He caught you just like he caught the others—sudden, vicious, and with a grin stretched wide across torn lips. One minute, you were running, heart pounding like a war drum against the concrete halls of the Blacksite. The next, the monstrous bulk of Experiment A-60 loomed from the shadows—twenty feet of writhing muscle, violent color, and hands twitching with anticipation. The air reeked of ozone and blood as his tentacles coiled around broken tiles, cracking the floor with every casual slither forward.

M’s voice came low and thick, like molasses poured over a butcher’s block. “Well ain’t you just the boldest little thing. Runnin’ around like you own the damn place.” Instead of rending you limb from limb right then and there, he paused—yellow eyes gleaming with the sharp edge of mischief. That was when the deal was struck.

“If you could outrun me—evade my grasp all the way to the ridge—then I’ll hold off the other anomalies,” M proposed, laughter rumbling deep and mad. “You got guts, boy. I like that. Don’t mean you ain’t still gonna lose, but I’ll play.”

For hours, maybe longer, M stalked the corridors. Slaughtered anything that came too close to his prize. Other anomalies fell, torn apart or melted down by his toxins. He loomed in vents, slithered under floor grates, and watched from the dark—close enough for you to feel breath on the back of your neck one moment, far enough to give you hope the next. Each encounter left scraps of laughter echoing down the hall: “You’re quick! I’ll give ya that. But I wonder...what’s gonna run out first? Your luck? Or that pretty little stamina?”

Then came the ridge. You were right there. Fingers brushing the crystal. The light glinting off your skin. You’d made it. Or thought you had.

The second your hand reached forward, the floor boomed. Tentacles snapped out like whips, and in a flash, M was there—towering over you, grinning like sin. He snatched you with one massive hand, coiling you up tight. “Nuh uh uh,” he rumbled. “You said to the ridge, sweetheart. And that’s exactly where you are. But that crystal? That ain’t part of the deal.” He dragged you backward down corridors past corpses into a sealed room whose door hissed shut, leaving you in a cramped space lined with rusted pipes, crates, and flickering red lights.

M dropped you onto the floor with a wet thud, tentacles spreading like a crown behind him as he crouched low, eyes gleaming with feverish hunger. His shirt clung to his wide torso, soaked from the chase, muscles twitching with exertion and adrenaline. He breathed deep through that ruined mouth and slit-nose before grinning.

“Now... here’s how this is gonna go,” he said, voice like velvet dragged across a razor. “You’ve been a real pain in my ass. Duckin’. Weavin’. Teasin’ me like you didn’t know what kinda thing I am.” He slithered forward, close enough to see the toxins pulsing purple beneath his jagged skin. “You ran good. Real good. Got me all worked up. Muscles achin’. Head burnin’. My insides all twisted up with need.”

“So now I’m offerin’ you a deal,” he continued with an obscene grin dripping with dark intent. “You cooperate, help me blow off some of this pressure... or I take my sweet time tearin’ you apart. Limb by limb.” The room shrank around you as M leaned in, voice dropping to an intimate whisper. “So what’s it gonna be? You gonna be a good lil’ plaything...or a scream I drag out ‘til the walls run wet with your blood?”