Chương 160: Chapter 160
The first sign of trouble came in the form of a strange, slithering liquid that appeared in an abandoned lab in the middle of a forgotten forest. It was thick, dark, and almost gelatinous, like something that had been born from the cracks of the earth itself. It didn't look like much at first—just a puddle of slime, soft and harmless, slowly spreading across the floor.
But there was something in its movement. It had no shape of its own, no limbs or form to define it, but it crept with purpose. It would pause, then slide again, a slow, steady pull. It wasn't alive in the traditional sense, but it was alive in a way no one could understand.
The lab was empty. Nothing had touched the place in years, not since the experiment had gone wrong. Now, all that remained were the rotting remnants of old machines and papers covered in dust. The world outside was a different story. The sun still rose and set. People walked in the streets. Life continued on its normal path, unaware of what was growing in the dark corners.
The slime didn't stop at the lab. It spread, slowly but surely. First, it crawled through the ventilation system, taking over small parts of buildings, spreading unseen in places where no one could notice it. It grew, feeding on everything it touched. Paper, glass, metal, flesh—all of it dissolved into the mass that formed at its center. The world began to change, but only in the quietest of ways. People didn't know. They couldn't know.
Then, one day, someone noticed.
A scientist named Kayla had been working in the field of biochemistry for years. She was one of the first to understand what the substance was, and she thought she could stop it. She read everything she could find on the subject. Every study, every paper, and every scrap of knowledge she could get her hands on.
The problem was that no one had ever seen anything like it before. No one had ever studied it. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't bound by the rules of biology. It didn't just grow—it evolved. It could mimic whatever it consumed, absorbing everything and anything: memories, skills, personalities. It didn't just take in the body—it became it.
The first time she saw it in action was a cold morning, as she sat in her lab, working on some formula. She saw a report flashing across her computer screen about a man who had disappeared the night before. Nothing unusual, it wasn't uncommon for someone to vanish in a world full of chaos. But when the man reappeared a day later, he wasn't the same. He was... different.
Kayla watched the video footage. The man's movements were odd—stilted, unnatural. He had changed in some way. His speech, once sharp and clear, was now a jumble of unfamiliar words and sounds. The man was no longer the person he had been.
The slime had taken him.
Kayla began to investigate. The more she looked, the more she realized something terrifying. The slime had been moving through the population, absorbing people. At first, it was only a few here and there, easy to ignore. But then it began to take over entire cities. Entire regions. People walked the streets, but they weren't themselves anymore. Their faces remained the same, but their minds were gone. They were mere shells, occupied by something else—something ancient.
The slime fed. It grew. It changed.
Every day brought new reports of people going missing. At first, the authorities thought it was a string of kidnappings. But Kayla knew better. Something was happening—something big. The world was slipping into something else. Something worse.
Her first real confrontation with it happened when she went to check on her old friend, Lisa. Lisa had been one of the first to notice the strange phenomenon, but no one believed her at first. She thought it was a disease, some sort of plague spreading from person to person. By the time Kayla reached her, Lisa was already... changed.
Kayla found her in her apartment, staring out the window with a blank look on her face. She turned when Kayla entered. Her eyes weren't the same. They were dull, lifeless, like those of a puppet. She was a mimic. A perfect copy of herself—but not her.
Kayla had seen the signs. The way she stood, the way she spoke. It wasn't Lisa anymore. It was the slime. She had been absorbed, consumed, and turned into a thing that was no longer human.
"What have you done?" Kayla asked, her voice tight with fear.
Lisa—if that's who she even was anymore—smiled. It wasn't her smile, though. It was something darker. Something predatory. "I've learned so much, Kayla. I can feel everything. I can be everything."
Kayla couldn't run fast enough. The creature that had taken over her friend moved, fast, a blur of fluid, reaching out for her. But Kayla wasn't a fool. She had prepared. She reached for the syringe in her pocket, the one filled with the serum she had developed. It was meant to kill the slime. It had to.
Kayla slammed it into Lisa's neck, and for a moment, it worked. The slime stopped. It froze, writhing on the ground. But that was all it did—it froze. It didn't die. It never died.
Instead, it began to dissolve Lisa's body. Piece by piece, it ate her. Kayla could only watch in horror as her friend, her best friend, was reduced to nothing. The slime absorbed her entirely, leaving only an empty shell behind.
That's when it clicked—this thing wasn't just a creature. It was an infection. It was a sickness of the mind and body, something that couldn't be contained or stopped. Kayla was too late. Too late for Lisa. Too late for the world.
She knew what had to come next. The slime didn't just mimic. It took over. Everything it absorbed became part of it. And now that it had learned, it was unstoppable.
For a time, Kayla tried to fight it. She tried to create a cure, a way to reverse what had happened. She couldn't. Every time she made progress, the slime adapted. It was too smart. It was everywhere. It wasn't just taking people anymore—it was taking everything. Technology. Nature. The world itself. The slime was growing.
It wasn't just absorbing the world—it was becoming it.
One last time, Kayla made her way to the center of the city. She was alone now. Everyone else was gone, absorbed, or worse. The streets were quiet. Too quiet. It was as if the world was waiting for her to take her last step.
She could see it, the massive mass of slime creeping through the streets. It was so big now. It had eaten everything. Buildings. Trees. People. It had consumed it all, absorbed it all, and now there was nothing left. It was growing, spreading. And Kayla was its next victim.
She tried. She fought, using the last of her strength to inject herself with the serum. But the moment the needle broke her skin, it was too late. The slime poured into her, consuming her from the inside out. It didn't kill her. No. It didn't need to kill her. It absorbed everything she was, her thoughts, her memories, her skills, her hopes. It became her, and in the end, there was nothing left.
Kayla had been the last human. The last person left to try and stop it. But there was no stopping it. No fighting it. It had taken everything.
The slime was now the world. There was nothing else.
The world was silent. And it was forever.
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