It was a human body—so decomposed, so mutilated—that identifying its age, gender, or even whether it was originally human at all seemed impossible.
More disturbing than its condition, however, was its placement. The corpse wasn't lying on the ground or slumped in a corner. No. It was fused with the very wall behind it, as if it had grown out of the structure itself—its bones and decayed flesh seeping into the concrete and metal.
Even more unsettling, the surrounding area was clearly experiencing severe spatial distortion. The ceiling and walls twisted into each other in unnatural, impossible ways, as though reality itself had been folded and crumpled like paper.
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stared at the live footage in horror.
"What the hell is going on?" Natasha Romanoff barked, her voice laced with disbelief and panic. "Didn't any of those guys notice something was wrong?!"
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
And within seconds, things took an even darker turn.
Ross—stoic, grizzled, battle-hardened Ross—stepped toward the wall-corpse with an expression of recognition.
"Oh, f**k, nice to see a familiar face, guys. This is Zachary," Ross said, as if greeting an old friend.
To everyone's horror, Jack chimed in excitedly. "Thank God! Zachary, why are you here, man?"
They were speaking to the corpse. With genuine familiarity. As though it were alive.
Houston pointed at his injured leg, groaning. "Us too, man. Look at this damn place! Look at my leg! This whole mission's a mess."
Even James stood there silently, showing no reaction at all.
Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.
At the S.H.I.E.L.D. command center, alarms began to blare.
"Captain, please be advised," came a sharp, robotic voice over the comms. "You and your squad are under the influence of a powerful cognitohazard. We are uploading the filtering protocol to your SCRAMBLE goggles. Please stand by."
Ross barely even acknowledged the warning. "No big deal, Commander," he said with a casual wave. "It's just Zachary. We've known each other for years, right?" He reached out and gently tapped the corpse on the chin, as though sharing an inside joke.
The viewers in the livestream chat immediately lost their minds:
"WTF? Are they seriously talking to a corpse?"
"Cognitohazard confirmed! That's classic memetic infection behavior!"
"They're infected. They have to be."
"GET THEM OUT OF THERE!"
Despite the escalating alerts and the desperate calls from command, Ross and his team continued their surreal conversation.
"Zachary, we're looking for a few people who are trapped here," Ross asked calmly. "Do you know how to get to the lower levels?"
Silence.
"Okay, okay. What's down there?"
Still no response.
Ross nodded as though he had just been given directions. "Right. Got it."
Jack's eyes widened. "He's right! Where's Noah?"
James suddenly turned his head, his expression shifting. "Wait... Noah?"
Just moments ago, Noah had been standing right behind them.
Now he was gone.
Ross's calm façade cracked. "Oh f**k. Zachary, stay here. Noah! Can you hear me? It's Ross. Talk to me!"
He slammed down the button on his communicator. "Command, where is Noah?!"
The command center responded urgently: "Unable to confirm. Spatial distortion is interfering with signals. Upload complete—please restart goggles immediately to enable filtering."
The squad moved fast. Each one powered down their SCRAMBLE goggles and restarted them.
When the goggles powered back on, the world had changed.
Jack was the first to react. He stumbled backward, pointing at the wall. "Oh my god. Command, there's a body here! It's—it's fused with the wall! Our goggles are going crazy!"
They were finally seeing what was really there.
James stared at a particular wall, his brows furrowed. "There's something... it's flashing."
Houston followed his gaze, confused. "What is that? Gas leak? Maybe natural gas?"
But the live viewers already knew.
All the color drained from their faces.
The camera feed captured it clearly now: a flickering, transparent, humanoid structure embedded in the wall. Its presence warped the very air around it, distorting space wherever it moved.
Wherever its feet touched the ground, the floor rippled like water, twisting unnaturally before slowly stabilizing once it passed.
And then—there was Noah.
Dangling behind the creature like a marionette.
He was trapped in a spatial rift, suspended and twisted as if held by invisible threads. The space around him looked like it had been tied into a knot, resembling a pretzel more than a physical space.
Noah shifted slightly, barely alive, his body flickering in and out of visibility.
But with every twitch of the entity, the distortion grew worse.
Everyone was frozen in place.
Then Ross snapped. "Fire! FIRE, YOU BASTARDS!"
A second later, gunfire erupted.
Da-da-da! Da-da-da!
Muzzle flashes lit the corridor as they emptied their clips toward the entity.
But the bullets never reached it.
Each round twisted mid-flight, warping in impossible directions before striking the walls, ceiling, or floor in harmless pings.
"Space distortion," Nick Fury muttered grimly. "Just like in 1983. Or that second-level warper incident. It's happening again."
In less than thirty minutes since 17:30, the team had already faced an incomprehensible black tide—and now this.
"Captain, it's no use. We have to—AHHHH!"
Houston screamed as a transparent tendril erupted from the wall and coiled around his arm, twisting it violently.
"F**K! MY ARM!"
"Jack, ANCHOR!" James shouted, snapping into action.
"Got it!"
Jack yanked out a portable Scranton Reality Anchor, slamming it into the floor.
James and Ross opened fire again, trying to distract the entity.
Da-da-da! Da-da-da!
The creature let out a distorted, inhuman howl.
"WRAAAHHHH!!!"
The red light on the anchor began flashing.
Suddenly, the entity's true form emerged—tall, grotesque, elongated. Its limbs looked stretched and melted, its face an unreadable mess of features flickering between realities.
The spatial distortion around it pulsed wildly before abruptly resetting with a violent shockwave. The anchor had forced a temporary stabilization.
Houston stumbled backward, free at last. His left arm glowed an angry red.
James rushed over to check. "Your arm—hold still."
"It's not injured," he muttered in surprise. "The color will fade. The anchor's cooling down. You're okay."
Houston panted heavily. "You've saved me. Twice now. James, I owe you."
James gave him a nod. "Let's focus. Where's Noah?"
As if summoned by that name, Ross's voice cracked with desperation. "Christ... Noah? Noah, are you there?!"
Silence.
The hallway echoed with emptiness.
Jack's voice was barely above a whisper. "Ross... here. On the wall. He's... Noah's on the wall."
As the dust and distortion settled, the truth emerged in agonizing detail.
Noah's body was indeed there—but horribly changed.
Parts of his limbs were fused into the surrounding wall, floor, and ceiling within a ten-meter radius. His torso was twisted at unnatural angles, his face frozen in an expression of agony. His body had become one with the architecture.
He didn't move.
He didn't blink.
Noah was dead.
For a long moment, no one said anything.
The only sound was the faint hum of the Scranton Anchor.
Ross finally lowered his weapon, his voice trembling with grief. "Damn it... we were too late."
James took a slow step back, his eyes still on what remained of Noah.
This wasn't just another operation.
This was something far beyond their comprehension. An intelligence—or force—that weaponized the very nature of perception, that infected minds like a virus and bent space like a toy.
They weren't just in danger.
They were in the presence of something that defied reason.
Something that hunted with memes and meaning.
And it had just claimed its first casualty.
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