The man in the white coat adjusted his glasses and continued, "Can you tell me what's wrong with that?"
"I thought—oh my god..." Ross paused, struggling to explain. "It's really hard to describe. It felt like things were out of control. It was like something from Jurassic Park. If we had encountered something—some kind of corrosive black substance—it tore Houston's leg off."
Ross's face turned grim as he spoke, and he couldn't help but glance around, searching for answers. "Have you seen Houston? Is he okay?"
"He's receiving medical care now. He should be fine," the white-coated man replied.
Ross, still troubled by the horrific memory, sighed heavily. "All teams suffered losses, which is bad, but compared to what we saw last time, it could've been much worse."
"Last time?" the doctor inquired.
Ross looked up, his eyes bloodshot and exhausted. "You don't know? Oh, you haven't seen the video yet."
He took a deep breath and continued, his voice growing tense. "They built containment units beneath the site, each the size of a football field. James had us open a few of them, and we were able to escape during the chaos."
Ross's face turned a shade paler as the fear seemed to flood back. "But the things inside those units... one of them looked at me the way we look at ants. It was like a god trapped in a box. And they kept it there... There were at least twenty of these containment units, but the room was far larger than I could comprehend."
At this point, Ross looked at the others in the room, his gaze becoming distant. It was as though he was questioning everything, wondering what they were really doing down there. "What are they doing? How do they do it?"
The screen faded to black.
Ross's report had been brief, yet it carried an overwhelming amount of terror. The containment units, the flaming humanoid, the deer-shaped creature released by James... Every detail seemed to weigh heavily on the hearts of the viewers. But what everyone was really wondering about was James. Was he really gone? Could he have survived?
Though reason told them that no one could have survived what James went through, there was still a flicker of hope. Everyone couldn't help but fantasize that James, just like before, might still have somehow emerged victorious.
Just as these thoughts raced through the viewers' minds, the screen flashed again. This time, it was Onru, a member of the Samsara team.
The SHIELD agents watching the live broadcast were taken aback.
"Isn't she dead?" someone whispered.
"Yes, she was engulfed by the flames of the Fiery Angel. She should have been dead," another agent confirmed.
But now, here she was, alive, staring at them from the screen.
"Don't forget," Nick Fury's voice was grave, "They are reincarnates—immortal cyborgs reborn from the flesh and blood of dead gods."
The agents looked at each other in disbelief.
"Immortal?" one muttered, almost under their breath. "That's terrifying."
"Why are you following James?" the doctor asked Onru.
Onru, composed as ever, looked at the doctor and answered, "Before he left the team, I made sure I understood James's intentions. We talked before the escape. I was worried that without my help, he might not have had the means to retrace the path we took."
The doctor, clearly seeking more information, pressed on. "Your recording equipment was disabled for a long time until you reached the Thresher area. What happened then?"
The live broadcast audience immediately leaned in, eager for the answers.
But Onru's response was chilling. She remained silent for a moment, her face visibly pale, then finally spoke. "I disabled the device..." She hesitated. "There was a room that was unlike anything we had encountered before. It was the server room, located above the Olympian containment unit. I… I didn't know where we were going. We were caught off guard. It was a mistake. It was the same room we entered, but…"
Her voice faltered, her words scattered. The tension in the room grew thick. Something was clearly wrong.
"What do you mean?" the doctor pressed.
Onru took a deep breath and began to explain, her voice shaky. "As we entered, I could see the mainframes around us. But above them, we were standing on a bluff that overlooked an area of unfathomable size."
Her face paled further as she recalled the experience, her voice trembling with fear. "Below us... there were countless humans—screaming. Their arms were severed at the wrists. They were begging the void to restore them. Then... the sky vanished, like a falling meteor. I had to look away. James didn't."
She fell silent for a moment, her face drained of color. "When I turned around, I saw billions of charred bodies lying on the ground. But worse still—there were living beings, their arms outstretched, trying to embrace the fallen Morning Star. They were hanging from it, twisted like puppets."
The audience sat in stunned silence, each person processing the chilling imagery. Onru's next words were barely audible. "At Site-13, they called it Malidramagiuanxxx[DATA EXPUNGED], but here, they call it something else—a terrifying name."
Onru's description was jumbled, fragmented, but her words were enough to send shivers down the spines of the viewers. As she spoke, the atmosphere seemed to warp, and the audience began to feel a deep unease. The name, Malidramagiuan, echoed in their minds, and a collective sense of dread gripped them.
"I repeat," Natasha Romanoff said in a voice filled with fear, "Do not say that name!"
Her warning was urgent. "It's not just a name—it's something worse."
Everyone in the Marvel universe seemed to experience an unsettling moment. The name itself triggered a sense of dread, and it wasn't just a casual fear—it was a memetic, cognitive hazard that affected them on a deep level. Even as the screen continued, many began to experience a kind of hallucination, a distortion of reality as they processed what had been said.
The broadcast room erupted with voices of fear and disbelief.
"Is anyone else seeing this? What's going on?"
"Damn, you said it too? I feel... sick. This is worse than I thought."
"Too scary! Half of the name itself has this kind of effect? What kind of power are we dealing with here?"
The tension in the room grew unbearable.
Onru's voice broke through the chaos. "When I first encountered this entity, it displayed anomalous memetic and cognitohazardous properties strong enough to burn out my SCRAMBLE units. I don't know what that means for someone unprotected."
Her face twisted in fear as she described the entity. "It showed us... something. A vision."
"The fire circle," Onru continued, her voice trembling, "and the blue sky... the wind of the soul." Her eyes widened as she relived the memory. "The void at the center of the universe screamed at me. And then, I saw it—The tall, thin God of Nightmares walking slowly among countless crosses, all on display..."
Onru's face twisted in horror as she remembered the vast sea and sky on the entity's back. The chilling image was burned into her mind. "It turned to the sea, plunged into it, and then the vision vanished. The room was empty."
As the words left her mouth, the audience could almost feel the weight of the vision. A vast, impossible sight that broke the boundaries of their understanding. And yet, the horror didn't end there. Onru's next words were even more terrifying.
"James started running after that. I followed him. He didn't speak a word until we reached the machine."
Her voice cracked. "He said he had been there for a while... that he knew how to start it. He said he didn't know where this would lead him, but he was going to bury what he saw in the darkness."
Onru paused, looking visibly shaken. "Before I could start the machine, the creature in the containment unit broke into the room... and I was terminated."
The room fell into silence.
The memory of Onru being engulfed by fire flashed in the minds of all who had seen it before. But questions remained. Why had James stayed there for so long? When had that happened? During those three days that had mysteriously disappeared?
Nick Fury speculated aloud, "Could it have been during those three days of lost contact?"
The doctor's final question came as the camera panned back. "Did James say anything before you... died?"
Onru paused for a moment, her face clouded with grief. "He just smiled at me."
The screen faded to black, leaving the world with more questions than answers. As the final statement appeared on the screen, the system summarized the event:
[SCP-1730 has been neutralized by James, a member of Mobile Task Force Epsilon-11 - Nine-Tailed Fox.]
[According to information obtained from personnel brought out of Site-13, Site-1B has been confirmed to be the world!]
[James's second memory ends.]
As the memory ended, a strange sense of loss gripped everyone watching. James had once again made a selfless sacrifice, neutralizing another anomaly that could have brought devastation to the world. Yet, the lingering question remained: Was it all worth it?
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Natasha Romanoff gritted her teeth in frustration. "So, that's it? James's second memory is over?"
"There are still too many mysteries left unsolved," she growled, "
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