Later, at the local food dispensary, Jan shoved another slice of pizza into his mouth, speaking around it.


    "Maybe we can hack it." he said with a muffled voice.


    Lucien barely looked up from his half-eaten durum wrap. "Hack what?"


    "The FID Wi-Fi protocol, obviously." Jan rolled his eyes but kept shoveling food into his mouth.


    Lucien arched a brow. "Now who''s the dumb one?" he said, shaking his head, taking another delicious bite.


    "Oh, come on. If we crack the protocol, you don’t have to risk getting even stupider." Jan finally swallowed, grinning.


    "Even if we could, we’d be breaking at least half a dozen laws."


    "Two dozen."


    Lucien gave him a flat look, his mind pondering the option "it is outdated government tech though. How hard can it be?"


    "Exactly!, that’s what I’m saying!" Jan slammed Lucien hard on the back making him choke on his food, coughing bits of half-chewed durum onto the table.


    Jan reeled back, laughing. "Gross, man. Swallow properly."


    Lucien turned toward him, eyes narrowing. Then with zero warning, he spewed bits of chewed-up food straight in Jan’s direction.


    "Aargh!" Jan yelped, hurling himself out of his seat and onto the pristine floor.


    For a moment the room was silent, then they both burst into laughter.


    Lucien extended a hand to help Jan up, but Jan swatted it away.


    "I can get up just fine without your help!" he proclaimed, puffing up with mock dignity as he scrambled to his feet.


    They stood, heading toward the exit. At the blue monitor, they tapped their wrists against the scanner.


    Beep.


    Lucien sighed. "I swear, couldn’t they have made these things silent? Just turn green if it worked, red if it failed. Simple."


    Jan smirked. "What about the blind?"


    Lucien snorted. "Fuck the blind."


    Jan gasped in exaggerated horror. "Wow, ableist much?"


    "They’re choosing to be blind. Just get a cyber-optics installed."


    Jan side-eyed him. "You’re joking, right? I heard cyber-optic implants are the most painful experience imaginable, it takes literal years of agony to get used to."


    Lucien glanced at him as they crossed an empty bicycle path toward their apartment.


    "If I had to lose a sense, I''d rather lose touch than hearing or sight."


    Jan raised an eyebrow. "Really?"


    "Yeah. Smell, taste, even feeling, you can live without that. But hearing and seeing? Those are essential to life."


    Jan nodded thoughtfully—then, with perfect deadpan delivery, said, "Eh, I guess you don’t really need to feel much when all you do is jack off."


    Lucien broke into laughter. "Oh my fucking god, man."


    After a short pause he went "You know, when I masturbate, I always think of yo moma.”


    Jan rolled his eyes, but he was grinning now as well. "Oh, real mature, you fucking child."


    "Keeping the classics alive is a virtue, and truth be told, she is better than porn"


    Still laughing and insulting each other, they entered their apartment building, beeped in, and climbed the six flights of stairs to their unit.


    They always took the stairs. It was a small ritual—a way to feel less guilty about hours spent gaming or binge-watching AI-generated entertainment.


    But tonight was different.


    Tonight, they dragged their PCs into the living room, setting up for something far more daring.


    They were going to attempt to jailbreak the RFID lodged in the back of literally everyone’s skull.


    The chip was installed within the first few weeks after birth—a standard procedure. It required no maintenance, drawing power through heat exchange with the body.


    There were a handful of recorded accidents per year—almost always kids, usually elementary or preschoolers, who leaned too far back in their chairs and smashed their heads against the wall, damaging the implant.


    In those rare cases, the chip had to be replaced.


    "Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Jan asked, pulling open a drawer in his desk.


    Lucien sighed. "If this is your midget porn collection, I’m really not interested."


    "No! Not that, but I know you want it—this."


    Jan pulled out an old plastic case—the kind that once held circular discs.


    Lucien raised an eyebrow.


    "Oh, wow. A DVD. So interesting.." Lucien said dryly.


    "Shut up and look," Jan muttered, eyes locked on the case as he opened it.


    Inside, nestled against cracked plastic, was an old, charred RFID chip.


    "It was my father’s," Jan said, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic weight. "When he died, they cremated him, and we kept the ashes. After I moved out, my mom gave me the urn to remember him by."


    Lucien watched as Jan stared at the chip, his expression unreadable, his eyes distant.


    "When I moved here, I dropped the damn thing," Jan continued. "The urn shattered. But inside… I found this. They must’ve forgotten to sieve it."


    Lucien swallowed.


    "That’s… amazing. But are you sure you want to hack your father’s chip? I mean, does it even work?" The words came out weird, tangled somewhere between excitement and unease. He quickly added, "I mean—it was your father’s, after all."


    Jan exhaled slowly, his grip tightening on the case.


    "Oh, it’ll work," he said, his voice low but resolute. "And it’s exactly what he would’ve wanted me to do. Being a programmer and all. Let’s do it."


    Lucien was walking forward, through a vast corridor, though he had no memory of how or why he was here.


