped off by an invisible force. From his decapitated corpse, a key is picked up, which the prisoner uses to free herself from her restraints. Meanwhile, the other guard who’s still alive shouts “STOP IT” before firing his gun towards the girl.
Mere seconds later, he suffers the same brutal fate his partner went through, decapitation. The girl drops his head on the floor, begins humming, and walks to the outside of her chamber. Her escape called for a ‘Level 4’ alert, with every security guard in the facility being sent in to stop her. On the floor right above the girl’s chamber, a clumsy, awkward secretary by the name of Kisaragi prepares some coffee for Director Kurama in the break room. She speaks to some of her superior co-workers who comment on Kisaragi’s difficult position. “It must be hard to live up to the director’s expectations,” says one of the break room attendants. “Oh, not at all,” Kisaragi replies in a calm, determined manner to her co-worker. “Sure, I may have made a couple of mistakes, but someday, I’ll be the best secretary in Japan, one who can be at our chief’s side and help him out.”
Oblivious to the blaring alarm, Kisaragi carries a plate holding a cup of coffee, though not without losing her balance on occasion. On the floor right below her, the escaping prisoner walks towards a group of guards. Readying their guns, one of the guards reminds the others, “We should be safe as long as we stay this far away from her, do not drop anything on the floor!” They all start firing bullets on the incoming escapee. However, millimeters away from impact, the bullets are stopped in place and drop, leaving the girl unscathed. All four reloaded, though two were slow in doing so, leading to their bodies being ripped in half from the torso. One guard falls back in fear and has his neck slowly and painfully twisted, losing his head in the process. Another guard runs away, too scared to face off against the monster chasing him. Unfortunately, he trips in front of the door with not enough time to unlock it and get out. The girl, wearing nothing but a metal helmet concealing her face, approaches the guard. He screams bloody murder as his body is gruesomely mutilated by the monster. The sadistic girl picks up a keycard from the guard’s pocket and uses it to open the door to the upper floors. As they open, an entire squad of guards led by Kurama wait outside, attempting to launch a surprise counter-attack. Unfortunately for them, the clumsy Kisaragi trips right in front of the prisoner. Kurama catches sight, warning her “Kisaragi, RUN, GET OUT OF THERE QUICKLY!” Confused, the secretary calmly apologizes, “Sorry chief, I didn’t mean to drop your coffee.”
Kurama continues warning Kisaragi, yelling “Get out, or you’ll be killed by Lucy!” Unaware of the danger Lucy possesses, Kisaragi blankly stares up at her in a daze. In a matter of moments, Lucy twists the woman’s head off, accompanied by the gruesome sounds of tendons being torn apart. Kurama, enraged by Lucy’s brutal murder of his secretary, orders the guards to fire. Using her power, Lucy picks up Kisaragi’s decapitated corpse against the bullets, reducing the poor woman’s body to a meat shield. Kurama, visibly upset and scared, orders his men to once again “Fire, we can’t let her escape!” One of the guards stammers, “We- we’re out of bullets sir, we need to get more weapons!” Using the distraction as an opportunity, Lucy grabbed a pen from Kisaragi’s coat and launched it, striking the blabbering guard through the eye and brain. The ruthless monster began approaching the squad, causing many to run away, though a couple were unsuccessful in evading her. One guard even had his heart cleanly pushed out of his body, resulting in a slow, agonizing death. Lucy walked past Kurama, leaving a bloody handprint on the back of his coat without a word.
The director grabbed his radio and contacted the surveillance team to shut the doors leading to the outside. Strangely, the doors were left open, with no attempt to close them. As a last resort, the frustrated Kurama called for a sniper to take care of Lucy. He and another security guard quickly ran up the stairs to find a good vantage point. They located a window with the guard swiftly, but carefully aiming towards Lucy’s position. Kurama ordered the guard to “Target the back of her head and shoot with just one bullet; with her, you’re not going to get a second shot.” The guard calmed the director and stated, “This is a 50-caliber anti-tank rifle, even her vectors won’t be able to repel this bullet.” Finger on the trigger, he took a shot aimed at the monster’s head. However, the sound of the rifle alerted Lucy of their position. Turning her head, the bullet hit the side of her metal helmet, causing her to lose consciousness, but not enough to kill her. In frustration, Kurama yelled “God damnit, it didn’t finish her off!”
