"Live or Die, It's for the Views"
"Okay. We're rolling."
Max Presley grinned at his wrist cam, the cracked screen reflecting his crooked teeth like some B-list horror movie poster. His breath fogged in the cold air of the abandoned military lab, condensation curling around the edges of his hoodie. Graffiti covered the crumbling walls—half angry teenager, half ancient warnings in faded military stencils: DANGER: UNSTABLE MATERIALS.
Perfect backdrop. Perfect thumbnail. Perfect chaos.
"Welcome back to Max Out or Wipe Out, the only livestream where one of us gets famous... or evaporated," he whispered dramatically, adjusting the angle for maximum jawline.
His chat was already lighting up:
[BroThisIsDumb]: This is so fake.
[MutagenMoments]: GET CLOSER TO THE BEAM, COWARD.
[NuclearDaddy]: LET'S GOOOOO!!!
Max chuckled. "Closer? Fine. Y'all want close? I'll show you exclusive."
He stepped forward, boots crunching glass, brushing past a mangled "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" sign hanging by one rusted screw. Beyond it: a machine straight out of nightmares. Metal ribs bent outward like something exploded inward. In the center, a cracked containment pod hummed softly, filled with swirling, unstable energy—a storm trapped in a jar. Lightning arced inside the cracks like white serpents fighting to escape.
The Grey Gamma Core. That's what the ancient schematics called it, according to the Reddit thread that led him here. Top secret. Probably illegal. Definitely sick for content.
One more step, and his wrist cam flickered—static—
—and the hum spiked.
"Whoa—"
The blast wasn't cinematic. No slow-mo. No glowing lines of CGI perfection. It was real, raw, and ugly. Like the world decided to scream inside his skull.
White cracks of energy exploded outward like shattering porcelain, slamming into him with the weight of a freight train. His hoodie vaporized instantly, the cheap cotton leaving behind the scorched smell of regret and clearance-rack fashion. His hands went up—but the light was already inside him, burning under his skin, clawing to get out.
Max didn't scream. He roared.
And something else roared with him.
BOOM.
When the light cleared, he wasn't standing anymore.
He was towering.
Grey skin. Glowing white fractures all over his arms and chest like he'd been carved from cracked stone. His hair floated, glowing faintly at the tips. The stabilizer harness on his chest beeped weakly, sparks spitting from broken seams. The cracked white logo he designed himself—an "M" splitting apart like tectonic plates—was barely holding together.
His wrist cam? Still there. Still streaming. Still attached.
Chat was losing its mind.
[BroThisIsDumb]: HOLY $#@#@.
[MutagenMoments]: BULKOUT IS BORN.
[NuclearDaddy]: I KNEW THIS WOULD RULE.
Max lifted one hand, huge and trembling, glowing faintly like he'd swallowed a dying star.
"…Y'all seeing this?" His voice was deeper now, vibrating with raw power, but still him. Still Max.
Then came the noise from the far side of the lab.
A door creaking.
A voice cursing.
Other people.
Other problems.
And Max—Bulkout—was about to have his very first one.
And somewhere, deep in his chest, the cracks glowed just a little brighter.
This was gonna make one hell of a clip.
"Unauthorized Presence Detected"
CLANG.
Max's—no—Bulkout's glowing white eyes snapped toward the sound, neck muscles creaking like old ropes under strain.
Out of the shadows rolled a relic of Cold War-era paranoia, squat but deadly: a security mech. Matte black plating, hydraulic legs spitting dust with every heavy step. Rust clung to its joints, but the armaments were very much awake— twin rotary cannons mounted under each stubby arm, spinning up with a rising whine like angry hornets.
Painted across its chest in peeling white letters:
PROPERTY OF SECTOR GAMMA — TERMINATE BIOHAZARD
Guess that's me now, Max thought.
The mech's speaker crackled to life, voice ancient and full of static:
"UNAUTHORIZED PRESENCE DETECTED. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED."
It lifted its arms.
Barrels spun.