    The corridor stretched before him, bathed in a sickly green glow, the walls slick with moisture and the ceiling sagging under years of decay. The air hung thick with mildew, yet there was something else beneath it—something metallic, something rotten.


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    However Lucien was sure he had a specific purpose here, he just needed to remember what it was, yet every time he thought he had figured it out, his train of thought slipped, sending his mind back into oblivion.


    His boots echoed too loudly against the floor. The sound bounced back at him, distorted, as if the corridor were much larger—or smaller—than it appeared.


    Ahead, an archway loomed, leading into a grand entrance hall. What had once been a beautiful entryway, with a masterfully hand-carved balustrade staircase, now stood in eerie decay as the staircase rose at the far end, winding its way up into the darkness.


    Above, the ceiling had caved in long ago, exposing a jagged hole to the night sky. Rain poured through the gaping wound, drumming against the ruined marble floor, forming puddles that reflected the warped architecture.


    A faint sound of metal clanking from above, made Lucien stop in his tracks and listen. A sharp, deliberate sound. Not the wind. Not water. It was too rhythmic, like a piece of metal being dragged over the wooden floor, something was definitely up there.


    A deep sense of wrongness slithered up his spine. His breath caught in his throat, and his danger sense spiked, putting him into flight mode immediately.


    He turned to run, but the corridor he had just walked through was gone. In fact, the hallway that had stretched endlessly behind him moments ago was now a solid wall, cracked and covered in peeling wallpaper. there was no way out except the broken staircase.


    Lucien swallowed. His pulse thundered in his ears, he had no choice but to move forward up the stairs, towards whatever was making the rhythmical noise.


    He stepped onto the first stair, wincing at the groan of rotten wood beneath his weight. His hand brushed against the rail, feeling the splinters bite into his skin. Step by step, he climbed, eyes fixed on the stairs, too afraid to look up.


    Halfway up, the stairway made a sharp U-turn. To his left, a window frame jutted out from the wall, but there was no glass but even more terrifying, there was no outside at all! no fog, no darkness, just a complete indescribable void.


    Lucien’s stomach twisted at the eerie sight. He hurried past, focusing on the stairs, trying to block out the eerie feeling of being watched by an empty void. Then without warning, his foot went straight through the musty floorboards.


    The wood snapped like brittle bone, and pain flared through his right leg as splintered edges tore through flesh. He gasped, staring at his own blood pooling beneath him. The skin hung in loose, wet ribbons, but the pain was distant, dulled, as though the injury belonged to someone else.


    A deep groan of anger rolled through the stairwell, following by deafening grunting as something began moving towards the him. Lucien froze up, unwilling to look up to the top of the stairs, yet forced to as the light was blocked by something.


    He stared at a massive shape of gray flesh, with chains protruding from various holes, excreting puss that ran down the sides of the bloated human figure. It took in a deep grunting breath, then barreled towards him, thundering down the stairs at an impossible speed.


    The abomination enormous body bolted towards Lucien, its entire bloated body pulsating with, purple blood veins, it wasn’t slowing down, it was going to ram into him any second now.


    Lucien’s body reacted before his mind did. He wrenched his leg free, skin peeling like wet paper, turned on his heel and bolted down the stairs and ran straight down a winding corridor.


    Why hadn’t he noticed this before?


    Lucien stumbled down the hall, heavy footsteps and horrid grunts rattled just behind him, the dim lights in front of him blinking in and out for every stomp the creature made.


    The walls were covered in a slimy fluid, lazily dripping from the ceiling like saliva running out the mouth of a starving beast, ready to set it teeth into prey.


    The corridor suddenly ended in a doorway, a massive black door blocking his escape. He threw himself against the door with all momentum and might, yet it refused to budge.


    “come on! please open you piece of shit!” every word smeared with pure dread, the trampling of heavy footsteps and the guttural grunting getting closer, and closer. The color of the corridor switching to an angry red color, the dripping turning into a cascade of slimy liquid.


    “Fucking open!!” he screamed as he expected to get squashed to pulp between the heavy door and the monster behind him. He finally managed to turn the black metallic doorknob, and fell through the door into an abyss of absolute darkness.


    Lucien’s eyes snapped open.


    The first thing he felt was cold stone against his back, damp and rough. His fingers twitched, brushing against deep grooves carved into the cobblestone—marks left by something dragging across the surface.


    He quickly pushed himself up, his breath coming fast and uneven. Where was the monster?!


    He scanned the area, but the monstrosity was no where to be seen, only the massive black door he had fallen through.


    Luciens concept of time was a completely shot, he could have laid here on the cobbles for a minute, maybe hours, he had no way of telling.


    The square around him was covered in silence. It was somehow illuminated in a sharp white light. Like the lighting in the homes of psychopaths, that used florescent light fixtures in their kitchens.


    Yet, there were no stars, no moon. The sky was completely devoid of anything. Towering walls boxed him in on all sides, ancient and cracked, covered in black stains that looked too much like dried black blood.


    At the center of it all, a stone fountain loomed, long since dried up, its basin filled only with dust and decay. Lucien’s gaze was drawn to it immediately, mostly due to the serene beauty of the female figure.


