As he walked, the Red Skull found his mind wandering.

Back to his past, back to his very reason for being.

He had been young when he'd reached his first grand truth about existence: That mankind was broken.

All of his studies of sciences and mathematics were simple, everything added up, everything made sense. Perhaps some of it was beyond the understanding of ordinary men, but there was patterns to it that could be predicted, even if you could not follow, to the results.

But mankind... no other animal in Earth was so chaotic, so selfish, or so destructive as humans.

They had ruined the world. Stripped it of its resources, squandered its treasures, driven away the Gods. They fought amongst each other for land, for titles. Fought out of hate, out of pride, out of stupidity. Lied, cheated, stole, murdered.

Nor was mankind the only danger. During the War, the Red Skull had seen firsthand the emerging of something new in humanity. Evolution taking hold. Individuals with strange powers and abilities coming to the fore. Able to do things no one thought possible, not even probable. Their coming could be the beginning of the superior mankind he and others like him had always dreamed of. But only if their gifts were used wisely and for the greater good. They had to be kept under tight control, or things would only further spiral into chaos and anarchy.

To give humanity freedom to do as they please invited doom. And so they needed to be brought under the heel of a strong leader for their own good. Someone good, someone wise, someone who knew what was in their best interests.

And yet, for all his efforts to elevate humanity to its rightful place... they had resisted him.

The Red Skull grimaced as he remembered the many slights and blocks to his advancement in the political arena. His demeaning exile to the Switzerland fortress. He should have been the new Fuhrer, and Germany would have been the first country to be brought into Hydra's fold. Instead, they became nothing more than another enemy that clung to outdated beliefs of flags and patriotism. A Thousand Year Reich? He would set in motion an Earth united under Hydra that would last unto eternity itself.

Then there was his clashes with Captain America and the Allies.

Oh how he loathed the Captain, ever a thorn in his side. So naïve and misguided, thinking he could single-handedly save everyone. Yet without someone to rule, who was he truly saving them from? Who would save them from themselves? Captain Rogers was deluded, plain and simple. He lacked the vision that Hydra had. Most troubling of all, however, was the impact he had on others, inspiring them to follow his delusions.

Rampant madness.

And yet...

As the mists wrapped around him, and the whispers started... the Red Skull could not help but keep pondering the why. Why such madness had taken root. And in doing so, let the same seeds take root in his own thoughts, ready to blossom into something truly terrible indeed.

While not night, the sky seemed to grow darker as the mists grew thicker, at times obscuring even the ground itself. The Red Skull wandered aimlessly through the heavy fog, unable to see his way, but with nothing to gauge his path in sight. He felt certain he was still walking in a straight line, however. Shadows continued to flit past his vision, always just on the edge of sight, vanishingly just as quickly as they appeared. The air filled with sibilant whispers, snippets of conversations that faded in and out of his hearing, as if the speakers were deliberately moving around to confuse and disorient him.

Already on edge, the Red Skull stopped his walk, body tense. He had no weapon, but he was ready to fight. He'd trained for it, his body was physically superior to any enemy who could hope to challenge him, and his mind was sharp as ever.

Another whisper, and he whirled around, fist upraised to strike...

... only to stop short in amazement at the figure in front of him.

"No... you're dead."

Doctor Abraham Erskine, creator of the super soldier serum, stood before him, looking reasonably calm despite the cocked fist inches from his head. He looked the same as when the Red Skull had last seen him, slightly disheveled, dressed in a worn suit and lab coat. While not personally slain by the Red Skull, his death had been reported back to him, and had occurred on his order. Kluger had assassinated him. Yet here he stood.

The good doctor took a moment to adjust his glasses, giving a little half shrug. "I could say the same for you, Herr Schmidt. Appearances can be deceiving."

He took affront at that tone, glaring at the traitor scientist. "Don't lecture me, good doctor."

"Someone has to," Erskine replied. "You take too many reckless chances... and now, it seems, you've paid the price for your arrogance."

"I will not be timid when I can seize my destiny in my own two hands," he stated darkly. "Just as I seized it from you, despite all your attempts to thwart me."

"The serum wasn't ready," Erskine said. Not accusingly, just stating a matter of fact. "And more importantly, neither were you. You were lucky to have survived the procedure, let alone achieved any sort of results."

"I achieved what I set out to obtain," the Red Skull replied, fists clenched tightly. "My humanity, my weakness, stripped away!"

"Humanity is a strength," said the old man, smiling almost nostalgically. "The heart is not just a muscle, it is the container for our souls. Souls bound in flesh but bidden to seek out greater glories and purpose. Humanity encourages us to keep moving forward, but not to lose sight of our history and our families."

"Spare me your sentimentality, you witless fool," said the Red Skull, turning away from the older man. His hands angrily clenched and unclenched his tight fists, willing Erskine to be silent. It was just like they had been arguing semantics back in Berlin. All the talks of morality and humanity and greater purpose. All lies meant to shield the puny little man too weak to seize his own destiny. The final comment, however, twisted like a knife in his heart.

"To lose all that makes you human is to become nothing but a monster. What does that make you, I wonder?"

The Red Skull threw a jab, hoping to smash the insufferable little man's nose into his face. But as his fist connected, Erskine faded into so much mist, vanishing before his very eyes.

A hallucination, the Red Skull realized. Some sort of delusion brought on by isolation in this unnatural mist. And that was assuming this was a natural fog. He would not be surprised to find out the very air of this place was toxic, explaining why no life could be found here.

Only the Red Skull, who grimly resumed his march.

