"What the hell? What the hell? What the hell is this?!"
"Damn it! H-he just merged with the wall?!"
"This is too terrifying—space distortion?"
"Oh my God... how are we supposed to keep going with this mission?"
The live broadcast room erupted in chaos. Viewers watching from their screens couldn't handle what they were seeing. The shocking, reality-defying scene unfolding before them sent collective shivers through the audience. Panic filled the chat box. Fear was contagious.
At the headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D., the atmosphere was equally grim.
Natasha Romanoff stood frozen, her face pale. "Damn it... Is this really a mission a human being can even survive?"
Nick Fury, standing with arms crossed and a deep furrow in his brow, exhaled slowly and said, "This is what it means to be in a Mobile Task Force."
There was a heavy silence.
"To go where the threat is greatest… to face the things the rest of the world denies even exist," he added.
Indeed, the Mobile Task Force had always been a death sentence wrapped in duty. To be deployed to places like this—Site-13—was to face the unknown, the incomprehensible, and the inescapable.
"Ugh… F–K! F–CK!!!"
Houston dropped to the ground, overwhelmed by despair. His entire body trembled, hands clutching his head as if trying to hold his sanity in place.
Jack stared blankly into the distance, murmuring incoherently to himself. His voice was hollow, as if his mind had taken one too many shocks.
James looked to Captain Ross, whose expression had gone cold and vacant. "Captain…" James said softly, almost pleading. "We lost Noah. He's… he's in the wall. Do we keep going?"
There was no answer.
Only silence.
Then, a voice crackled over the comms—Site Command.
"Team, you must understand—returning to the surface is now more dangerous than continuing the mission."
Ross rubbed his temple, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot.
"I… I don't know anymore," he admitted. "I have no idea what this place even is. None of this makes sense. And honestly... I'm not even sure we can make it back. Has any team ever made it out of Site-13 alive?"
The voice from Site Command came hesitantly: "…No."
Ross let the word sink in.
No survivors. Ever.
That explained a lot.
He looked around again—at Jack, still dazed but standing; at Houston, who had now clenched his fists and was breathing hard, slowly regaining control; and at James, whose calm, steady gaze gave him the anchor he needed.
Ross finally spoke, slowly and with a grim resolve.
"Honestly? After everything we've seen, I don't think it matters anymore. Going back or pressing forward—it's all the same. Either way, we're screwed. So… might as well keep going."
Site Command responded after a brief pause, "Acknowledged. If you complete your objective, we will dispatch another team to extract you. Estimated time: four hours."
Ross gave a half-smile—bitter, ironic. "Another team? Who the hell would volunteer to come to this nightmare?"
A different voice from the command center replied with a single word.
"Reincarnation."
Ross blinked and then gave a dry chuckle, a spark of dark humor in his otherwise exhausted voice. "Okay. Sure. That's a cool name. I get it."
He turned to his team. "Alright, let's move."
The four pressed on, their boots crunching on dust and debris as they descended deeper into the abyss of Site-13. The surroundings only grew more alien and decrepit with every corridor.
They passed through several unsettling areas:
The infirmary, completely looted, beds twisted and frames fused with the floor.
A canteen that had somehow merged with slag and concrete, the tables now part of the walls like melting wax.
A wing of high-level containment units, marked "Olympia-class," each at least a hundred meters underground, where unknown entities had once been held—if they were still contained at all.
Eventually, they entered a large chamber, walls lined with outdated servers and blinking lights. In the center was a powered terminal—an unexpected find.
Ross was the first to enter, motioning for the others to stay alert. "Alright, fan out and search. Let's see if anything here can help us topside."
"These terminals are still powered," Houston observed, his fingers already dancing over the keyboard. "I'll start extracting any data I can."
Just then—
Sizzle.
A burst of static echoed through the chamber. A sharp noise like wireless interference came from the far end of the room. James and Jack followed the sound, approaching a wall-mounted electronic screen that had suddenly come to life.
Jack squinted at the screen. "Is this surveillance footage… or a video?"
The screen flickered.
And then an image stabilized—inside a containment chamber. The camera's red light blinked to life, revealing a dark, featureless room. In one corner, something moved.
A long-limbed figure crouched, its body partially obscured in shadow.
"Wait—what is that?" Jack whispered.
Houston approached the screen and gasped. "That's… Joker Barber."
The moment the name left his lips, the figure in the containment unit slowly lifted its head—and looked straight at the camera.
It spoke.
"What? What are you doing? Who are you?"
Ross stepped forward, startled. "Christ—my name is Ephraim Ross. I'm an agent. Who the hell are you?"
The figure began to move, its limbs stretching unnaturally as more of its body emerged from the darkness. It walked sideways, eerily off-kilter, until its face came into the red light.
Eyes—unnatural, smiling like a Joker mask—glinted under the glow.
"Mmmmmm… you're different," the thing said. "You smell different. You know I can smell you… even from here."
Ross narrowed his eyes. "You're Joker Barber, aren't you?"
Tap. Tap.
The figure approached the camera, steps erratic and echoing inside the containment room. The live feed now filled with unsettling visuals—the warped humanoid grinning with distorted features.
Viewers in the live stream were barely breathing. The atmosphere was suffocating. Some typed in all caps, others spammed emotes of panic. The tension was unbearable.
The figure—Joker Barber—finally stopped and spoke again.
"When I was Barber, they gave me a number. But your friend—he didn't like numbers. Said we were more than that. Equal. Equals…"
He giggled in a staccato rhythm.
"I'm not Barber. But I was Barber."
The words made little sense, but the pain in the voice was real.
Ross exhaled, trying to ground himself. "Can you tell us what happened here?"
The entity giggled again. "Dad Emerson… he played a tricky little game with cosmic rays. Tightropes and stunts and flashy science! But then… whoops! He fell. Gaping in surprise, yes! Haha!"
Ross frowned. "Who is Emerson?"
"Emerson wanted more than just a box," Joker Barber said, voice dropping into a guttural whisper. "No, no, no. He wanted thoughts. Boxes filled with pain. Fear. Death. So he made new boxes. Piled them high. And then everything tumbled down with him."
A hysterical laugh bubbled from his throat.
"We all fell down with him!"
Jack shivered. "This guy's insane."
Ross pushed forward. "How many entities are here? How many of you are left?"
Joker Barber's smile widened. "How many? How many got devoured by Site-13?" His grin stretched impossibly wide. "You silly little boy… you don't belong here. You don't fit. Just like me. Just like us."
Ross's stomach twisted.
"If the Foundation finds you... if the Alliance catches you… they'll send you into this meat grinder. Everything ends up here. Everything!"
The entity's eyes gleamed.
"And if they can't get anything from you? Then they'll grind you into fertilizer. Some are lucky. Bobble was lucky. They gave him an interesting box. He got experiments. Toys. Scientists playing with him until he broke."
Joker Barber's voice dropped, heavy with grief.
"But not everyone is so lucky."
He paused.
"They burned the library. All of it. Pages spilled like soup. They burned everything. They even did worse things..."
His voice trembled.
"Emerson's father liked watching. Cold eyes. Always watching. Always… enjoying it."
The screen suddenly went black.
The room was silent.
No one spoke. Not Jack. Not Houston. Not James. And not Ross.
They stood, still as statues, surrounded by the low hum of servers and the echo of Joker Barber's broken laughter.
And somewhere deeper inside Site-13, something moved.
The horrors of this place were far from over.
And they had just begun to scratch the surface.
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