One day, Jack woke up sitting on the roof of a house.

  Cold air brushed his skin. The sky felt wrong . too clear, too sharp. His body felt light. Too light.

  He felt young.

  That made no sense. Jack was forty-eight. His knees ached every morning. His back protested even short walks. Maybe he was still drunk. Maybe his mind hadn’t caught up yet.

  I need to get to my daughter, he thought. She must be panicking.

  Another thought followed immediately, absurdly gentle.

  Maybe I should buy her a gift. She’ll jump in joy.

  He stood up and climbed down the stairs.

  Only then did he realize something else felt wrong.

  He felt tall.

  Too tall.

  As he walked down the street, people stared. Not quick glances.

  Frozen stares.

  Their faces twisted between confusion and fear.

  Jack turned toward the glass of a nearby shop.

  And understood.

  A bucket covered his head .metal, dented, with crude holes cut for eyes and mouth. His body was naked except for a pair of underwear.

  And the body staring back at him wasn’t his.

  It was tall. Broad. Muscular. Inhumanly so.

  “This… isn’t my body,” he thought. “I was never built like this.”

  He flexed experimentally. The reflection copied him perfectly.

  Another detail hit him late, too late.

  If I’m wearing a bucket… why can I see perfectly?

  “Mommy, look,” a little girl said, pointing. “He’s naked and has a bucket on his head.”

  “Don’t point at strangers,” her mother snapped, dragging her away.

  That was when the air tore open.

  A few yards from Jack, space folded inward like broken glass. A portal bloomed, violent, wrong.

  Something stepped out.

  It had a humanoid shape, but its skin was deep violet, and its face… couldn’t be seen. Not blurred but refused. As if reality itself was blocking perception.

  Panic exploded instantly.

  People screamed. They ran. Shoes slapped pavement. Someone tripped. Someone cried.

  The creature moved.

  It reached the nearest person and punched once.

  The person vanished.

  Not fell. Not exploded.

  Erased.

  Blood followed seconds later ,too much of it. The street turned red. Screams multiplied.

  The distance between the creature and Jack collapsed in moments.

  The creature raised its fist toward the little girl who had pointed earlier.

  Jack’s body moved before his mind could.

  He lunged.

  His punch flew

  and the girl’s body exploded mid-motion.

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  His fist struck the creature anyway.

  Nothing happened.

  The creature didn’t flinch.

  Jack's eyes locked with the creature's even though the creature's face was blurred but he still felt it .

  It was as if time had stopped .

  The mother’s scream sliced through the air.

  Pulling himself back ,Jack punched again. And again. And again.

  The creature stood still.

  Suddenly it grabbed Jack’s arm and drove a punch into his stomach.

  Jack coughed blood.

  Terror ran down through Jack's spine.

  In fear he screamed

  " STOP ..... PLEASE !"

  The creature ignored him and hit once more.

  Jack was launched backward, smashing through buildings, finally stopping buried under rubble.

  The city descended into chaos.

  Police arrived.

  Gunfire erupted.

  Bullets bounced uselessly off the creature’s skin. It danced between officers, slaughtering them with casual movements.

  A helicopter arrived minutes later.

  The creature crouched and jumped.

  The helicopter tried to flee, but the creature latched on.

  Seconds later, it crashed.

  Hundreds died.

  From the rubble, Jack emerged screaming and hurled himself back into the fight.

  They exchanged blows.

  He suddenly saw a girl's dead body around them

  “She was my friend,” Jack said as a punch crushed his face.

  “She listened to my rants about work.”

  The creature answered with a knee, then another punch, then smashed Jack’s bucketed head into the ground. The earth cracked.

  Jack’s vision blurred but felt the creature sitting on him.

  " Stop " jack screamed as his face got punched .

  And continuous blows which felt like train kept hitting him until finally the creature stopped and Jack was covered in blood , completely out of his senses .

  His body screamed of pain from everywhere . Even moving a finger was impossible for him .

  The creature stood up and started his slaughter again .

  " Get up .

  GET UP......

  GET UP ............

  HE IS IN MY NEIGHBOUR HOOD . HE IS GOING TOWARDS MY FAMILY .

  GET UP " Jack felt powerless but still was trying his best .

  " Come on bucket man , you can do it"

  He heard a familiar voice .

  A voice too familiar which he was used to hearing everyday .

  He looked in the direction of the voice and saw his daughter trapped in a rubble .

  " No....

  runaway .

  Runaway ....."

  He screamed as the embodiment of terror was walking towards her .

  And in this moment of desperation a huge burst of energy came out of Jack . It was energy he has never felt

  Before .

  And he dashed towards the creature even though he was still seeing blurry.

  He heard his daughter's scream followed by a loud thud .

  And a loud thud again.

  And again and again and again and again .

  and finally it stopped .

  Suddenly the blur removed and his sight adjusted and saw the monster eating his daughter's head .

  what?

  His eyes locked to the monster's.

  The creature rushed towards Jack and punched him from the right, which sent Jack flying.

  His daughter, the only relative he still had alive, was gone in an instant .

  The reason he had worked so hard until now was erased .

  His reason for being sane till now was erased by the creature, and all that was left was anger and sorrow.

  He silently stood up, and energy was bursting out of his body in every direction .

  The air felt heavy around him .

