A staccato of crackling static filled the dark, ominous room, the low, monotonous hum issuing from a giant panel of monitors attached in three sections to the far wall- twenty six screens in all, each depicting an equal number of corridors and rooms. Some screens portrayed gore-stained chambers strewn with cadavers in varying stages of decomposition, the bodies mutilated in a manner suggesting cannibalism; while other screens portrayed hooked chains dangling precariously from a ceiling, or mechanical traps of ingenious design situated above doorways, in hallways, and rooms. Still other screens pictured unutterable phenomena- red, white and orange hued mist- alien technology unconforming to scientific explanation- the glimpse of a hunched, misshapen form; yet it wasn't the menagerie of screens that proved most unsettling, but instead, the masculine silhouette viewing them from a high-backed leather armchair in front of the monstrous panel.
    The faint glow emitting from the screens shed a pale light across the hideous figure, exposing vague features. The figure's ears were large, pointed and pierced with numerous silver studs, its hands pale, its fingers abnormally long, ending in dirty, ungroomed nails that curled into sharp tips. The figure clicked the nails impatiently against the arms of the chair, engrossed in the horror show playing on the monitors. One screen earned the figure's interest in particular- an ancient parlor caked in dirt and cobwebs, and littered with smashed furniture. A tall, muscular man dressed in a black business suit stood in the middle of the parlor looking up at the wall above the only door- a dark-skinned Italian brute with beefy neck and black, short-cropped hair.
    "Ah, D'Marco!" exclaimed a deep, sophisticated voice from the figure's blood-red lips. "One of the best. The old man must have called in a few markers."
    The brute briefly examined the remainder of the parlor, exiting through the door. Scrawled in blood, excrement and certain nameless, unidentifiable substances were the three malevolent words that had momentarily captivated his selective attention- Welcome To Splatterhouse.

    "I'm standing in front of the Denny's off 27th Ave. and Bell Rd. where earlier today a lone gunman executed five Phoenix police officers. It is believed the shooting occurred as one of the officers intervened on a waitresses behalf when the suspect refused to extinguish his cigarette, resulting in a heated gun battle that claimed the lives of officers and patrons alike. Police are still questioning survivors of the massacre and have yet to comment on the incident."
    The figure rapidly clicked its nails against the nicked, leather-upholstered arms of the chair, its head turning from the Channel 10 News to view another screen.
    "Sounds like Mister's in town," the figure's voice deepening. "Hmm, let's see how D'Marco is doing."
    In the top left corner of the panel set a screen depicting endless, glowing corridors of alien circuitry and conduits, down which the same dark-skinned Italian brute deliriously ran. A pack of horrid mutations gave chase, each naked man and woman disfigured by disproportionate appendages and features, their filthy, blood-encrusted nails curled into claws, their faces stretched by wide mouths lined with razor teeth!
    The brute came to a handless door of smooth, glossy metal, the chitinous clicking of teeth and clamor of thrashing movement close behind. Attached to the wall beside the door was a tiny glowing pad embossed with the outline of a human handprint. The brute pressed his hand flat against the device, the door effortlessly sliding open.
    Three creatures appeared behind him, rushing madly at him with greedy, outstretched arms; a panel slid open in the ceiling along the opposite side of the door as a mechanical, hydraulic arm jointed together in two places descended from the dark opening, the tip a long, slender, wicked blade.
    The blade spun insanely, suddenly turning to the brute! With dexterous speed, he threw himself against the wall as the arm reached through the door, the blade whizzing by his face. The creatures lunged in a premature attempt to rend him apart at the same time he sidestepped beyond the arm's range, the mindless things fearlessly charging into the blade, their frapped remains showering him in gore! He collapsed retching to his knees, overwhelmed by the horror and madness of the house.
Regaining his composure, the brute continued down the corridor, wary of what lay ahead. The corridor opened onto the bottom of a huge, circular pit consisting of the same bizarre, alien components indigenous to the house. Tiny hand and foot holds dotted the walls, ascending into darkness. Judging it would be a long climb, he sat down to relieve his exhausted state.