Lucy tried to stay awake, but her body teetered back and forth; losing balance, she unceremoniously fell into the ocean below. Director Kurama was in disbelief, the ruthless monster known as Lucy escaped what was supposed to be a high-security facility and killed 14 people in a matter of ten minutes. Now, she was unleashed into the world, and posed an extreme threat to not only anybody who would come across her, but to all of humanity itself. However, Lucy wasn’t the only thing the world had to worry about. On the same night of her escape, Earth would be introduced to another caliber of monster.
In a small suburban Japanese town, a young man, around the age of sixteen, was laying in his bed. Listening to JRock on his MP3 player, the man was not quite asleep, but too tired to be awake. By the open windowsill by his balcony, a strange, green sphere rested. The sphere opened, hatching an indescribable, worm-like organism. The organism tried to enter the man’s body through his ears, but was blocked by his earphones. The man instantly jolted up, grabbing his glasses, and quickly looked around the bedroom for whatever the hell that thing was. He then spotted the creature on his bedsheets, who then attempted to enter through his nostrils. The man was quick enough to sneeze it out, but couldn’t catch it as the creature bounced around the room.
The man isn’t sure what it was that tried to enter his body, but he hesitantly assumed it to be a snake. Grabbing a dictionary from his bookshelf, he attempted whacking at the organism, but it perfectly dodged all of his moves. Sitting on the keyboard of his computer, the creature landed on the man’s right arm, wriggling his way through the skin, outer flesh, and ultimately entering his body. In a panic, the man screamed in fear.
He then grabbed the cord of his MP3 player and tied it around the upper area of his right arm. As he tightened the cord, the man’s parents walked into his room, asking him what the commotion was about. The man’s father, Kazuyuki, noticed the cord around his arm, and asked “Shinichi, what is it that you’re doing so late at night?” Stuttering, Shinichi said “Th-there was this snake that made this hole in my arm, a-and went inside my body!” Kazuyuki, questioning his son’s story, snarked “Shinichi, are you on drugs?”
“What, no, I’m being serious, it actually went inside my arm,” Shinichi yelled while breathing heavily. Still somewhat doubtful, his father asked to inspect his arm, “Alright, let’s see where that hole is.” Upon checking his right arm, he couldn’t find any hole, much to Shinichi’s surprise. Kazuyuki, once again, asked, “Son, you’re sure you aren’t on drugs?” In a rushed tone, Shinichi shouted, “I’m not using that stuff, I’m telling you the truth!” Shinichi’s mother, Nobuko, intervened, assuring Kazuyuki, “Come on dear, he probably had a bad dream, get some rest Shinichi”.
The two exited the room, and Shinichi plopped onto his bed, though the events that transpired raised a lot of questions in Shinichi’s head. ‘What was that thing that entered my arm’? ‘How did it even get in there and where did the hole go after the fact’? ‘Did that whole thing actually happen, or was it really a dream like mother suggested’? These thoughts made it impossible for the 16-year-old high schooler to find any rest all night. Shinichi tried not to think about it which did lower his discomfort, though not by much.
Early in the morning, in an apartment located on the outskirts of Tokyo, a wrinkled middle-aged man was practicing facial expressions in front of a mirror. His wife suggested “Dear, you’ve been doing that for the past half-hour; why don’t you change and get something to eat?” The man remained unmoved, continuing to stare into the bathroom mirror. His wife requested once again, “Did you hear me; change into a new pair of clothes”. In response, he walked towards the closet, looking at the folded shirts and pants inside, almost clueless as to how to use them. Tired and groggy, the woman approached her husband, asking “Are you alright?” Suddenly, in a matter of seconds, the man’s face split open, revealing several sets of sharp teeth and pairs of tentacles and eyes. His wife watched in shock as he swiftly devoured her entire head in an instant. The woman’s body dropped to the floor, with the man eating the flesh off her arms and legs. At this point, the man’s appearance was nightmarish, his face morphing into a flower-shaped amalgamation of unnatural horror. As he chomped on his wife’s remains, blood and flesh dripped from his mouth, staining the carpet below. To call it cannibalism would be misleading, no human would ever eat their own that messily, nor would they be able to give their face such a horrific form. One thing was for certain, despite the resemblance, the man was no longer human in his current state.