Agent Cid pushed through the rear door of the conference hall, chasing the target down into the underground parking garage. He struck the lock with his weapon, snapping it, and kicked open the heavy steel door. A strange, metallic stench hit him immediately.
The damp air carried the scent of blood, setting off alarms in his mind.
As he stepped into the basement, a chill seemed to seep from the floor into his bones. It was like crossing into another world.
A cold wind blew from nowhere, whispering with ghostly voices. The lights overhead flickered violently—bright, then dark—casting everything in a pale, trembling glow.
Shadows stretched long across the floor and walls, twisting with each flicker, like clawed hands reaching from beyond.
Agent Cid took a few steps forward. The sticky, squelching feeling underfoot made him pause.
Looking down, he saw his boots had already soaked through with blood. A thick, murky pool had formed around him, spreading out from the remains of something no longer human.
He lifted a foot out of the blood and followed the direction of the shadows on the wall.
Then he saw them—Nagase and the others he had been looking for.
They weren't going anywhere.
They were hanging from the ceiling, suspended by their own intestines.
Once key figures in the city's underworld, now reduced to butchered corpses. Their guts had been ripped open and looped through hooks above like pigs in a slaughterhouse.
The lights flickered again. The ghastly white flashes illuminated the pool of blood like lightning across a dead sky.
In the brief glow, Agent Cid caught a glimpse—just for a second—of a tall, gaunt figure standing beside him.
A ragged silhouette. Long, matted hair obscured most of the face, but the mouth was twisted into a gruesome smile, stretched wide toward the ears.
Without hesitation, Agent Cid shifted his aim and fired. The muzzle flash illuminated the column ahead—he shredded a side mirror into pieces with the burst.
But the figure had vanished.
A frown creased his brow.
A hallucination?
Then, from the side mirror of a nearby sports car, he saw it again—that same horrific face grinning at him from the bloodstained floor.
He spun around and fired again. Blood splashed up from the pool—but there was nothing there.
The shots faded, and the silence returned. Only the sound of blood dripping from the corpses echoed in the still air.
Agent Cid held his breath, eyes sweeping the space slowly.
And then—without warning—the face was right there, inches away.
The man stood just a step from him, lips pulled into a mocking grin.
Agent Cid tried to switch his aim again, but the figure grabbed the barrel of his gun. Reacting instantly, Agent Cid dropped the weapon and pulled a sidearm—firing point-blank at the man's head.
The bullet exploded from the barrel, tearing through flesh and bone, blasting out the back of the skull.
But the man didn't even flinch. Blood-covered fingers reached for Agent Cid, glowing a sickening crimson.
Agent Cid's eyes narrowed in alarm.
Infected? That was expected. But even advanced-stage infected usually died from a headshot. Yet this one…
He dodged the grab and twisted the attacker's arm, trying to break it—but it felt like bending iron.
He was strong. Too strong.
Before Agent Cid could react again, the man flung him across the garage. His body slammed into a Chevrolet, the rear window spiderwebbing on impact.
Agent Cid got up fast, but the man was already on him, one hand clamping around his throat.
The pressure was crushing. His vision blurred as he gasped for breath, struggling to pry the hand away.
"You're... Mike?" Agent Cid managed to grit out.
He had a suspicion.
This grinning madman could very well be Mike—the man who vanished after a gang tried to drown him in cement. The man who should have died.
He was infected. But not just infected—highly evolved. Maybe the brutal beating had triggered a deeper transformation.
Once a broken man: unemployed, evicted, beaten and left for dead.
All that pain, all that trauma—it had pushed him over the edge. And now, he was something else.
"No," the man rasped, his torn lips curling into a bloodstained grin. "I'm not Mike. I'm not anyone anymore."
"I am Void."
Agent Cid's mind reeled.
Void continued, "You know what terrifies people the most, detective? It's the unknown. The void. Force them to look into it long enough, and they break. Every time."
He leaned in close, foul breath curling around Agent Cid's nose.
"And that's why I exist. I am the Void made flesh. I am the thing they all fear."
He glanced toward the mutilated bodies above.
"This? This was just a little test. A demonstration. And among all these boring people, you seem like the one who might understand that best, Officer Cid."
Agent Cid couldn't think straight anymore. His throat burned, his strength fading.
And then—just as his vision blurred into darkness—he saw something:
A bat. A massive bat, wings stretched wide, diving toward them with the force of a hurricane.
Void barely had time to react before the creature slammed into him, sending his body flying across the parking lot.