    "Edwardo! Whudid mamma tell you 'bout playin' cross the street, eh!"
    Nina chased down her giggling little brother, snatching him by the arm.
    "Aye!" he painfully squealed. "Leggo, you're hurting me!"
    "Get home!" she scolded, smacking him hard on his rear. He folded his arms defiantly across his chest, his face forming a pouty frown.
    "You're not the boss a me!"
    "I said get home now! You know you're not supposed to be playin' near that nasty house!" she yelled after him as he yanked away, feigning behind a gutted Chevy Impala in the front yard of the condemned house.
    "That's it, I'm tellin' mamma!"
    "Okay!" he cried, begging her to keep silent about his disobedience. They hurried together back across the street as a Hertz rental car pulled up to the house's withered edifice; an Italian man with a tattooed neck climbed out of the car, methodically walking to the front door. The man produced a 9mm from inside the jacket of his black, finely tailored business suit as the door mysteriously opened by its own volition.
    "Didchu see that!" Edwardo exclaimed.
    "C'mon Edwardo, we'd better get inside."
    "No way! I wanna go see,"
    "Edwardo!" screamed Nina, but her plea fell on deaf ears.

    Edwardo followed into the ancient house like the proverbial lamb being led to the slaughter, the imposing structure swallowing him whole. The door slammed shut with a loud crash, revealing a dark chamber occupied by a giant panel of monitors against the far wall, before which set a high-backed leather armchair.
    "Como te va, carnalillo?" a deep, sophisticated voice resounded from the front of the chair. Edwardo stood paralyzed by a mixture of both fear and wonderment- a macabre fascination with the fanciful and terrific exuded as a sensation of dread reaction maintained by the human condition when unable to comprehend the unknown.
    "I couldn't bear to let such sweet innocence succumb to my house," the voice continued. Edwardo remained unresponsive. "You should have listened to your sister."
    "Who are you?" Edwardo finally mustering the courage to speak. He could vaguely discern the tips of two large, malformed ears protruding up from behind the top of the chair.
    "Who I was, is of no importance!" the ears anxiously twitched, the voice retorting its answer to the boy's impetuous question. "And what I am is far beyond your meager human understanding. Still, I shall tell what you wish to know, but there is a terrible price to be had!"
    The voice paused momentarily, reverting to its calm, cocky tone.
    "For eons, my kind existed in bodiless form. Long before the inception of your quaint, little planet, we searched the multi-verse for entities of physical composition to sustain our insubstantial bodies. Like countless other worlds, we found yours in the dawn of its Neolithic age. We appeared to your primitive race in the form of dreams and visions and came to be perceived as gods and demons, aspiring first religion, which influenced philosophy, which, in turn, influenced science.  Your hieroglyphs and languages of old our doing, your earliest advancements in thought and invention our design. Only by corrupting your species through negative mental processes and actions could we weaken your psyches enough to subvert control, accounting for the evil we so carefully and astutely sowed in your fragile, underdeveloped minds.
    "However, just as your race was ripe for the taking, an ancient enemy of light opposed to the darkness also found your world. Like us, they were incapable of existing in the physical realm and in endless search of physical entities, but instead of influencing your species with negativity, they employed only positive aspects. Where we corrupted, they instilled faith. Where we spread evil, they spread good and the belief of a single, all-powerful entity; one that created all things with freewill to resist our temptations, yet were unable to wholly convince your race into accepting such a belief, instead dividing your species and ultimately furthering our cause by adding to the doubt and mistrust we had already established in your linear realities.
    "It wasn't until the end of your Medieval era that my kind began to lose the war against the light, an event similar to John Milton's Paradise Lost (though far from the truth). We had nearly brought about the fall of Babylon during the Middle Ages, but as philosophy instituted the enlightenment toward science, and logic and reason largely replaced superstition, your resistance to our temptations strengthened over time. Through experimentation and process of elimination, you reigned in your will so that it didn't exceed your intellect (Descartes), relying on fact and empirical evidence to prove or disprove an argument or discovery. With this utterly simplistic formula, and the faith to persevere, your species advanced on both an evolutionary and technological scale, significantly progressing your race.
    "As a tragic result, the light incarcerated my kind in our bodiless forms once driven from your bodies. They captured most of us by employing diamond-shaped amulets called Barrier Amulets; a device of their devise endowed with the power to bind my kind to the accursed things. I was freed only after centuries of imprisonment, my extrication enacted by a sinful man easily possessed.
But the war is not yet over, for our presence throughout your history has remained profound and our indelible impression on your fragile psyches strong. We have always been here, and will always be; waiting, emerging now and again. Soon, an Armageddon will beset your world, opening the Great Portal- a gateway linking your world to mine that will transport the rest of my kind here. Together, we shall conquer Babylon and overthrow the light, storming the gates of Heaven itself."
    The chair slowly swiveled around to face Edwardo, the figure leaning forward. Edwardo turned a deathly pallor, his eyes widening and his knees buckling, the figure speaking through a mesh of jagged teeth.
    "Mi innocencia perdida."