    He slowly got to his feet and moved closer. Yet as he did and the angle changed, the statue seemed to morph from the beautiful female figure, into an immense beast.


    The creature was frozen mid-violence, talons buried deep in the torso of a man beneath it, his face oddly calm and accepting of his fate, The creatures lips were pulled back, exposing sharp teeth, and its body bulged with unnatural musculature.


    As he stood there and marveled at the beautifully carved statue, a sudden dread suddenly took hold in his entire being. Looking up, he locked eyes with the statue, and it moved.


    Lucien was completely frozen in place, unable to move, unable to process what was happening.


    Then, instinct kicked in. He turned and shot off in the direction of the massive door he’d used to escape the abomination. But there was no exit.


    No door. No alleys. Just solid, black, bleeding stones, stretching infinitely high, as if the world beyond had never existed at all.


    A sense of dread clawed up his spine. He needed to hide, there had to be somewhere he could cower away.


    Lucien turned, sprinting toward the fountain, crouching behind its wide, cracked base. His chest heaved. He risked a glance over the edge. The statue was gone.


    His stomach lurched violently and before he could react a massive entity rammed him with impossible force.


    Lucien’s body slammed against the cobblestone, hard enough to rattle his ribs. A sharp, crushing weight pressed into him, something hot and damp breathing against his skin.


    Talons drove straight through his arms, out on the other side and into his rib cage, perforating his lungs.


    Pain exploded through him, raw and white-hot. His body instinctively convulsed, but he couldn’t move—he was pinned. Blood quickly pooled onto the broken slick cobblestones beneath him.


    Lucien gasped, but no sound came out. Like his voice had been stolen from him.


    Above him, metal cracked—split apart in long, jagged fissures. Pieces of hardened steel flaked off, exposing something wet, red, and pulsing underneath.


    The outer shell fell away in chunks, revealing exposed muscle, glossy with viscous fluids and entrails, twitching and shifting under the heavy plated armored surface.


    Lucien’s writhed as the creature leaned in, pressing closer, the stench of rotting meat and damp iron filling his nose and mouth. He could taste a combination of his own blood and the metallic smell from the colossus draconian figure lurching on his chest.


    Its face was bare flesh, stretched too tight over the shape of the former beautiful human skull, which now bared no resemblance to its former allure, and instead portrayed a macabre mixture of sinew, metal, bone and saggy flesh. Yet the icy blue eyes were completely unchanged and locked his gaze to its own.


    Lucien couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The thing’s ribs expanded violently, its chest rattling like giant metal chimes.


    Then Lucien felt it, a wrenching pull from inside his chest, like something was reaching down his throat, clawing at his insides. His mouth was being writhed open from the inside. a thin stream of glowing purple liquid, siphoned into the creature’s gaping maw.


    He tried to resist, tried to force his mouth shut, and managed to make his lips meet, cutting off the flow.


    The creature sneered, as it ripped it’s arm out of his chest and arm, just to tear his jaw clean off like it was nothing. Blood gushed down his throat, warm and thick, drowning him from the inside out.


    He tried to scream, but his throat was already filled to the brim with his own fluids. His vision blurred, his limbs unable to do anything but spastically jitter.


    On top of him, the creature started shaking in joy, its deep, rattling inhale sending more glowing liquid streaming from his body into its own open maw


    Lucien could feel himself unraveling, piece by piece, being drained into something else. It wasn’t just killing him, it was taking his soul apart. Piece by piece. He closed his eyes, accepting that he was going to die here, on the dark cobblestones in a pool of his own blood. A tranquil feeling went over him. Maybe death wasn’t so bad after all. At least the pain would be gone.


    Lucien opened his eyes at the sound of a slap and someone yelling, “Wake up!”


    His cheek burned, and he stared into a pair of wild, blue eyes.


    Another slap struck his other cheek, but he was unable to speak or move. He could only stare straight up into the blinding light that encircled his friend''s face.


    His arms ached, and he could barely breathe. As he tried to move again, a sharp pain shot through his back.


    Jan moved out of the way, and the ceiling lamp’s glare completely blinded him. He closed his eyes to shield them.


    “Holy shit, man, I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes” Jan panted, his voice hoarse. “What the hell happened?”


    Lucien tried to remember, but all he could focus on was his aching muscles.


    “I can’t remember” he stuttered, still lying on his back, his voice barely audible. “Can you turn off the light? My eyes are burning”.


    Jan went over and flicked the switch off.


    A huge black figure stood right next to him, swallowing the glow of the light that had poured in from the living room, making it look like a black hole.


    Lucien screamed in terror.


    Jan rushed to him, running straight through the translucent figure as if it wasn’t there, and pulled him into a sitting position. The motion sent a violent wave through Lucien’s stomach, and he puked up his half-digested dinner.


    With his throat and eyes burning and the taste of vomit still thick in his mouth, he frantically searched the room for the figure, but it was nowhere to be seen.


    Looking at Jan, he saw vomit smeared on his friend’s bare arm and T-shirt.


    “Sorry, man,” he stammered, defeat written all over his face.