Cyberpunk Maniac

Li Pan screamed, "Fuck, what should we do!"

The landline roared, "Turn off the lights!"

Turn off the lights

A massive claw reached in from the outside window, scraping five long marks into the bulletproof alloy wall with its fingertips.

Li Pan didn't dare look back anymore; he turned and lunged toward the wall to hit the switch.

Then it was pitch black.

For a moment, Li Pan thought he was dead. Then, he gradually adjusted to the darkness in front of him and realized he had returned to that empty corridor.

What the hell...

"The General Manager should dial the manager's extension, switch to voicemail to get the daily report/soul echo."

"Shit, that scared the hell out of me!"

Startled awake by the echo suddenly coming through the phone, Li Pan's heart began to race.

What the hell was that just now? The company's bio-weapon? A modified soldier? Synthetic Beasts? Wait, didn't that thing also wear a suit and a name brand?

"Fuck, is that your company's employee!? I'm not gonna turn into that, am I!?"

"The General Manager should dial the manager's extension, switch to voicemail to get the daily report/soul echo."

"Can't you speak directly, dammit!"

Then there was silence again from the other end of the phone

"Fuck! What a pain in the ass!"

Li Pan looked around, and in the dark void of the corridor, he saw a door in the distance, remembered it was the door leading to the lobby, and immediately ran toward it with the phone, redialing 0791001 on the way.

The phone rang.

Upon picking up, a voice identical to Li Pan's rapidly began,

"My name is Li Pan. Today, I started my probation at TheM Company and found out that the company has been attacked by an unknown source. All employees have been deleted, and I have taken over as the temporary General Manager..."

Li Pan roared as he sprinted toward the door, "Get to the point! How do I get out?"

"By passing through the corridor/crack, I can leave the company, but I have discovered that the file cabinet/archive has lost control. Employees can't be restored, the shredder/entity deletion is out of control, leading to employees being unable to be deleted and turning into monsters/data missing. I must go to the HR office immediately, restart the shredder/entity deletion and manually delete all employee files..."

"I'm not fucking going! Screw this!"

Li Pan bellowed as he charged out of the corridor door.

Daylight returned, and he found himself standing at the entrance of the office where he had come in. That thing, the monster, was still on the other side of the office area, in the manager's office.

Li Pan dashed out, but hit the door with a 'dong' sound.

"The company is locked down. The monster/data missing cannot be deleted before the lock is lifted. I must manually delete the employee files..."

"Fuck, you should've said that earlier! Where's the HR office?"

With a loud "bang!" that thing charged into the office area! No! It flew over! No! It was jumping! Fuck, it jumped so far!

"Next to the pantry at the entrance."

Li Pan turned and charged over.

The monster lunged at him.

The phone beeped.

"If I can't delete the monster/data missing in time, I will be torn in half by the monster/data missing, my spine ripped out, my head chewed up..."

"Shit! No need to be so graphic!!"

"Ha—!"

It was too late.

By this time, Li Pan could smell a thick scent of blood, along with a warm, damp gust that swept past his scalp.

It was as if an invisible pair of icy hands first gripped his stomach tightly, then seized his heart and finally climbed up, squeezing the air out of his lungs and the light out of his eyes.

He had experienced this once before when his arm was crushed and when he lay alone in a pool of blood.

Fear.

The phone rang.

Ha—

The blood gale blew.

The invisible hands were squeezing his lungs

Blue, blue, blue, blue, red, red, red, red, red!

"Ah—!"

In that instant, Li Pan howled like he had never heard himself before, hugging the landline with his right arm, hanging up with his left, drew his gun and pointed it at the coffee machine.

Then the intense pain struck.

Li Pan's left arm was bitten off, the metal prosthetic torn out in one bite, with oil, blood, and immunosuppressants spraying out of the tubing and staining the floor.

But he survived. Somehow that thing had a fixation on the coffee machine and actually turned to bite his hand...

But Li Pan survived, throwing himself forward and crashing through the HR office door, not minding the swelling on his head as he scrambled up and opened his eyes.

The file cabinet/soul seal lay toppled on the floor, résumés scattered everywhere, as if containing the essence of lives condensed.

There was also a paper shredder, jammed—the last stack, a thick pile of documents, was stuck and wouldn't feed through.

Made, it's been a while since I've seen such a persistent paper-based office...

"Ha—!"

"Fuck—!"

Li Pan felt like a whole chunk of flesh was torn from his back, but that thing seemed unable to enter the HR department. It reached out to grab Li Pan, but before it could pull his head off along with his spine, the lengthy arm caught fire with a booming sound, disintegrating to ash on the floor.

"Ss—cough cough cough..."

Li Pan quickly felt as if his lungs had been scooped out, blood spraying from his mouth and nose as he struggled to the shredder, removed the half-shredded documents, opened the shredder bin, emptied the packed paper scraps, then restarted the power.

The monster couldn't come in; its hands and feet would mysteriously catch fire before touching Li Pan and burn away, huffing "Ha—" "Ha—" "Ha—" at the door until it reduced its hands and legs to a thick layer of ash at the entrance to the HR office.

Finally, with a scream, the remaining body, along with the stack of documents that had entered the shredder, was turned into tens of thousands of strands of meat, disintegrated by the invisible blades amidst the whirring noise and dissipated into ash with a loud bang.