Iron Man: Tetsuo: The

By midnight, the apartment felt too small, too organic. The drywall seemed to breathe with a moist, suffocating heat. Elias collapsed against his workbench, his breath coming in ragged, metallic rasps. Every time his heart beat, it sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. Clang. Clang. Clang.

A scream tore from his throat, but it came out as a burst of static. His jaw unhinged, held together by gleaming bicycle chains. His skin cracked open, revealing a chassis of scrap metal and pressurized tubes. He felt the "Great Rust" itching at the back of his brain—the primal urge to consume, to weld, to integrate. Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Should we explore a further, or

He tried to peel it away, expecting a scab. Instead, he felt the sickening, grinding slide of a piston under his ribs. By midnight, the apartment felt too small, too organic

Elias stepped out onto the fire escape, his new limbs clanging against the iron slats. He looked at the sprawling metropolis and saw not a city, but a graveyard of unrefined ore waiting for a god. Every time his heart beat, it sounded like

He stumbled toward the window. Outside, the world was soft, fleshy, and weak. It needed to be reinforced. It needed to be hard.