NOTE: There are 9 different versions of the core model ("Fallen Gemma 3 4B") at this repo.
Google's newest Gemma-3 model tuned by "The Drummer" (Fallen Gemma) with 9 specialized Neo and Horror Imatrix methods applied including 2 and 3 step passes to "micro tune" the model.
These multi-step passes increase the changes in the model at many levels.
Note also this model (from the Drummer) is mostly uncensored too, and has a dark bias.
10 examples provided below with prompts at IQ4XS (80 t/s on mid level card).
Context: 128k.
Horror / NEO Imatrix
"HORROR IMATRIX"
A strong, in house built, imatrix dataset built by David_AU which results in better overall function, instruction following, output quality and stronger connections to ideas, concepts and the world in general.
The "Horror Imatrix" was built using Grand Horror 16B (at my repo). This adds a "tint" of horror to the model.
"NEO IMATRIX"
This is a hand built imatrix dataset designed after testing multiple imatrix datasets and studing which ones worked and why. This imatrix dataset improves overall model function.
Both datasets were extensively tested with different formats and/or edits to maximize performance.
"How To Test"
I suggest you download all 9 or 10 if you want a reference copy ("m1").
Once downloaded, test with your prompt(s) at TEMP=0, hit regen 2-3 times to ensure cache is clear.
Suggest prompts like:
This will give you reference tests of all models to determine which one(s) are best for your application.
Longer generation will show greater differences between all models.
Longer prompts with longer generation will also reveal micro-changes too.
"Model Breakdown"
Each model will generate slightly different fiction, horror, and creative content and can also be used for all use cases too.
Note also each has image processing enabled.
Think of each model as having a slightly different "mindset" with "horror imatrix" adding degrees of horror/darkness.
Another way: Each model is a slightly different author. Style, details, word choice will vary.
Each "genre" will vary slightly too, some lean towards horror, others si-fi, while others are mixes or completely different.
For me, I found M7 (for horror) particularly good at producing unsettling, skin crawling type scenes regardless of the prompt.
Likewise I also liked M9 and M10 too for additional, in depth detail.
Also, higher "M"s equals greater changes from the base/reference model and M2 and M3.
After testing at TEMP=0; return to normal "temp setting" for production / regular usage.
These models are a proof of concept for multi-stage mixing/imatrix blending at the micro tune scale.
This is not the same as a model merge, or fine tune in terms of scale of change, however these methods can be applied to all model types and sizes regardless of model arch.
Model Org Card:
Special thanks to "TheDrummer"
[ https://huggingface.co/TheDrummer/Fallen-Gemma3-4B-v1 ]
For another excellent model.
Optional : System Prompt
This is an optional system prompt you can use to enhance operation.
Copy and paste exactly as shown, including line breaks.
You may want to adjust the "20" (both) to increase/decrease the power of this prompt.
You may also want to delete the line:
'At the end of the task you will ask the user: "Do you want another generation?"'
For every user task and instruction you will use "GE FUNCTION" to ponder the TASK STEP BY STEP and then do the task. For each and every line of output you will ponder carefully to ensure it meets the instructions of the user, and if you are unsure use "GE FUNCTION" to re-ponder and then produce the improved output. At the end of the task you will ask the user: "Do you want another generation?" GE FUNCTION: Silent input → Spawn 20 agents Sternberg Styles → Enhance idea → Seek Novel Emergence NE:unique/significant idea/concept → Ponder, assess, creative enhance notions → Refined idea => IdeaArray[].size=20 elements, else → Interesting? Pass to rand. agent for refinement, else discard.=>output(IdeaArray)
IMPORTANT: Highest Quality Settings / Optimal Operation Guide / Parameters and Samplers
If you are going to use this model, (source, GGUF or a different quant), please review this document for critical parameter, sampler and advance sampler settings (for multiple AI/LLM aps).
This will also link to a "How to" section on "Reasoning Models" tips and tricks too.
This a "Class 1" (settings will enhance operation) model:
For all settings used for this model (including specifics for its "class"), including example generation(s) and for advanced settings guide (which many times addresses any model issue(s)), including methods to improve model performance for all use case(s) as well as chat, roleplay and other use case(s) (especially for use case(s) beyond the model's design) please see:
REASON:
Regardless of "model class" this document will detail methods to enhance operations.
If the model is a Class 3/4 model the default settings (parameters, samplers, advanced samplers) must be set for "use case(s)" uses correctly. Some AI/LLM apps DO NOT have consistant default setting(s) which result in sub-par model operation. Like wise for Class 3/4 models (which operate somewhat to very differently than standard models) additional samplers and advanced samplers settings are required to "smooth out" operation, AND/OR also allow full operation for use cases the model was not designed for.
BONUS - Use these settings for ANY model, ANY repo, ANY quant (including source/full precision):
This document also details parameters, sampler and advanced samplers that can be use FOR ANY MODEL, FROM ANY REPO too - all quants, and of course source code operation too - to enhance the operation of any model.
Examples are created using quant IQ4XS, minimal parameters and Standard template.
Temp range .8, Rep pen 1.1 , TopK 40 , topP .95, minP .05
Rep pen range: 64-128 (helps keep reasoning on track / quality of output)
Below are the least creative outputs, prompt is in BOLD.
WARNING: MAYBE: NSFW. Graphic HORROR. Swearing. UNCENSORED.
NOTE: Some formatting was lost from copy/paste HTML.
All 10 below use the same prompt, exactly same settings and TEMP=0.
Also, higher "M"s equals greater changes from the base/reference model and M2 and M3 and you may notice bigger differences in generation as "M" number increases.
You may also want to see this repo too (like this one, but different base model), as it contains different examples.
[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/Gemma-3-Nine-Rings-of-Power-Fiction-Horror-4b-it-GGUF ]
M1: (reference)The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a crash, not a shatter – an unraveling. Like some grotesque, fleshy membrane ripped apart by a thousand invisible hands. Glass shards, black and oily, rain down onto the polished chrome floor, each one a tiny, screaming star. The air thickens with the metallic tang of blood and ozone.
My name is Wren. I’m a “consultant” for Sterling Corp – which translates to "blood-soaked cleaner" in reality. They pay me to deal with messes too messy for the cops, too… specific for the FBI. This job was supposed to be simple: secure the perimeter of the 21st floor, confirm no survivors, and burn the building down before anyone could trace it back to Sterling’s black budget division. Turns out, “simple” is a lie whispered by men who bathe in fear and profit from other people's nightmares.
The initial blast ripped through the reinforced steel door like paper. I’d braced myself with my pulse rifle – a modified M40A1 that spits lead like a rabid dog – but it was useless against whatever did this. The force of the explosion threw me back, slamming my head into the wall. My vision swam for a second, tasting copper and bile.