    Mister entered the deteriorated edifice of the house, a small, antiquated parlor scattered with remnants of decrepit, shabby furniture ominously greeting him. The door slammed inexplicably shut behind him and locked itself; he instinctively spun around, only to face a bare, cracked and rotting wall. A second door now served as the only exit, above which read, smeared in shit and gore, Welcome To Splatterhouse. He studied the words a moment, unfazed by the dark circumstance presently surrounding him.
    Beyond the parlor was a second larger chamber of writhing circuitry that emitted a brilliant glow, carved into each wall a concentric alcove oval in shape and filled with bluish tendrils of alien vapor.     A great metal table fitted with dozens of mechanical arms occupied the chamber's center, while protruding from the ceiling directly overhead a colossal patchwork of machinery- an immense collection of blades, saws and similar surgical instruments best described as a prop extracted from a low-budget B horror movie and made real by its maniacal creator.
    To one side of the table was attached a thin metal tray, atop which set a tiny creature the size of a human forearm that resembled a hideously malformed squid. The creature's slimy, amorphous body lay motionless, its tentacles draped limp over the edges of the tray, the thing's smooth, glossy black body glinting in the rhythmic, hypnotic light pervading the room. Out of morbid curiosity, Mister approached the tray to better examine the squid-thing.
    A deafening roar rang out from the gadgetry above, the giant mechanism powering up. The mechanical arms along the table sprang to life, the hands opening and closing in a fast repetition of metallic clinks, clasping onto Mister's clothing and portions of his exposed flesh! The arms effortlessly lifted him off his feet, pinning him flat on his back to the table’s gleaming surface.   The monstrous contraption overhead slowly lowered from the ceiling, every blade buzzing in anticipation of the butchery about to commence! The great device hovered menacingly over his unmarked arm, the blades and saws cutting into his tendons and nerves with brutal efficiency, unsympathetic to his agonizing screams as they mercilessly sliced and hacked away! Blood sprayed into the air in magnificent crimson arcs, haphazardly spattering the room like a canvas, creating an abstract masterpiece only the insane could fathom! A mechanical arm grasped the squealing squid-thing, affixing the creature to his mutilated arm, the thing’s tentacles digging into the raw meat!