  Suddenly, the surrounding energy diminished and became very compact in dense form.

  It gathered on Bucket Man’s hands.

  Through the holes in his bucket, his eyes filled with tears and anger could be seen.

  "" I will kill you....

  I WILL KILL YOU EVEN IF IT COSTS ME MY LIFE "

  He said with his teeths gritting .

  The creature rushed towards Bucket Man and punched him, but he stood unfazed.

  He grabbed the creature’s arm and ripped it out of its body.

  Suddenly, the creature started speaking a language Jack couldn’t understand and his hand grew back .

  The creature punched Jack again, and this time it hurt him.

  In anger, both of them started exchanging blows.

  Both of them were equally strong, going toe to toe with each other.

  The sounds of their fists colliding were echoing everywhere .

  The creature’s kick pushed Jack back, and in that instant, the creature ran away.

  Without wasting a second, Bucket Man chased the creature, but he was slower, so he shifted energy from his hands to his legs as well.

  Now his speed matched the creature’s.

  Bucket Man grabbed a car and threw it at the creature.

  The creature dodged to the left and jumped into the sky.

  Bucket Man jumped too.

  The creature started speaking something again,

  and this time Bucket Man understood it.

  “Piercing shot.”

  A spear from the sky struck Bucket Man.

  Bucket Man got pinned to the ground.

  He stood up slowly and pulled the spear out when suddenly another struck him and pinned him again.

  They kept raining, pinning Bucket Man to his location.

  Bucket Man stood up, ignoring the spears in him as if he couldn’t feel the pain of his body being torn.

  He stared at the creature and noticed the energy around it was far less than earlier.

  Maybe summoning the spears cost him this energy.

  “How can you attack someone when you can’t withstand its aftermath?”

  he said in anger.

  At that moment, he understood that the attacking creature was not a mindless animal.

  It attacked and even ate Jack’s daughter even though it had consciousness and could feel fear.

  While screaming, the creature ran as fast as it could.

  “You are dead,”

  Bucket Man slowly whispered as he appeared in front of the creature, grabbed its head, and smashed it into the ground.

  The creature saw everything blur.

  Bucket Man sat on the creature’s stomach.

  The creature cried something that wasn’t in a language Bucket Man spoke, but he understood it.

  The creature was crying for help and begging to be spared.

  Bucket Man’s fist struck the creature’s face like a truck.

  The creature cried again, and Bucket Man’s fist broke its jaw.

  In the silence,the cries grew louder and louder.

  So Bucket Man rained down his fist and ripped its throat out and kept punching.

  Even though he couldn’t see the creature’s face, he definitely felt its nose break.

  In the silence of the night only a single sound could be heard and it was the quenching sounds produced by bucket man's fist raining on the creature .

  The punches kept landing, and Bucket Man’s bucket—which was blue in color—was now red.

  Even after the creature died, his punches didn’t stop.

  And suddenly they stopped .

  Bucket man turned his head back and saw a portal.

  Another creature came out of it.

  Bucket Man stood up, slashed the blood off his wrists, and while walking toward the creature, broke an electricity pole.

  The creature started dancing as if it were mocking him.

  Bucket Man swung the pole, sending the creature flying through buildings and killing hundreds.

  When the creature opened its eyes, it saw Bucket Man running toward it.

  In fear, the creature started dancing.

  May be It was its ability. Bucket man thought.

  It gained a huge physical buff if it completed the dance.

  But Bucket Man didn’t care and ripped its heart out in a single attack and threw it away.

  Bucket Man felt another portal open far from him.

  He ran as fast as he could, and when he arrived, he saw the creature had already killed people.

  While screaming, he ran and started exchanging blows with the creature, but the creature was stronger.

  An uppercut from the creature sent Bucket Man into the sky.

  Bucket Man’s eyes opened, and he saw the creature’s fist, which he blocked instantly but still felt the impact and hit the ground at high speed.

  His left arm was broken now.

  Bucket Man stood in a stance with his left arm supporting his right fist.

  The energy around him started fluctuating.

  The moment the creature landed, it started running toward Bucket Man.

  Bucket Man stood in silence, waiting.

  Finally, he screamed,

  “Wind Pierce.”

  And punched the air.

  Within seconds, everything in his trajectory vanished.

  Even the creature had a huge hole in its upper body.

  Finally, this nightmare was over, and it was morning.

  No more portals were opening.

  He survived the night .

  Suddenly, the clouds in the sky started taking shape, and they said,

  “Chosen one to annihilate will arrive after ten years.”

  Bucket Man’s body collapsed to the ground, and Jack woke up in his own forty-five-year-old body, lying beside garbage bags.

  “Why? " He said while weeping

  "Why couldn’t you save her?”

  He screamed while crying and started slapping himself.

  “She is dead. She is dead. She is dead because you couldn’t do anything. " He cried.

  "You amount to nothing. You have never done anything for her. You worthless father.”

  He cried even louder .

  Suddenly he heard

  a familiar voice .

  A voice too familiar .

  “Don’t worry. I’m still here.”

  He raised his head and saw his daughter.

  His feet moved automatically toward her to hug her, but he passed through her body and hit a wall.

  He finally realized that his mind had gone insane too and was now playing hallucinations.

  He started laughing like a maniac and passed out there for the whole day.