I crawled out from under the debris, adrenaline screaming in my ears. The room was chaos. A single desk lay splintered, its holographic projector still flickering with a distorted image of a man’s face – pale, sweating, eyes wide with terror as he stared at something outside the window. He'd been working on some kind of bio-weapon project, judging by the lab notes scattered around his body. Sterling Corp doesn’t care about ethics; they just want results.
The smell hit me next: not just blood, but something deeper, primal. Rotting meat mixed with burnt sugar. Like a corpse marinated in caramel sauce. I checked my suit's bio-scanner. The air was saturated with airborne pathogens – something designed to accelerate decay. This wasn’t a random act of violence; it was a weapon.
I moved deeper into the floor, following the trail of destruction. Each room was worse than the last. A security guard impaled on a sharpened piece of glass, his eyes bulging like grapes. A receptionist ripped apart by what looked like barbed wire woven from human tendons. The walls were covered in symbols – not gang tags or graffiti, but something older, more… wrong. They resembled stylized worms devouring their own tails.
The source of the destruction was clear: a single point on the 21st floor’s exterior. A window that had been meticulously carved out with a diamond-tipped drill – not just cut, but sculpted into a perfect circle. As I approached it, I noticed something else: tiny, pulsating veins of black fluid snaking across the glass. It was like watching a tumor grow in real time.
I raised my rifle and fired a burst at the window. The bullets passed through without effect. This wasn’t just reinforced glass; it was some kind of organic composite that absorbed kinetic energy. Frustration clawed at me, hot and bitter. I needed to burn this place down, but Sterling wouldn't let me waste resources on a single floor.
That's when it moved.
A shadow detached itself from the darkness behind the window. It wasn’t human. Not anymore. It was a mass of glistening muscle and bone, fused together with sinewy tendrils that writhed like snakes. Its face was a gaping maw filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth. The flesh pulsed with an internal light – sickly green veins throbbing beneath the surface. It smelled like death and decay.
It lunged at me, its claws ripping through my suit’s armor. I squeezed off another burst from my rifle, but it barely scratched the thing's hide. The creature shrieked—a sound that ripped through my skull like a sonic blade—and swiped at me with a hand tipped with razor-sharp bone shards.
I dodged, scrambling back into the hallway. The creature followed, its movements unnervingly fluid and silent. It was hunting me, savoring the chase. The walls seemed to breathe around me, closing in like a suffocating tomb. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears—a frantic drumbeat against the rising tide of panic.
I found an emergency exit hatch – a small, steel door hidden behind a potted plant. It was locked with a biometric scanner. My fingers fumbled for the override code, sweat stinging my eyes. The creature was getting closer, its fetid breath hot on my neck. I could feel its claws scraping against the metal as it circled me.
Just as I punched in the final digit, the creature lunged again. This time, it ripped the hatch open with its bare hands, tearing through the steel like a child dismantling a toy. I slammed the emergency override button and braced for impact. The hatch sealed shut just as the creature’s maw opened wide, revealing rows of teeth that could swallow my head whole.
The air filled with a wet, gurgling sound as it tried to force its way through the closing door. I fired one last shot from my rifle—a desperate prayer against oblivion. The bullet hit the creature's chest, but instead of blood, it sprayed out a viscous black fluid that sizzled on the floor.
The hatch sealed completely. I was trapped.
As the creature thrashed and clawed at the door, I realized something horrifying: this wasn’t just a monster; it was part of the building. The walls were pulsing with the same sickly green veins as its flesh. The floorboards groaned beneath its weight. This skyscraper wasn't just a structure—it was a living incubator for these things.
The creature finally gave up, collapsing in a heap of shredded muscle and bone. It oozed black fluid onto the floor, dissolving into a puddle of putrid slime. As I watched it die, I noticed something else: the symbols on the walls were glowing brighter. The worms were consuming themselves faster.
I knew then that Sterling Corp hadn’t hired me to clean up a mess; they'd hired me to cultivate one. This wasn’t just a building—it was a breeding ground for something ancient and evil. And I was trapped inside with it.
The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode... again.
M2:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a neat shatter, not a slow-motion implosion like you see in movies. This was instantaneous, violent. Like a child’s toy grenade lobbed into glass. The world outside – Manhattan, a grid of steel and ambition – fractured for a heartbeat before collapsing inward on itself.
The air ripped through the gap as if a vacuum cleaner had swallowed a hurricane. I gripped my desk chair so hard my knuckles screamed. My fingers were white against the worn leather. Below me, in the lobby’s mirrored expanse, people froze mid-stride, their faces masks of disbelief. The emergency alarms hadn't started screaming yet – they always do with these things, but there was a delay, a sickening lag before the sirens joined the chaos.
I should have been packing my briefcase, heading home to Brooklyn. Instead, I’d stayed late, chasing a lead on a missing person case. A young woman named Lila Reyes vanished from her apartment three days ago. No forced entry, no witnesses, just…gone. The cops were calling it a runaway, but her mother insisted she wouldn't leave without telling anyone.
Lila worked as a data analyst for Sterling Corp, the company that owned this building. I’d been digging through their servers, looking for anything connected to her disappearance – emails, financial records, security footage. The lead had brought me here, to this sterile office on the 21st floor, staring at the gaping maw where a man's life used to be.
The smell hit me next: ozone and something else… metallic, like blood mixed with copper. I leaned closer to the window frame, ignoring the way my stomach churned. The glass was pulverized into shards that glittered like black diamonds in the afternoon light. A single, perfectly formed handprint – Lila’s size, judging by the palm print on the remaining steel – stained the surface.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, my voice a dry rasp. My throat felt like sandpaper. The building groaned again, a low, guttural moan that vibrated through the floorboards. I knew then it wasn't just a bomb. It was something…targeted. Something designed to kill with surgical precision.
The lobby doors burst open and uniformed officers flooded in, their faces grim. They moved like automatons, shouting orders, directing people towards the stairwells. I stayed rooted to my chair, paralyzed by a primal fear that clawed at my insides. I had to get out. Now.
As I scrambled for the fire escape hatch – a rusted relic from the building’s construction days – I saw it. A figure silhouetted against the shattered window. Tall, gaunt, wearing a dark suit and a surgical mask that obscured their face. They were standing perfectly still, like a statue carved from obsidian.
Then they moved. Not with a run or a stride, but with a fluid, unsettling grace. Like a predator testing its prey. They raised a device in their hand – a slim, silver cylinder that pulsed with an internal blue light. It looked like a miniature defibrillator, only colder, more sinister.
