The man stumbled forward, squinting against the dim light filtering through shattered windows. Dust hung thick in the air, swirling in lazy trails that cast a ghostly haze over the decayed remains of Neutra's abandoned industrial district. Rusted beams and crumbling walls loomed around him, remnants of a once-thriving hub now forgotten, swallowed by shadow and silence. He tugged at his collar, the faint buzz of the NeuraSphere implant at the back of his neck a familiar hum.

"Hello?" he called, his voice a tremor that quickly dissolved into the vast emptiness. Only his own footsteps answered, shuffling and echoing faintly through the hollow maze of metal and grime. He had lost his way hours ago, or maybe longer; time felt strange here, as if the world beyond this district had disappeared along with the light.

A faint scuffing sound drifted from somewhere ahead, and he froze. The air seemed to pulse with a new energy, thick and charged. His breath hitched as he strained to see through the murk.

"Is someone there?" he whispered, almost to himself. He turned the corner, and then he saw her.

She was exquisite—a vision carved from moonlight, with skin so pale it seemed translucent, her features sharp and unearthly. But it was her eyes that arrested him: they glowed like prisms catching light, colors swimming in and out like some celestial storm. Her gaze held him, cold and impassive, as she stood motionless in the gloom.

Something deep within him screamed to turn away, to run, but he felt rooted to the spot, ensnared by her unnatural beauty.

"Who... who are you?" he stammered, barely able to form the words.

She tilted her head, studying him with a detached curiosity. In a blink, she moved—inhumanly fast, her figure blurring as she closed the distance between them. He barely had time to raise his arms before her hand gripped his shoulder, iron-strong and unyielding. Her fingers dug into his flesh, and her shifting eyes bore into him, as though seeing through every layer he'd ever worn.

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"Please..." he choked out, struggling against her hold.

The woman's lips parted. Tendrils, thin and glistening, unfurled from her mouth like whispers of smoke, reaching toward him.

"No... wait... please..." He tried to push her away, but his limbs felt heavy, useless. The tendrils latched onto his head, pressing against his temples with an almost tender touch, before slipping past skin and bone as if they were nothing.

An intense pressure bloomed inside his skull, sharp and unyielding, driving spikes of agony through his mind. His thoughts splintered, shattering under the weight of something he could only describe as hollow and insatiable. Veins along his neck and temples began to darken, pulsing in time with his fading heartbeat.

"Stop... please..." His voice broke into a strangled whimper as his vision blurred. It was like a migraine, but deeper, more invasive, spreading a cold numbness from his skull to his limbs. He couldn't feel his hands, couldn't move his legs. The pain consumed him, drowning out every thought until only fragments of himself remained.

The woman let out a guttural growl that reverberated through his bones. She fed on him, draining away the warmth, the flickers of fear and horror and everything in between, siphoning the very essence of who he was. Emotions he didn't know existed within him slipped away, one by one, fading into the oblivion she offered without mercy or remorse.

He could feel pieces of himself vanishing, memories unraveling like frayed threads. The faces of known ones grew dim, indistinct, like photographs left too long in the sun. Names and places once vivid turned to shadows in his mind, drifting further with each ragged breath. Something precious was slipping through his grasp, but he couldn't hold on, couldn't even remember what he was losing.

The tendrils pulsed, devouring his thoughts, his memories. He tried to scream, but his mouth wouldn't obey. His limbs refused to move. The world shrank to a pinpoint, his awareness unraveling until only a numb, suffocating darkness remained.

And then, as quickly as she had come, the woman withdrew.

The tendrils retracted, slipping from his head with a soft, sickening sound. His body crumpled to the ground, a lifeless marionette left with its strings cut. He lay there, staring blankly ahead, unable to comprehend what had happened, unable to feel the remnants of his own self slipping into oblivion.

She stepped back, her gaze as impassive as it had been before. To her, he was nothing more than a fleeting source of sustenance to be drained and discarded. She observed him for a moment longer, as if confirming he held no more use, then melted back into the shadows.

Her figure vanished, a chilling reminder of the darkness that lingered in Neutra's shadows, hidden but never far away.