CHAPTER 1
PLUNGE INTO THE DARKNESS, Part 6

My mother is free from his grasp. Good, but she has passed out, just like Jay and Dad. I check each of their pulses and breathing to make sure everyone is okay.

They’re still alive. I feel relieved, considering how it could have gone. But now I feel the need to get back to myself, or whatever I am now. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I’m emanating a strange black vapor from my body, especially from my hands. I use my phone’s selfie mode to see my face. What have I become? The whites of my eyes have turned completely black.

The steel man is running toward me. I want to retreat, but who will look out for my family if not me?

So I run toward him as well. As I move, I notice that I’m leaving behind some kind of afterimages of myself, as if multiple darker versions of me are following behind. It’s powerful and frightening all at once.

The attacker and I are about to collide. I narrowly dodge his steel fist and, at the same time, hit him with a right hook enveloped in black vapor. The blow is so strong that the violent echo of the impact reverberates across his hardened body.

I back away from my opponent almost immediately, my hand throbbing from the blow I just landed. Seriously, what am I thinking? I’m fighting a metal man with my bare hands, and he doesn’t even seem affected in the slightest.

Before I know it, he’s caught up to me and is trying to hit me with a series of sloppy attacks. He’s clearly not used to fighting, whereas I’m improvising some blocking moves I learned from a smartphone app. Let’s just say that I felt stupid not long after downloading it.

Still, the only reason I can hold my own against him is because I’m much faster than he is. Sure enough, here come the afterimages of my moving limbs. What an electrifying feeling. I have no idea how I ended up in a situation like this, but I feel like I can do anything with this power.

“You’ll pay for this!” The steel attacker headbutts me in the face. The blow is so strong that it sends me flying into a tree, which is uprooted by the impact. Incredibly, I get back up, feeling only sore.

Have I just been slammed into a tree hard enough to uproot it? I think in disbelief. Or rather, have I just been slammed into a tree hard enough to uproot it, and I’m still alive? Seriously!

My adversary walks toward me. I push these thoughts aside and focus… on the threat.

“Okay, sir. Please. Let’s wrap it up,” I say, trying to talk him down. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m sure you want the same thing.” I want to resolve this diplomatically.

Again, this situation is absurd, but I still want to avoid a pointless clash. Someone could get badly hurt if we keep fighting.

“No… now I get it… I’m here for you,” he says, pointing at me. He’s definitely lost his mind. I had never met him before today. Why would he want to fight me? “This morning I woke up as a steel man. When someone first saw me, he tried to run away. I couldn’t let him go. If anyone else had known about me, I would have been caught. So I killed him with my own hands. I was so destabilized I wandered the streets looking for answers. I thought, What happened to me? What do I do now? Earlier, when I saw you running away… when I caught a glimpse of your black eyes, I knew you must be my problem, the cause of my torment! If I want to become a normal person again, I must kill you.”

It’s embarrassing. I am embarrassing… but I have to admit, I didn’t catch a word of what he just said. It was so fast that it was impossible for me to translate everything in my head.

“Excuse me, can you repeat, please? I’m not really good in English, so…” He seems annoyed by my reaction, and I’m fairly sure I didn’t phrase it correctly.

“Are you kidding me?” His steel hand transforms, taking the shape of a long blade. “Now I am certain… You must die!” He lunges at me, unleashing a series of slashes that I barely manage to dodge.

“Okay, this time I understood!”