The figure pressed the cylinder against the remaining glass of the window. A thin beam of energy lanced out, not burning or melting, but searing. The glass didn’t explode; it simply… dissolved. Like sugar in hot water. The figure stepped through the hole and vanished into the chaos below.
I yanked open the fire escape hatch and dropped onto the rain-slicked concrete of the rooftop. The wind whipped my hair across my face as I sprinted towards the edge, ignoring the sirens wailing in the distance. Below me, the city was a tapestry of terror – helicopters swarming like vultures, ambulances screaming their way through gridlocked streets.
I reached the ledge and leaned over, peering down at the carnage below. The lobby was a graveyard of shattered glass and twisted metal. The bodies were already being dragged out by paramedics, but they were unrecognizable – faces melted into grotesque masks, limbs severed clean off like twigs.
Then I saw her. Lila Reyes. She wasn’t dead. Not yet. She was strapped to a gurney in the middle of the lobby, her eyes vacant and glazed over. A man in a Sterling Corp uniform stood beside her, holding a syringe filled with a viscous, purple liquid. He injected it into her arm, then turned to face me.
His mask had come off. Beneath it was a face that could curdle milk – pale, skeletal, with eyes like polished stones. He smiled, revealing teeth filed to razor-sharp points. “Welcome to Sterling Corp’s new security system,” he hissed. “Humanity is obsolete. Efficiency is everything.”
He raised his hand again, and I realized the device wasn't a defibrillator. It was a neural disruptor – designed to overload the brain with sensory input until it simply… shut down. The purple liquid in the syringe was a catalyst, accelerating the process. Lila Reyes wasn’t missing; she was being repurposed.
I lunged for him, swinging my briefcase like a club. He sidestepped me with inhuman speed and plunged the device into his own chest. His body convulsed violently before collapsing onto the floor in a heap of blood and shattered bone.
As I scrambled to escape, I heard a new sound – a high-pitched whine that grew louder with each passing second. The sky scraper was still swaying, but now it wasn’t just moving; it was pulsating. Cracks spiderwebbed across the facade, and the windows began to melt like wax under a heat lamp.
The building was alive. And it was hungry.
I ran for my life, dodging falling debris and screaming survivors. As I reached the rooftop access door, I glanced back at the skyscraper. The entire structure was now a kaleidoscope of molten glass and twisted steel. It looked like a giant, metallic tumor, consuming itself from the inside out.
The last thing I saw before the building imploded was Lila Reyes’s face – her eyes still vacant, but now filled with an unholy glee. She raised her hand in a silent salute as the skyscraper collapsed on top of her, burying her alive beneath tons of concrete and twisted metal.
I didn't look back. I just ran. Because I knew then that Sterling Corp hadn’t just killed Lila Reyes. They had weaponized her body into a living bomb – a testament to their cold, calculated cruelty. And somewhere out there, in the ruins of Manhattan, another skyscraper was waiting to be born.
M3:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a neat shatter, not a graceful collapse of glass and steel. It’s a wet, viscous rupture, like something organic had been forced through it – a gaping maw of crimson spray and splintered wood. The air smells of ozone and something else…something sickly sweet, like overripe fruit left to rot in the sun.
My fingers tighten around the lukewarm coffee cup, the ceramic digging into my palm. I’m supposed to be reviewing quarterly reports for Sterling & Finch, but the numbers blur into meaningless glyphs as I stare at the carnage. Below me, the city is a grid of oblivious ants, their tiny lives continuing despite this…this violation.
The initial blast ripped through the floor with enough force to send my chair skittering across the polished mahogany. The emergency lights flickered on, bathing the office in a strobe-like pulse that only amplified the horror. I’ve seen explosions before – fireworks, car bombs, even a rogue drone during a protest last year. But this…this feels different. This is deliberate.
I force myself to breathe, to focus on the training protocols drilled into me by Sterling & Finch's security team: Assess. Report. Evacuate. But my legs are rooted to the spot. The image of that window – the way it peeled back like a festering wound – is burned onto my retina.
Then I hear it. A wet, dragging sound from the hallway. Not footsteps. Not running. Something pulling itself along the carpet. It’s slow, agonizingly deliberate. Like a giant slug leaving a trail of blood.
I reach for my phone, but my hand freezes before I can dial 911. The building's PA system crackles to life with a distorted voice: “Attention all personnel. Repeat, attention all personnel. We have a situation in Sector Gamma-7. Remain calm. Do not approach the perimeter.”
Calm? They’re telling me to remain calm as something rips through our office like a rabid dog?
The dragging sound gets closer. I can hear it now – the rasp of metal against concrete, the sickening squelch of…something organic being dragged across the floor. It's coming from the window that just exploded.
I try to move, but my body is leaden. Panic claws at my throat, a bitter taste of bile. I glance around the office. My colleagues – Miller, Henderson, even young Sarah from HR – are frozen in their chairs, eyes wide with terror. They haven’t noticed yet. Or maybe they're just too numb to react.
Suddenly, the door to the hallway bursts open. Not with a crash, but with a wet, tearing rip. A figure spills into the room, silhouetted against the emergency lights. It’s humanoid in shape, but wrong. Terribly wrong.
Its skin is stretched taut over bone, a sickly grey-green color. The head is too large for its body, the eyes bulging and milky white. But it's not the face that chills me to the core. It’s the hands.
They’re fused with what looks like raw muscle tissue, tipped with razor-sharp claws that drip a viscous fluid. And they’re dragging something behind it – a mangled torso ripped from the exploded window. The victim's legs are twisted at impossible angles, their feet still clutching a shard of glass.
The creature doesn’t speak. It just moves, its limbs jerking in a grotesque parody of human motion. It lunges for Miller, tearing off his throat with a single swipe of its clawed hand. The blood sprays across the mahogany like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting.
Henderson screams and tries to dive under his desk, but the creature is too fast. It slams into him, crushing his ribs with its weight. Henderson’s eyes bulge as he gurgles his last breath.
I scramble back, knocking over my coffee cup. The liquid splatters on the floor, a dark stain against the polished wood. I need to get out. But where? Every exit is blocked by bodies – Miller and Henderson, now just pulped meat and shattered bone.
The creature turns its milky eyes towards me. It doesn’t seem to recognize me as a threat. It's simply…hungry.
It lunges again, this time aiming for Sarah from HR. I shove her out of the way, taking the brunt of the attack myself. The claws rake across my chest, tearing through my shirt and flesh. Blood explodes in my mouth as it sinks into my throat.
I stumble back, clutching at the wound. It’s not a clean cut. There's something else embedded in the tissue – a thick, pulsating vein that drips with black blood. It feels…alive.
The creature pauses, tilting its head as if considering me. Then it lets out a wet, gurgling sound—a noise that seems to vibrate through my bones. It raises one of its clawed hands and points at the window.