"Oh, nope—"
Max dove left instinctively, or at least tried to. Bulkout's new mass didn't care about old muscle memory. Instead of a slick dodge, he skidded, tearing a trench in the concrete as he barrel-rolled like a dropped wrecking ball. Concrete and sparks spat in every direction.
BRRRRRRRTTT.
Bullets ripped through the space he'd just vacated, punching holes in the walls and shredding metal pipes like they were wrapping paper. The mech advanced, each step slamming down like a judge's gavel.
"Alright—cool—no problem—" Max grunted, hauling himself upright with both fists, the glowing white cracks on his arms flickering erratically.
He glanced at his wrist cam.
Still streaming.
Still live.
Chat was pure chaos:
[BroThisIsDumb]: THIS IS CONTENT.
[MutagenMoments]: THROW SOMETHING YOU COWARD.
[VoidGamer88]: SHOW US THAT BULK.
Max smiled. "You broke it?" His glowing white teeth bared like a wolf's. "Nah..."
He ripped a rusted support beam out of the wall, sparks dancing up his forearms.
"I break it better."
With a guttural ROAR, he swung the beam like a baseball bat.
CLANG!
The support pole smashed against the mech's shoulder, sending it staggering sideways, dented and sparking. Its targeting systems went haywire for a second, red lasers blinking wildly across the walls.
"THREAT LEVEL—ESCALATING—"
Max's chest heaved. The glowing cracks on his body pulsed brighter, almost too bright. His vision blurred at the edges, like something deep inside him wanted to keep going. Break everything. Including himself.
Don't lose it. Don't lose it. Stay Max.
The mech stabilized on its hydraulics, one cannon sparking but the other fully functional. It fired another burst, this time wild, bullets ricocheting everywhere—
—including one that pinged off Max's stabilization harness.
BEEEEP.
The harness sparked violently. The glowing cracks along Max's collarbone spread, spiderwebbing down his chest.
"Uh… that's new—"
His heart thundered with a mix of panic, adrenaline, and something else. Something hot and breaking loose.
The mech lowered its barrel for one more shot.
Max didn't wait.
With a lunging step that cracked the floor beneath him, he charged—not with grace, but with brute force, shoulder down like a living freight train.
CRASH.
The impact sent both of them through a reinforced wall, rusted beams twisting like pretzels. Sparks, dust, and white energy bursts filled the air like fireworks gone wrong. Somewhere under it all, Max was laughing.
Panicked. Overwhelmed. But alive.
His wrist cam swung wildly on its strap.
[MutagenMoments]: KING $#!&.
[BroThisIsDumb]: I TAKE IT BACK THIS IS THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.
[VoidGamer88]: BULKOUT RISES.
Max could barely breathe, vision hazy from the emotional overload, body trembling like an over-pressurized boiler.
But inside all that chaos, one thing was perfectly clear.
This?
This was going viral.
"Roofline Exit"
Max didn't stop moving.
Couldn't.
The glowing white cracks were spreading, crawling down his chest, splitting across his shoulders. Every breath felt like holding a lightning storm in his ribcage, ready to explode outward if he lost focus for even a second.
The mech behind him screeched, dragging itself free of twisted metal, one cannon still twitching for a clean shot.
Max slammed his palm into the next wall—
BOOM—and shoved, sending concrete flying outward like wet cardboard. The force of the impact sent him stumbling forward, arms pinwheeling to keep balance.
Another wall. Another explosion of shattered brick and old piping. His stabilizer harness was sparking like a dying firework now, barely holding its cracked logo together.
"Gotta get out, gotta get up—"
Another wall. BOOM. Rust and plaster exploded around him. His legs burned with every step, but Bulkout's momentum was like a cannonball fired from a gun too small to contain it.
Finally—
Open air.
Cold wind slapped his glowing skin like a slap of reality. Max blinked, pupils adjusting as he stumbled out onto a rusted rooftop, overlooking the skeletal sprawl of Old Cedar Falls. Twisted radio towers. Dead chimneys. Streetlights blinking in slow mechanical death.
And above it all: the stars, blurred through the glowing cracks of his breaking skin.