    Mister awoke with a start atop the table, the mechanical contraptions inanimate. He looked to his arm, his mind groggy and his vision blurred- the squid-thing was firmly attached, pulsating an eerie, red luminescence. There were no lingering effects of the pain and discomfort normally associated with such trauma, but instead, an unnatural invigoration resulting from the creature's fusion to his anatomy- an artificial strength of body and mind conferred through the strange alien organism. He could see into the infrared and violet spectrums, his senses enhanced to a superior awareness far exceeding that of even supra-genius level. He distinctly felt vibrations emanating throughout the room in the form of a slight tingling nearly identical to the cold shivers that induced goosebumps and raised the pubic hairs along the neck and arms; and clearly heard the vibrations' low, monotone rendition of hums and ticks. His grueling ordeal had finally begun to wear thin his unnerved demeanor, leaving him shaken for the first time in many years; but it was a reaction to be expected, for bizarre were the house's alien components, and terrifying were the horrors contained within.
    It was at that moment a deep, sophisticated voice manifested from thin air, the squid-thing pulsating in response with greater intensity.
    "Ah, Mister! I have been awaiting your visit for quite some time now. What took you so long?"
Mister recognized Giggio's smug rapture, yet the gloating was somehow different, possessing of a malevolence unlike any encountered by Mister before.
    "Sorry to keep you waiting," Mister replied, cocking back the hammer of his 9mm. "Where are you?"
    "Oh, come now! Do you really believe I would make finding me that easy! First, you must survive my house!"
    "Is that what this place is. Who's your decorator?"
    "Now, now! Sarcasm doesn't suit you. If you must know, you are caught within a gap, or worm hole, in space and time that connects my world to yours. It has consumed this particular spatial area, disguising the exterior to resemble a common house, while conforming the interior to the laws of my realm. This is but a fragmentary gap, mind you, but soon, a Great Portal much, much larger shall transport the rest of my kind here, fulfilling the Dark Prophecy."
    "Sure, makes perfect sense."
    "You insolent fuck!" boomed the voice in anger. "Leave now and enjoy what little time remains for your world! None survive my house! D'Marco didn't, nor shall you!"
    "Rizolli sent D'Marco too?"
    "That is correct, and just as he perished, so will you die!"
    "You're dealing with me now. D'Marco was always second-rate."
    "You're as much a fool as he was! Still, if you have the balls, begin your demise by entering one of the alcoves. I have even made things easier on you by providing the Biotech Unit attached to your arm- free of charge. Merely hearing your exquisite screams as you underwent the surgery was payment enough!"
    Mister stepped inside an alcove, vanishing into the blue-tinted haze.
    "I'll be seeing you soon…"

    Mister materialized in a long stretch of glowing corridor constructed of the same twisted wiring and machinery elsewhere throughout the house. Sparks randomly scattered into the air, the twinkling, white-hot specks of molten metal singeing those portions of his tanned skin caught in their sporadic barrages. A trail of smeared blood marred the floor to each direction, an unnatural trashing movement within close proximity to him alerting his enhanced hearing, masked by the noise a scarcely audible crying similar to that of a whimpering child.
    Following the pitiful sobs, Mister spied the picturesque silhouette of a young teenage girl in the pulsating gloom ahead. Tears streamed unevenly from her eyes and down her rosy cheeks as she frantically brushed the assault of salty droplets away, snot dripping from red, irritated nose. She slowly lifted her head, momentarily startled by his sudden presence.
    "Help me!" she screamed hysterically, latching onto his leg for dear life. "My little brother's lost in here somewhere. I gotta find him, but I'm too scared!  The monsters'll eat me!"
    "What monsters?" But before Mister could utter another word, a pack of distorted shapes appeared down the corridor in answer to his half-formed question, summoned by the girl's reverberating pleas. The odious things scrambled past each other like starved animals fighting for a scrap of food- so horrifying was the impending sight that the girl stiffened and fainted, falling limp to the blood-ridden floor. He quickly scooped her up and ran, slumping her like a rag doll over his shoulder, the mutant pack snapping and clawing at his heels!
    Ahead, the unobstructed entrance to a dark, spacious chamber offered the only route of escape. Mister tumbled into the room as a creature sliced down his back with its gangly nails, knocking him off balance; he threw the girl to the side and instantly sprang to his feet in one fell motion. Red, crackling energy coalesced around the Biotech Unit, gathering intensity at the front of the thing's repugnant, undulating head. He quickly raised his arm, aiming the unit at the horde of creatures pouring into the room.
    In a coruscating flash, the energy discharged in an electrical ball, blasting the aberrations apart into gory chunks and pieces- the few mongoloids surviving the devastation hastily retreated like wounded dogs fleeing with their tails tucked between their legs. Mister's powers in desperate need of replenishing, he sat down beside the girl to rest.