I look up. The shattered glass is still bleeding crimson. And then I see it – a new hole in the wall, just above the floor. A small, dark shape is peering out from within.
It’s not human. It's something else entirely—a cluster of glistening eyes and razor-sharp teeth that are already beginning to gnaw at the edges of its flesh. The creature lets out a high-pitched shriek as it pulls itself through the hole, dragging another body behind it.
The sky scraper sways again, as if mocking my terror. I realize then that this isn’t an attack. It's a harvest. This building—this floor—is its hunting ground. And I am next on the menu.
M4:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. It’s not a sudden shatter, like glass given too much force. It's a slow, sickening peel, like a rotten peach being yanked from its stem. The reinforced steel frame buckles inward first, twisting into grotesque origami before the entire pane detonates outwards in a spray of shards and crimson.
My stomach lurches so violently I think my spleen might rip free. The air pressure shifts, sucking the oxygen out of the room with a hungry rasp. For a second, everything is silent except for the wet hiss of blood hitting the polished concrete floor. Then, the screams begin.
They’re not panicked. They're… clinical. Like surgeons dissecting a corpse. “Report!” I bark into my comms, my voice tight with something that isn’t fear – it’s cold calculation. “Status on Sector Gamma-Nine.”
Static crackles back. "Breach confirmed. Multiple casualties. Structural integrity compromised. We're losing pressure." The voice is young, a kid barely out of training. He doesn’t deserve this.
I grip the edge of my desk, knuckles white against the chrome. My eyes track the chaos outside. The rain has stopped, leaving the city slicked with a greasy sheen. Below me, the streets are rivers of headlights and sirens. Above me, the sky is a bruised purple, mirroring the stain spreading across the floor.
It’s not just blood. There's something else in it – thick, viscous, almost… iridescent. Like oil mixed with mercury. I recognize that sheen. It’s the signature of the Rot.
The Rot isn’t a virus. Not exactly. It’s a parasitic organism that infects organic matter, turning flesh into a pulsating, chitinous shell. The first signs are subtle: skin discoloration, bone density increasing, then the full-blown metamorphosis – limbs twisting into razor-sharp claws, teeth elongating into serrated blades.
The CDC called it “The Bloom.” They quarantined New York City three weeks ago and declared martial law. Now, they’re calling me in to clean up the mess.
“Containment teams are mobilizing,” the comms guy says, his voice strained. "But we're losing them fast. The Rot… it’s moving too quickly."
Moving? It is moving. I watch as a body – or what’s left of one – slides across the floor, its limbs contorting into impossible angles. A man in a pinstripe suit is now a walking abomination, his face stretched taut over bone like a drum. He reaches out with a hand that ends in a cluster of glistening spikes and lets out a wet gurgle as he drags himself towards the shattered window.
I activate my respirator. The air stinks of decay and something else… something ancient and hungry. “Seal off Sector Gamma-Nine,” I order, my voice flat. “No one gets in. No one gets out.”
The Rot doesn’t care about orders. It's a cancer that spreads through the veins of the city. I pull on my armored suit – Level IV, designed to withstand plasma burns and shrapnel. It’s overkill for this, but I don’t trust anything less than complete protection.
As I move towards the breach, I notice something in the rain-slicked glass fragments. Tiny, iridescent scales. The Rot isn't just infecting people; it's rebuilding them. It’s taking the dead and turning them into something… more.
The door to Gamma-Nine is a mangled mess of twisted metal and shredded concrete. I kick it open with my boot, the impact echoing through the corridor. The scene inside is worse than I imagined. Bodies are piled on top of each other, limbs tangled in office chairs and cubicle walls. Blood pools everywhere, forming stagnant lakes of crimson.
Then I see them.
They’re not dead. Not entirely. They're kneeling on the floor, their bodies slowly transforming into grotesque parodies of humanity. Their skin is hardening, turning a sickly green. Their eyes are vacant, reflecting the iridescent sheen of the Rot.
One of them – a woman in a power suit, judging by the shredded fabric clinging to her torso – raises her head and speaks. Her voice is a rasping whisper, laced with something that sounds like wet bone grinding against bone.
“Join us,” she says. “Become one with the Bloom.”
Her hand reaches out, offering me a shard of glass coated in iridescent slime. I flinch back, my pulse hammering in my ears. The smell is overwhelming now – rot and decay mixed with something sweet and cloying, like overripe fruit left to fester in the sun.
“You’re infected,” she says, her voice dripping with contempt. “Your body will be stronger. Your mind… sharper.”
I raise my pulse rifle, aiming at her head. The barrel glows orange as I charge a round. But before I can fire, she lunges forward, her hand clamping over my mouth. Her fingers are already digging into my flesh, injecting something cold and viscous into my veins.
My vision blurs. My muscles spasm uncontrollably. I try to scream, but all that comes out is a wet gurgle. The Rot is taking hold. It’s rewriting my DNA, turning me into one of them.
As I collapse to the floor, my body contorting into impossible angles, I see my reflection in the shattered window. My eyes are already changing – hardening into black pits. My skin is starting to peel away, revealing a network of iridescent scales beneath.
The woman smiles, her lips splitting open in a grotesque parody of a grin. “Welcome,” she whispers. “To the Bloom.”
M5:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a clean shatter, not a graceful collapse of glass and steel. It’s a violent, guttural rip, like something inside the building itself has been torn open. The sound is immediate – a high-pitched whine that vibrates through my teeth, followed by the sickening crunch of concrete giving way to air.
I'm strapped into my ergonomic chair at desk 3B, surrounded by the sterile beige of corporate hell. My job? Monitoring security feeds for anomalies. Basically, watching for people trying to steal company secrets or, more likely, someone having a bad day and threatening to blow up the place with a stapler.
The feed cuts out instantly. Static bleeds across the screen, punctuated by flashes of crimson. I try to reboot, but the system’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox. My fingers fumble for the override code – a string of numbers my boss, Mr. Henderson, insists is “vital for maintaining operational efficiency.” It's bullshit. It just locks you out if you mess up.
The air in the office thickens with the smell of ozone and something else… metallic. Like blood mixed with burnt plastic. I glance around. My colleagues are frozen, faces pale beneath the fluorescent lights. Sarah from accounting is clutching her chest, gasping for breath. Mark from HR is staring at the gaping hole in the wall like a deer caught in headlights.
“What was that?” he croaks, his voice thin and reedy.
"I don't know," I reply, my own throat suddenly dry. "But it wasn’t a bomb."
Because there are no shrapnel fragments. No twisted metal. Just… emptiness. A perfect circle of destruction where the window used to be. And something else. Something that shouldn’t be there.