The mech's voice echoed behind him through the wreckage:
"BIOHAZARD DETECTED—PURSUIT IN—"
NO.
With one last, desperate bellow, Max twisted on his heel and leapt. Not graceful. Just raw. A jump fueled by panic, confusion, and the primal urge to not die today.
He arced through the air like a chunk of debris flung by a collapsing building, slamming shoulder-first into the adjacent rooftop, rolling hard. Concrete cracked beneath him, dust puffing out in heavy breaths.
The glowing cracks all over his body were flashing too bright now, a strobe light of emotional overload. His vision tunneled. His breathing ragged.
He could feel it.
That shatter point.
That terrifying edge of losing himself. Of becoming just the rage.
"Stay… Max…" he grunted, his voice breaking under the weight of something bigger than him. "Stay… me…"
But he was sixteen. Exhausted. Terrified.
And right now?
Right now, that wasn't enough.
THOOM.
He collapsed backward against a rusted ventilation pipe, breath catching in his throat. The glowing fractures pulsed once, blindingly white—
—then snapped out.
Silence.
No glowing cracks. No stormy grey skin. Just—
Max Presley.
Bare-chested, covered in soot and ash, wild white-tipped hair sticking out at weird angles, like he'd been microwaved. His stabilization harness hung off him in broken strips. His black cargo shorts were basically shreds of fabric held together by teenage embarrassment and nothing else.
Cold wind curled around his bare skin. The adrenaline dump hit like a freight train afterward, and for the first time in hours—
—he felt small.
The chat was dead. Either the wrist cam fried in the chaos or it finally lost signal. Alone. Just him.
Max Presley, sixteen years old, thrill-seeker, idiot, barely breathing, laying on a rooftop above a broken city—
—and officially a walking nuclear accident with a subscriber count.
He stared at the night sky, watching the stars flicker faintly overhead.
"…Sick," he muttered weakly, voice hoarse. "Totally… sick."
Then the cold finally hit him, and with it, the reality that he had no shirt, no working phone, no plan—
—and about six hours before sunrise.
This was going to be… complicated.
"Home is Where the Hoodie Was"
CUT TO—
The door to Max's house creaked open with the soft whine of defeat. The cheap screen door hung off one hinge, letting in the buzz of early morning cicadas. Pale blue light was creeping up over the horizon, turning the cracked sidewalks of New Cedar Falls into thin ribbons of silver and shadow.
Max limped inside like a half-dead action figure missing all its accessories. His feet were bare, scraped raw. His black cargo shorts looked more like black confetti. His hair? A disaster. His ribs ached like someone had taken a baseball bat to them—which, to be fair, wasn't far off.
"Don't wake Mom. Don't wake Mom. Don't wake Mom," he mumbled like a prayer, stepping carefully past the living room couch, piled with laundry and school binders he definitely hadn't touched in three weeks.
His phone—what was left of it—hung from the remains of his wrist cam rig. Screen spiderwebbed, battery somehow still alive by pure spite.
One text notification blinking:
[Hazel]: Yo? Did you die on stream orrrr—?
Max winced. Hazel was gonna kill him.
He shuffled down the hallway, the floor creaking with every step. His reflection caught briefly in the cracked mirror by the bathroom—half of his face smudged with soot, a faint glowing residue still lingering around his collarbone, like embers waiting for wind to stir them back to life.
Finally—his room. A clutter bomb of dirty hoodies, energy drink cans, old skate wheels, and posters half-peeled off the walls. Comfortably trashed. Beautifully his.
He collapsed face-first onto the bed, not even bothering to pull the blanket up. Just gone. Melted into teenage exhaustion and radioactive afterglow.
Thud. Something fell off the bed.
Didn't care.
Couldn't care.
For now…
Just Max.
Not Bulkout.
Just—
Sleep hit him like a knockout punch.
But before unconsciousness dragged him fully under, one last thought flickered in the back of his skull, like a frayed wire still sparking:
They saw it.
Everyone who tuned in.
They all saw it.
The glowing cracks. The roar. The mech.
The whole world was about to know.