    Mister lay gasping for air, the Biotech Unit's depletion of his constitution leaving him physically drained. A shimmering red, humid mist suddenly rose around him and the girl- subtly at first, with patches here and there; but within a few moments time, the consistency of the unearthly fog had gradually thickened. He rolled out of the vapor, struggling to his feet as the moist, eerie substance enveloped the poor girl. A crooked maw and pair of glowing eyes of an even deeper red formed within the mist, the girl floating up off the ground, her skin transmuting into a pale white color. A second door at the far end of the chamber opened, inviting Mister to enter, so, turning his back to the girl, he accepted.

    "Tsk, tsk, Mister! Those possessed of goodness and virtue would never leave behind such an innocent, defenseless girl to be slaughtered. You will never defeat me by freely committing such evil actions."
    The figure gazed from the panel of monitors to Edwardo who now stood eagerly watching beside the chair.
    "Well, I see you're coming along nicely," said the figure to Edwardo. "What are your thoughts on the matter?"
    "I think he'll fail."

    Mister wandered incessantly through the damnable house, investigating rooms and chambers of differentiating shape and size. He suspected that Giggio wasn't lying after all in mentioning the absurd notion of a portal to another world, for, recalling the limited girth of the house's exterior, logic dictated that the interior was much too large to exist in a spatial confine smaller than its actual size.
After a time of random bumbling, Mister finally stumbled onto a unique chamber with a single, dense column of alien architecture manufactured in the middle of the room, embedded in the pillar's center a cylinder of translucent alloy large enough to contain a single, grown person. Secured inside the device was the girl. Beyond the column on the opposite end of the room was another entry.
    The chamber suddenly filled with a horrible clatter- a heavy thudding of giant footsteps intermixed with the ominous clanging of metal gears. An abhorrent creature of gargantuan proportions stepped out from behind the column, looking Mister over with menacing black, pupiless eyes, fully revealing its grotesquely corpulent body!
    The thing stood roughly ten feet in height- completely bare of hair- except for dark, curly patches along its left hand and forearm, its right arm replaced by a mechanical, cybernetic limb that hummed in tune to its movement. The monstrosity waddled toward Mister on squat, stubby legs each the thickness of small trees, its unscathed arm long and beefy, dragging its swollen knuckles across the floor. A rotund stomach drooped from the creature’s waist, its bellybutton pierced by an equally large metal ring etched in arcane runes and alien markings, stretching the skin. Two studded leather straps criss-crossed over the creature’s hunched back and bloated chest, while a black executioner's hood cut with eye and mouth holes covered its entire macrocephalic head.
    Wrapped haphazardly about the pelvic region was a filthy, blood-soaked cloth partially consumed by the sickening folds of skin layering the creature’s massive body. Makeshift leather thongs entwined the thing's lower legs and pudgy feet, from which were hung fresh human parts!
    "Ah, my pretty! Have you come for the girl? Well, you are too late, she is mine."
Mister aimed the grafted Biotech Unit at the monster closing in on him. Crackling red energy quickly formed at the tip of the overlapping organism.
    "Heh, heh, heh!" bellowed the thing in mocking laughter. "Is that meant to frighten me?"
    The Biotech Unit fired, the giant ring affixed to the creature’s stomach absorbing the voltage, launching the sizzling ball back at Mister. The discharge struck him dead-on, hurling him into a wall.
    The creature nearly upon him, Mister drew his compacted Uzi, riddling the abomination in a hail of bullets. Chunks of flesh splattered everywhere, pelting Mister as the Uzi ripped the creature apart! The horror swung its synthetic limb, smashing into the wall mere inches from Mister's head!
    Mister darted with lightning speed to the opposite end of the chamber- the creature much slower- inserting another clip into the Uzi. He quickly spent the clip, yet the creature never faltered in its pursuit. The horror swung its prosthetic limb again, this time crashing into the column as Mister ducked the deadly blow, the vibrations triggering the pillar into activation. A transparent mist filled the cylinder, the girl's chest contracting with breath upon her exposure to the vapor, her eyes springing open.
    "Nooo!" the thing howled furiously. "She is not to be revived yet!"
    Mister loaded his last clip into the Uzi, shredding the creature's already mutilated carcass to an even greater extent. Blood gushed from the monster's wounds, the terrible punishment endured by the thing wearing it down. The creature collapsed to the floor with a loud, repulsive squish, the chamber violently shaking beneath the ton or more of weight.