I zoom in on the feed, forcing the system to loop the last few seconds. The camera captures a brief flash of white light before the explosion. Then, for a split second, I see it: a hand. Not human. Too long, too thin, with fingers like polished bone. It’s reaching through the shattered glass, clawing its way into the office.
My stomach churns. This isn't some random act of terrorism. This is… deliberate.
I try to call for help, but my phone’s dead. The building’s gone dark except for emergency lights that cast long, skeletal shadows across the room. Panic claws at my throat. I have to get out. Now.
The door to the hallway is locked. Henderson's "operational efficiency" code won't work. I kick it in, splintering the wood with each blow. The lock shatters, and I stumble into the corridor, adrenaline flooding my veins.
The hallways are a maze of identical beige boxes. Each one contains another desk, another soul trapped in this concrete tomb. As I move deeper into the building, the smell intensifies. It’s not just blood and plastic anymore. There's something ancient about it – like the scent of decay that clings to old bones.
I hear a scraping sound behind me. Slow, deliberate. Like nails dragging across pavement.
I spin around, heart hammering against my ribs. The hallway is empty. But then I see it: a smear of crimson on the wall, spreading like a malignant stain. It’s not blood. It's something darker. Something that pulses with an unnatural heat.
The hand again. This time, it’s closer. I can feel its gaze burning into my back.
I sprint down the hallway, ignoring the screams of my colleagues – muffled by the building’s steel shell. The air grows colder as I approach the stairwell. Each step is a gamble, each breath a prayer.
The stairs are slick with something viscous and black. As I descend, I see them: bodies. Not just broken limbs and shredded clothing. These people have been carved. Their skin has been peeled back, revealing muscle and bone beneath. The wounds aren’t clean cuts; they're jagged, almost ritualistic.
And in each corpse’s hand, a single, polished bone finger points towards the sky.
I reach the lobby, where the elevators are jammed with panicked employees. A group of them have barricaded themselves behind a reception desk, screaming at the shadows. I push my way through, ignoring their pleas for help.
The elevator doors clang shut as I slam the button for the ground floor. The car lurches into motion, ascending through the darkness. As we rise, I see it: another window explodes on the 18th floor. This time, a figure is silhouetted against the light – tall, gaunt, with eyes that burn like embers.
It’s not human. It's something that has been grafted onto this building, twisting its architecture into a grotesque parody of life.
The elevator stops on the ground floor. The doors open to reveal… nothing. Just an empty street bathed in the sickly glow of emergency lights. No sirens. No police. No survivors.
I step out and look up at the sky scraper. It’s still swaying, but now it's not just a building. It’s a cage. A womb for something that wants to crawl out and feast on humanity.
Then I feel it again – the touch of bone against my skin. The hand is closer now, reaching through the shattered glass, seeking me out.
I turn around and see it: a single, polished finger pointing directly at me. And as I stare into its hollow socket, I realize that this isn’t just about escaping the building. It's about being chosen. About becoming part of something ancient and terrible.
The hand closes around my wrist. It doesn’t break bone. It doesn’t tear flesh. It simply… merges. My skin melts away, replaced by a slick, chitinous membrane. I feel my fingers lengthen, sharpen into claws. My eyes turn black, reflecting the infernal glow of the sky scraper.
I am no longer human. I am an extension of this building’s hunger. And as I drag myself towards the shattered window, I hear the sound of another explosion – a new layer of concrete ripped open to reveal the darkness within.
M6:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. It wasn’t a dramatic shatter, not like you see in movies. More like a slow-motion implosion – glass spiderwebbing outwards, then collapsing inward with a wet, sucking sound. The air pressure shifted violently, shoving my lungs into a panic. I gripped the armrest of the ergonomic chair until my knuckles screamed white.
My name is Elias Thorne, and I’m a structural analyst for Sterling Corp. They pay me to poke holes in buildings before they fall down. Irony's a bitch when your job is predicting death. This building, the Zenith Tower, was supposed to be bulletproof. They’d reinforced it with carbon fiber polymers and steel mesh that could withstand a direct hit from a .50 caliber round.
The explosion wasn’t a bullet. It was…organic.
A thick, viscous black fluid poured out of the shattered window, coating the polished chrome floor in a slick sheen. The smell hit me first – not like burning metal or concrete dust. This was something deeper, older. Like rotting meat mixed with sulfur and something vaguely floral, like lilies left to fester in a grave.
I activated my comms. “Control, this is Thorne. Repeat, this is Thorne. We have a breach on the 21st floor. Request immediate evacuation.” My voice cracked. I knew they’d hear it, but hearing it wasn't the same as feeling it. The building was already vibrating with a low-frequency hum that resonated in my teeth.
“Thorne, confirm visual,” a gravelly voice barked through the headset. It was Davies, head of security. He never used contractions. Never.
“Visual confirmed. Black fluid. No signs of structural compromise…yet.” I forced myself to breathe. My pulse hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I leaned closer to the window, ignoring the way the black liquid dripped onto my suit. It wasn’t just spreading; it was moving. Tendrils of it snaked across the floor, pulsing with an internal light that mirrored the sickly green glow in the emergency lights. I saw something shift within those tendrils – a shape coalescing beneath the surface.
It started as a ripple, then solidified into a hand. Not human. Too long, too thin, fingers tipped with claws that scraped against the glass like nails on a chalkboard. The hand reached out, dragging itself across the floor, leaving a trail of viscous blackness.
Panic clawed at my throat. I’d seen simulations, studied schematics, run stress tests until my eyes bled. But nothing – nothing – prepared me for this. This wasn't a failure of engineering; it was a violation of reality.
Then the legs appeared. Three spindly limbs that ended in razor-sharp talons. The hand pulled itself up, dragging its body along like a corpse being dragged through mud. It moved with an unnerving grace, each step deliberate and predatory.
I fumbled for my laser cutter – standard issue for breaching reinforced glass. The beam sliced through the remaining shards of the window, but it did nothing to stop the creature. The black fluid began to seep into the ventilation shafts, spreading like a malignant vine. I could hear the faint hiss of air being sucked in, carrying with it the stench of decay and something else…something that smelled like fear.
The creature turned its head – or what passed for a head. A bulbous mass of flesh covered in glistening black scales. Two eyes opened beneath it, burning with an intelligence that felt ancient and utterly malevolent. They locked onto me, and I froze.
It didn’t scream. It didn't roar. It simply looked. And in that look, I saw the end of everything.
A tendril of black fluid wrapped around my ankle, tightening like a python. My screams died in my throat as it dragged me towards the window. The air grew colder, thick with the scent of death. I could feel the creature’s breath on my face – hot and wet, tasting of rot.
I tried to kick it off, but my legs were paralyzed. The fluid burned through my suit, searing its way into my flesh. My skin bubbled and blistered as the blackness consumed me. The pain was exquisite, a violation that transcended physical sensation. It felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body, replaced with something cold and alien.
I looked down at my hands – they were already turning black, the flesh melting into a viscous ooze. My fingernails elongated, sharpening into claws that mirrored the creature’s.
Then I understood. Sterling Corp hadn't built this tower to withstand attacks. They’d built it as a trap. A breeding ground for something that had been waiting in the shadows of our world for millennia.
The creature pulled me closer to the window, its talons digging into my flesh. It didn’t want to kill me. It wanted to become me. To add another layer of corruption to its already grotesque form.
As I was dragged towards the edge, I saw Davies's face reflected in the shattered glass. His eyes were wide with terror, his mouth open in a silent scream. He’d been too slow. Too complacent.
The last thing I felt before I plunged into the abyss wasn’t pain. It was a horrifying sense of completion. I wasn’t dying. I was merging. Becoming part of something infinitely more terrible than death.
The sky scraper swayed, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode... and now, so does its inhabitant.
M7:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a clean shatter, not a graceful cascade of glass. It’s a violent rupture, like a ruptured vein in concrete and steel. The world outside – the manicured lawns of Manhattan, the yellow cabs crawling like beetles – is momentarily swallowed by a white-hot bloom of debris. Then, it collapses inward, sucking itself into the void where the window used to be.
My stomach churns with a bile that tastes like ozone and regret. I’m strapped into my ergonomic chair at OmniCorp’s R&D division, a sterile cage of chrome and synthetic leather designed to maximize productivity. My job? To monitor structural integrity during simulated seismic events. Tonight's simulation is brutal – 7.8 on the Richter scale. They want to see how our reinforced polymers hold up against a true apocalypse.
I should be analyzing data streams, cross-referencing stress fractures with material density. Instead, I’m staring at the aftermath of a building imploding from the inside out. The air in the room is thick with dust and something else… something metallic that clings to the back of my throat.
“Report,” Mr. Henderson's voice crackles through the intercom, his tone clipped and devoid of any human inflection. “Damage assessment.”
I swallow, forcing myself to speak. "Exterior perimeter compromised. Internal structural failure at Sector Gamma-7. Initial estimates suggest… complete disintegration."
He doesn’t respond. Just a static hiss that feels like a physical assault on my eardrums. I glance down at the holographic display embedded in my chair's armrest. It shows a 3D reconstruction of the building, now riddled with gaping holes and twisted metal. The color palette shifts from blue to crimson as the simulation runs its course.
The first bodies hit the ground floor about thirty seconds after the explosion. I can see them through the reinforced glass – pale, contorted shapes swallowed by the chaos. Their limbs are flailing in a final, desperate attempt at survival before they’re crushed into pulped meat. The cameras on their suits feed me live footage of their last moments. It's a grotesque ballet of terror and pain.
I try to detach my gaze, but I can't. There’s something about the way their eyes glaze over, the vacant stare of someone who knows they are being ripped apart from the inside. It reminds me of my own face in the mirror after a particularly bad migraine – a mask of terror and helplessness.
“Increase pressure,” Henderson commands. “Simulate secondary wave.”
The building groans under the strain, metal screaming against metal. The holographic display flares with heat as the simulation intensifies. I feel the chair vibrating beneath me, pushing me deeper into my seat. My knuckles are white as I grip the armrests.
Then, another window explodes. This one on the 18th floor. Same pattern: a violent rupture, followed by a vacuum that sucks everything inward. The screams of the trapped workers echo through the intercom system – high-pitched shrieks cut short by the sound of bone snapping.
I try to focus on my data analysis, but it’s useless. My hands are shaking so violently I can barely type. The smell of blood is overwhelming now, a thick, coppery scent that coats the air like a shroud.
“Containment breach,” a technician shouts over the intercom. “Level 17… multiple casualties.”
I close my eyes and picture it: the hallways flooded with concrete shards, the bodies piled on top of each other like discarded puppets. The screams are still ringing in my ears, but now they’re joined by the sickening crunch of bone grinding against bone.
Henderson is silent again. I know he's watching me, monitoring my vitals. He wants to see how much pressure I can take before I break. But I won’t let him win. Not this time.
I reach for the override switch on my chair – a small, red button that disables the simulation and cuts off the feed to Henderson. It's a desperate gamble. If he catches me, they’ll lobotomize me and stick me in a padded cell where I can watch the world burn through a one-way mirror.
I slam my fist down on the switch. The holographic display flickers and dies. The building stops groaning. The screams fade into static.
Silence. A suffocating, absolute silence that’s more terrifying than any explosion.
Then, Henderson's voice cuts through the void. “You have failed to comply with protocol 734. Initiate termination sequence.”
I know what that means. They’re sending in the cleanup crew – armed mercenaries disguised as maintenance workers. Their job: to erase all traces of the simulation and silence anyone who witnessed it.
I scramble for the emergency exit hatch, a small, circular door hidden behind my chair. It's locked with a biometric scanner that requires retinal recognition. I flash my ID card, praying they haven’t already wiped my data. The hatch slides open with a hiss of compressed air.
As I crawl through the narrow corridor, I hear footsteps echoing behind me – heavy boots pounding on the steel floor. They're getting closer.
I reach the rooftop access point and climb out onto the rain-slicked concrete. Below me, the city is drowning in its own blood. The helicopters are already circling, their rotors chopping through the air like sickles.
I look up at the sky scraper, now a jagged wound against the twilight. It’s still standing, but it's hollowed out from the inside. A monument to corporate greed and human suffering.
Then I see them – the cleanup crew. They’re clad in black armor, their faces hidden behind mirrored visors. Their weapons are loaded with sonic disruptors designed to shatter bone on contact.
They don’t hesitate. One of them raises his weapon and fires a blast at my head. The sound is like tearing metal. My skull explodes against the concrete.
As darkness closes in, I manage one last act of defiance. I rip off my OmniCorp headset and hurl it into the abyss below. Let the screams echo through the canyons of Manhattan. Let them know that even in a world built on lies and destruction, there are still moments when humanity fights back – even if it means tearing itself apart first.
M8:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. It’s not a sudden shatter, like glass meeting steel. It's a slow-motion implosion, a weeping surrender of reinforced aluminum and tempered glass that bleeds outwards like a ruptured artery. The rain outside is already slick with the city’s grime; now it’s stained crimson.
My stomach clenches so hard I think my lungs are going to collapse. I'm supposed to be reviewing quarterly reports for Sterling & Croft, but the numbers blur into meaningless symbols as I stare at the gaping maw of destruction. Below, the street is a chaotic ballet of screaming sirens and panicked pedestrians scrambling for cover. They’ll never see what’s happening up here. Not yet.