    Edwardo and the figure intently viewed the panel of monitors as Mister pried open the cylinder to free the girl.
    "My sister's alive again!"
    "Are you disappointed?" asked the figure. "I can easily dispose of her if you'd like?"
    "No, masteR,  it's more fun to watch them both suffer through the house!"
    "Yes, indeed, spoken like a true convert! However, that was my best Biomutant!" boomed the figure. "Mister is proving to be quite an annoyance, isn't he? But no matter, I have ways of remedying that."
    The column activated again, causing the creature's splattered flesh to twitch and move, each piece crawling back to rejoin the carcass. Mister stared in disbelief as the creature slowly reformed.
    "Run, Mister, run!" laughed the figure, turning to Edwardo. "He has only five minutes before the Biomutant revives, and I assure you, it will be the least bit happy with him for destroying it!"
    Mister threw the girl over his shoulder, looking to the column. He produced a grenade from beneath his jacket, pulling the pin and tossing the grenade into the cylinder.
    "Wha- what is he doing?" shouted the figure. Mister dived through the entry on the opposite end of the chamber as the pillar exploded, launching shards of metal and debris in all directions. The nearly reformed creature crashed lifelessly back to the floor. "He will pay for this, believe me! I will make him pay with his very soul…"

    Mister entered the bottom of a huge circular pit comprised of alien circuitry dotted with tiny hand and foot holds. On the floor leaning slumped against a section of wall lay a dried, shriveled corpse in a bloodied business suit. Portions of the cadaver’s anatomy- namely, the fingertips, nose and left foot- had crumbled to dust, forming small piles respectively around the retched body. Mister immediately recognized the withered corpse, muttering to himself.
    "D'Marco. . ."

    Using his enhanced vision, Mister peered into the darkness above, his eyesight converging on a narrow opening some fifty feet from the pit floor. The Biotech unit lit up, bathing the pit in a somber red light as the girl came to.
    "What's your name?" question a desensitized Mister.
    "Nina."
    "Well, Nina, can you climb?" Mister asked. Nina didn't answer. He snatched her by the shoulder, causing her to wince painfully. "Listen good, little girl, because I'm only going to say this once. I care nothing about you, so don't make me ask again. Can you climb?"
    "Yea," she whimpered.
    "Good, then start climbing."

    "Yes! Yes! That's more like it! That's the Mister I know and love!" the figure said ecstatically.     "No remorse, no repent. Though it is obvious that your sister is fast losing her sanity, does he comfort her? Does he make any attempt to salvage what little is left of her psyche? No!"
    "He's almost here, master," warned Edwardo. "Will you kill him?"
    "I shall both seal his fate and fulfill the Dark Prophecy all in one."

    A long passage stretched off into black oblivion. Mister kneeled over the opening's ledge to find Nina panting heavily a few feet below him, her knuckles turned throbbing white from clinging desperately to the wall. Annoyed, he hoisted her up with one arm, sending her into a panicked fit of kicking and screaming.
    "You must want me to drop you?" Mister calmly asked, holding Nina over the pit. Sensing the portentousness of his threat, she grew completely still. He pulled her into the passage, tossing her onto the floor. "Next time I will drop you."
    Something stirred within the walls, ceiling and floor, an ineffable ruckus that could only be described as a slithering and hissing sound rising steadily in pitch. Sparks of green electricity leaped from the Biotech Unit, covering Mister like a forcefield drawn out of the fantastical literature of scientifiction; while at the same time, the source of the ruckus became apparent- it was indeed coming from within the walls, but more distinctly, from within the holes riddling both the passage and pit!
    Mister quickly yanked Nina into the field's radius as hundreds of fanged, transparent tentacles attached to disgusting sacks oozed from every hole, the hideous maggots pouring into the passage!
    "What are they?!" Nina screamed in utter terror, burying her face in Mister's chest. He forced her along, wading through the mass of writhing horrors; yet the tentacle-sacks made no effort to harm them.
    The passage proved shorter than it appeared- at the end a handless door of smooth, glossy metal- the only method of escaping the tentacle horde. A pad and outlined handprint set to one side of the door. Mister aligned his hand against the pad, opening the portal.