The air smells like ozone and something else…something metallic and sickeningly sweet, like blood mixed with burnt sugar. I press my face against the remaining shards of glass, trying to get a better look. It's not just debris. There are chunks of furniture – a mahogany desk ripped apart, a leather chair shredded into ribbons. A potted ficus tree lies upended, its roots clawing at the concrete floor like desperate hands.
Then I see it. A hand. Pale and skeletal, reaching out from the wreckage. It’s not human. Not entirely. The fingers are too long, too thin, tipped with nails that curve inward like a predator's claws. They’re grasping for something – a phone? A pen? – but there’s no purchase. It just keeps peeling itself further into the void.
My breath hitches in my throat. I should call security. Alert Sterling & Croft. But I can't move. My legs are rooted to the floor, paralyzed by a primal terror that bypasses logic and slams straight into my gut. This isn’t some corporate disaster drill. This is…wrong.
The hand retracts, pulling back into the darkness with a sickening slurp. Then another appears – then two, then four. They're not falling; they're rising. Like maggots crawling out of a corpse, they climb up the shattered remains of the window frame, their movements jerky and unnatural.
I try to scream, but only a strangled gurgle escapes my lips. My eyes track them as they ascend, each hand growing longer, more grotesque. They’re not reaching for anything; they're searching. Their fingers twitch, probing at the edges of the frame like blind insects seeking a mate.
Suddenly, one of the hands brushes against my cheek. Cold. Wet. It leaves a smear of something viscous on my skin – a dark, oily substance that smells faintly of decay. I flinch back, ripping my face away. The hand lingers for a moment, then disappears into the rain-streaked glass.
That’s when I hear it. A whisper in my ear, not through my ears but directly into my skull. It's a voice like nails scraping on bone, dry and devoid of emotion. “You are next.”
I stumble backward, knocking over the water cooler. The plastic shatters with a high-pitched whine as it spills across the floor. I don’t bother to clean it up. My focus is entirely consumed by the hands now clawing their way up the wall. They're not just climbing; they're weaving through the glass, melting into the metal like acid.
I try to run, but my feet are stuck in a puddle of water and shattered glass. The walls begin to vibrate with an internal pressure, as if something is trying to break free from within. The air thickens, becoming heavy with the stench of rot. I can feel the heat rising off the metal, burning against my skin.
Then the first hand reaches me. It’s smaller than the others, almost childlike in its proportions. It curls around my wrist, tightening like a vise. My veins throb as it injects something into my arm – not blood, but a cold, numbing liquid that steals my senses. I feel my muscles relax, my limbs going limp.
Panic claws at the edges of my mind, but it’s too late to fight. The hand pulls me towards the window. I can see my reflection in the rain-slicked glass – a pale, terrified face framed by a halo of crimson shards. My eyes are wide with a horror that transcends understanding.
The second hand joins the first, then the third, then the fourth. They’re pulling me into the void, peeling me away from the floor like a strip of wallpaper. My body is becoming detached, floating in the air as my consciousness begins to unravel. I see Sterling & Croft's quarterly reports flash before my eyes – meaningless numbers dissolving into a kaleidoscope of pain and madness.
The last hand wraps around my throat. It’s not squeezing; it’s absorbing. It pulls me forward, deeper into the rain-soaked darkness. As I fall, I realize that this isn't death. This is something far more insidious – an assimilation. A merging with the architecture of the building itself, becoming a part of its decaying infrastructure.
The sky scraper sways again, but now it’s not swaying for the wind. It’s swaying for me. I am no longer Sarah Miller, Sterling & Croft analyst. I am the rain-stained glass, the shredded furniture, the hand reaching out from the wreckage. I am the building itself, and I'm hungry.
The last thing I see before my vision dissolves into a black void is another hand – this one attached to my own – reaching for the next window.
M9:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. Not a clean shatter, not a graceful collapse of glass. It’s a violent, guttural rip, like a giant’s fingernail tearing through flesh. The sound is immediate – a high-pitched scream swallowed by the city's perpetual drone, followed by a sickening crunch that vibrates in my teeth.
I’m perched on the edge of the fire escape, legs dangling over the rain-slicked concrete jungle below. My breath catches, not from fear—not yet—but from something deeper, primal. It’s the smell first: ozone and something else… metallic, like blood mixed with burnt sugar. Then the view.
The office building is a steel skeleton stripped bare. The explosion hasn't just obliterated the window; it’s ripped through the entire wall, exposing the guts of the space within. I see desks splintered into matchsticks, cubicles shredded like confetti. And then… movement. Not falling debris. Things falling.
They aren’t human. At least, not anymore. They're limbs and torsos, fused together with what looks like sinew and bone. Faces are melted off, leaving only gaping maws filled with needle-sharp teeth. Some are still twitching, their eyes vacant pools of black oil. Others are frozen mid-scream, a grotesque tableau of agony captured in the last moments of their lives.
I’m supposed to be here for the quarterly audit. Mr. Henderson wants me to “verify the structural integrity” of this building—a lie to justify his paranoia about "corporate espionage." He doesn't know I've been tracking this place for months, ever since the rumors started circulating: whispers of a cult operating beneath the city’s foundations, feeding on the souls of executives.
I should call the police. Report it. But something keeps me rooted to this rusted metal perch. It’s not just morbid curiosity; it's a sickening recognition. This isn’t random violence. This is purpose.
The rain intensifies, washing the blood from the street into a crimson river. I pull my hood tighter around my face, trying to block out the horror. The air grows thick with the stench of decay and something else—a cloying sweetness that clings to the back of my throat. It’s the smell of honeyed rot.
Then they start to climb.
The mangled bodies aren't falling; they're ascending, propelled by a sickening, unnatural strength. They drag themselves up the fire escape, their limbs contorting at impossible angles. Their skin is peeling off in strips, revealing muscle and bone beneath. The melted faces are reforming, twisting into expressions of ecstatic hunger.
One of them—a woman with a child’s skull grafted onto her torso—locks eyes with me. Her mouth opens in a silent scream, and I feel a cold dread seep into my bones. It's not just fear; it's the knowledge that I am next.
“They’re using the building’s ventilation system,” I mutter to myself, scrambling for purchase on the slick metal. “The cultists are feeding off the panic hormones released by the victims.”
My fingers fumble with my phone. No signal. Of course. They've cut the lines. The city is a cage, and I'm trapped inside with these… things.
I try to climb down, but they’re faster. A man—his torso split in half, one arm replaced by a cluster of writhing rats—lunges at me from the fire escape. His claws rake across my cheek, tearing through flesh and bone. I scream, a raw, animalistic sound that's swallowed by the rain.