    The door opened onto a bare, morbid room occupied by a monstrous panel of monitors against the far wall, to the front of which set a tall, high-backed leather armchair. In the corner to the left of the door cowered Edwardo.
    "Welcome, Mister!" issued a cocky, sophisticated voice from the chair's front. Nina ran to Edwardo's side, clutching onto him. "I'm amazed at your blind luck in reaching my delightful abode. To be perfectly honest with you, I was almost certain that you'd have fled my house in terror upon encountering its oddities, but I guess those many years of cold-blooded murder working as a hit man have left you numb to the thrill of fear . . . rare is a true killer."
    The chair swiveled around, revealing the dread figure. It was Giggio, but horribly changed. His head, hands and skin tone were malformed, his large, pointed ears pierced with a dozen or more silver studs of alien origin, his filthy nails sharpened to fine tips. A great muzzle supported a wide mesh of bent, crooked teeth; to each side of the maw were black, pupiless eyes. A mane of short, bristly hair ran from the top of his wrinkled forehead and down the back of his neck, while the remainder of his sinister features were cloaked in flowing black robes that rippled like shimmering darkness.
    "What the hell are you?!" stammered Mister.
    "What an appropriate word!" Giggio retorted, remaining seated. "But not quite accurate!"
    Mister aimed the implanted Biotech Unit at Giggio, but nothing happened.
    "It won't work within my presence!" Giggio scorned as he rose to his feet, regarding the unit as one does a harmless toy. A diamond-shaped amulet dislodged from beneath his robes, dangling by a thin chain around his neck. "I grow weary of our little game."
    With that, Giggio flew to the ceiling, clinging to the surface like an arachnid. He jumped down behind Nina, snatching her by the hair, leaving a neat row of nasty red scratches as he ran his foul nails across her throat.
    "So, my dear Mister, will you kill the girl to get to me?"
    Mister drew his 9mm in response, aiming through Nina’s head at Giggio's chest.
    "She means nothing to me."
    "Yes, do it then!"
    Mister squeezed on the trigger, then eased up.
    "Okay, you win, Giggio," Mister scoffed, lowering the gun. "Maybe I'm not as cold-blooded as you think?"
    "Mister," patronized Giggio. "I must say, I'm very disappointed! I expected much more from you!"
Nina gurgled up blood, choking as Giggio crushed her neck with a sickening crunch. He threw her to the floor, springing at Mister like a wild beast.
    "Now I shall do the same to you!"
    Giggio grabbed Mister by the throat, flinging him across the room; Mister agilely landed on his feet, opening his hand to unveil the amulet.
    "Give it back!" Giggio furiously howled, lunging at Mister again. The resulting collision sent both smashing into the floor, knocking the amulet from Mister's grasp. Giggio quickly recovered, picking up the device. "Yes... it's mine!"
    Giggio suddenly cried out in pain, the nightmarish features of his physique disappearing in a ghastly display unfit for words, the hideous ordeal forcing him to crumple to the ground in a fetal position. Mister backed away, cocking back the hammer of the 9mm.
    "Wha- whuz goin' on?" Giggio groggily mumbled. He glanced up at the ominous gun barrel pointed to his face.

    Nina suddenly awoke from her daydreaming, her gaze falling onto the vacant field across the street. She remembered clearly now- there was no house at all, but instead, a vast, empty field of grass. Edwardo stood at the field's edge with his back to her.
    "Edwardo!" she called to him. "Whudid mamma tell you 'bout playin' cross the street, eh? Edwardo, are you listening to me?"
    Nina spun Edwardo around, gasping in horror as he stared back at her with black, pupiless eyes.