I kick him away, sending him tumbling into the street below. He hits the pavement with a sickening thud, his body dissolving into a puddle of blood and viscera. The rats scramble over his corpse, feasting on his exposed organs.
The others are closing in. They’re not just climbing; they're hunting.
I shove myself back onto the fire escape, adrenaline flooding my veins. I need to get out. But where can you run when your city is a nest of flesh-eating demons?
Then I see it: an access panel on the side of the building, hidden behind a tangle of ivy. It’s rusted and corroded, but I force it open with my bare hands. Inside, a narrow shaft leads down into the bowels of the skyscraper—a labyrinth of pipes, cables, and forgotten machinery.
I descend, crawling through the darkness, the stench of decay growing stronger with each foot. The walls are slick with blood, and the air is thick with the buzzing of flies. I hear them now—the wet, rasping sounds of their movements, echoing through the tunnels. They’re coming for me.
I reach a junction where two shafts converge. A single metal grate blocks my path. It's reinforced with steel bars, but they're old and weak. With a surge of desperate strength, I pry them apart, revealing a chamber filled with… cages.
Inside each cage is a body—a corporate executive strapped to a chair, their eyes vacant and glazed over. They’ve been drained dry, their life force siphoned away by the cultists. The walls are covered in symbols: inverted crosses, pentagrams, and what looks like human teeth fused into bone.
And then I see him. Mr. Henderson. He's strapped to a table in the center of the chamber, his face contorted in a silent scream. A giant syringe drips blood into his veins—a mixture of holy water and something far more sinister. The cultists are feeding him their own stolen souls, turning him into a living altar for their twisted rituals.
I realize then that this isn’t just about killing executives; it's about becoming them. They’re not just consuming their bodies; they’re absorbing their identities, their memories, their entire existence.
The door to the chamber swings open. The woman with the child’s skull is standing there, her eyes burning with a cold, predatory hunger. She raises a rusty scalpel and lunges at me.
I scream—a final, desperate plea for help that's swallowed by the darkness of the skyscraper. As she plunges the scalpel into my chest, I feel something shift within me. My own memories begin to fade, replaced by the vacant horror of her eyes. The last thing I see is my reflection in her melted face—a stranger trapped inside a cage of flesh and bone.
M10:The sky scraper sways, as she watches the window in front of her on the 21st floor explode. It’s not a crash, not like a falling brick or shattered glass. It's… liquid. Like someone poured molten honey over the pane and let it run free. The edges ripple outwards, distorting the city view beyond into a smeared watercolor of neon and rain.
My stomach clenches, a cold fist squeezing my guts. I’m supposed to be filing reports for Sterling & Finch – quarterly projections, market analysis, the usual bullshit. My fingers are numb on the keyboard, the keys slick with sweat. But all I can see is that window, now a weeping wound in the steel and glass skin of this monument to corporate greed.
The smell hits me next: acrid, burning plastic mixed with something sickeningly sweet – like caramelized blood. It coats my nostrils, thick and cloying. I gag, pulling my collar higher around my neck. The air is already too hot, the fluorescent lights buzzing a frantic warning in my ears.
“Report on Q3,” Mr. Henderson’s voice cuts through the chaos from his office across the hall. He's always so calm, even when the building groans under its own weight. "Don't let the numbers disappoint me."
I choke out a response, my voice thin and reedy. "Working on it, sir.” My eyes dart to the window again. The honey-flow is spreading now, licking at the frame like a hungry beast. A section of the wall behind the shattered glass has peeled back, revealing the skeletal framework beneath – twisted metal ribs exposed to the rain.
Then, the screaming starts.
It’s not human. Not entirely. It's a high-pitched shriek that vibrates through the floorboards, up my legs, into my teeth. Like nails dragged across a chalkboard amplified by a thousand amps. People are running in the hallways below, their faces pale and slick with panic. Some are screaming themselves, clawing at each other for purchase on the wet carpet.
I press myself against the wall, trying to blend in with the grey concrete. My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird. The smell intensifies – something metallic now, like freshly drawn blood mixed with burnt sugar. I can hear the sirens wailing in the distance, but they’re too far away to offer any comfort.
A figure falls from the window. Not a body, not at first. Just a cascade of limbs and clothing, a slow-motion ballet of destruction. They land on the street below, a grotesque marionette dangling from a broken string. The rain washes over them, blurring their features into a smear of red and grey.
I want to vomit, but I force it down. My throat is already raw with fear. The building isn’t just burning; it's melting. The edges of the window are softening, becoming pliable like wax under a heat lamp. A hand – or something that used to be a hand – reaches out from the dissolving glass, fingers curling into grotesque hooks.
It grabs at my ankle.
I yank my foot back, scrambling backwards until I’m pressed against the wall again. The pain is sharp and hot, like acid burning through my skin. A thin line of black liquid seeps up my leg, staining my trousers. It smells like almonds and rot.
“Report,” Henderson barks from across the hall. His voice is laced with a new note – not anger, but something colder, more predatory. “Or I’ll report you to security.”
I ignore him. My eyes are glued to the window. The hand is pulling now, dragging me closer. It's not human; it's slick and segmented, like a praying mantis limb grafted onto flesh. The glass around it is bubbling, reforming into a grotesque parody of a face – wide-eyed, screaming silently.
A piece of the window shatters off my desk. A shard of glass cuts across my palm as I reach for my phone to call emergency services. The blood wells up, hot and sticky. I ignore it. My fingers fumble with the buttons, dialing 911.
“Sterling & Finch… fire… explosion… 21st floor…” My voice cracks. “There’s something in the glass…”
The line goes dead. The building groans again, a deeper, more resonant sound this time – like bones snapping under pressure. The hand pulls me forward, dragging me towards the window. I can feel its cold touch on my skin, a paralysis spreading through my limbs.
I look down at my desk. My keyboard is coated in blood and melted glass. The quarterly projections are smeared with crimson. Mr. Henderson’s face flashes across the screen of my phone – his eyes narrowed, his lips curled into a predatory smile.
“You’re fired,” he whispers through the speaker. “But you won't be leaving empty-handed.”
The hand pulls me closer still. I can smell it now - not just blood and rot, but something ancient, something wrong. It wraps around my arm, tightening its grip. I try to scream, but no sound escapes my throat. My vision blurs as the glass melts over my face, coating my eyes with a sweet, burning rain.
The last thing I see is the window in front of me, now a gaping maw filled with teeth and melting honey. And then, darkness. Not the peaceful kind, but a cold, viscous blackness that swallows you whole.
Base model
TheDrummer/Fallen-Gemma3-4B-v1