On and on he continued through the fog, searching for his way. But try as he might, he never saw anything in the wasteland beyond some larger rocks and trees. The gray haze refused to truly leave, though it did thin here and there. If anything, the Red Skull was starting to miss the spirit of Erskine, at least it had been a distraction of sorts from the montonmy of the rocks and haze.

For a while, even the whispers and noises had stopped, but that made him even more on edge. And then he heard footfalls. At first they came in ones and twos, and stopped as soon as he heard them. Or paused to try and locate their source. Someone lurking in the mist, directly behind him. He pressed on, moving forward, and the footsteps started up again... getting closer and closer. Without hesitation the Red Skull reached out and grabbed at their source, yanking them forward into his line of sight. Only to behold...

"Doctor Zola?"

Indeed it was, the round-faced Swiss scientist looked just as lost and dishevelled as the Red Skull himself, his coat in dissarray, no hat resting atop of his head to hide the growing bald spots. Even his glasses were askew, though that was likely the Red Skull's doing, as he took only a moment to adjust them.

"What are you doing here, Doctor?" he demanded.

"Still following you, I imagine," the shorter man replied, clearly shaken. "What is this place? Where are we?"

"I don't know just yet... but this shouldn't be possible. You can't be here. You were taken by the Allies. By the Captain." Another hallucination? No, the good Doctor felt solid under his grip, the lapels of his coat firmly felt in his hands, the weight of his body very real.

"And remanded to Switzerland... for my war crimes," the man said, trembling under the Red Skull's increasingly dark gaze. Remembering now very keenly how Zola had sold him out, the Red Skull glared at him with a look fit to kill as surely as any of his inventions.

"You cut a deal with them!"

"I had no choice..."

"You could have died for your cause like you swore you would, Zola," the Red Skull grabbed the front of his coat and hauled him up close. "You could have made your death have meaning!"

The scientist was surprisingly calm when he replied, "Meaning in death doesn't make it any difference to the one dying. Either way I'm just as dead."

And it was the way he said the words that chilled the Red Skull and made him loosen his grip, freeing Zola. I'm, he said. I am. He did not say 'I would be' he said 'I am.'

But they couldn't be. Neither of them. Zola was real, unlike the hallucination of Erskine. They were both real.

Or they were both...

Without letting his thoughts finish the process they'd begun, the Red Skull angrily turned away from the lackey scientist and continued marching the way he'd been going.

"Where are we going?" asked Zola.

"We are moving forward," the Red Skull replied. "To find out where we are, and how to leave this wretched place."

He started off again, barely glancing back to ensure that Zola was following him. After a while, however, it became clear the shorter man could not keep the pace his red-faced colleague was setting.

"Herr Schmidt, please slow down... I fear I cannot keep up."

The Red Skull turned to glare angrily at the whiny little man following him, wishing nothing more than to crush his miserable head. Why did he even bother to keep the wretch around anyway? He was more a burden than a benefit on good days, and this was most certainly not one of them.

"Then stay here, if you will. You will only slow me down," he stated darkly. Without so much as a backward glance, he kept on marching. Either Zola would keep up with him, or he wouldn't.

"But, Herr Schmidt, without me, how will you continue Hydra's glorious work? My contributions-!"

"Your weapons failed me! At the height of the conflict you barely managed to slow them down!"

"My designs were perfect. Even before we harnessed the energy of the Cube..." he started to explain, but the Red Skull cut him off.

"Obviously they were not! They failed! YOU failed! Your machines were flawed, Arnim Zola!"

"Perhaps the flaw wasn't with the designs... perhaps the flaw was in our strategy?"

The way he worded it left little doubt that Zola was blaming the Red Skull for their failures. He grabbed the lapels of Zola's coat once again, hauling him forward to chew him out... but the meek Swiss scientist vanished, fading into mist between his fingers, leaving him grasping at empty air. Just like Erskine had.

Another soul he known in life. Possibly dead? The Allies would have no more use for Zola after he'd betrayed Hydra. Even if they were so weak and soft-hearted as to imprison him for his war crimes, he wouldn't last long in any sort of prison. The Red Skull was starting to believe. Believe that he could truly be...

No. No he couldn't believe that. Not yet.

Gathering his will to him like steel cords, he lashed it to his limbs and made himself move. Forward. The only direction he would ever travel. Even if it was towards oblivion itself.

Shadows and mist coalesced around him again, and the whispers. Vague faces and shapes emerged from the mists, only to be swallowed up by them again moments later. People the Red Skull knew, had heard of, had seen. All of them deceased. A Hydra lieutenant who'd perished in the conflict down in Greece. A former scientist in Arnim Zola's employ. An Allied Soldier the Red Skull had personally slain for daring to attack his person. A servant from Castle Zemo. Even one of the Nazi Officers who'd been sent to oversee weapons production, and dared to reduce his accomplishments in super science to magic and parlor tricks.

Even now they mocked him.

The whispers grew in volume, but never more clear. He continued to catch snippets of conversation. Accusations being made. Orders being barked. Questions being asked. The Red Skull pressed his hands to the sides of his head, trying to cover what remained of his ears to silence the cacophony of noise that threatened to drive him utterly mad.

"I cannot help you."

"You will burn!"

"You're insane!"

"Berlin is on zis map!"

"Stop him!"

"Cut off one head...!"

"Go to Hell!"

"SCHMIIDT!"

"Turn back..."

"Then how come you're running?!"

"It's not ready!"

"The time is not right."

"See you in Hell!"

"Hail Hydra!"

"What are you doing?"

"FIRE!"

"I live to serve."

"Most impressive work..."

"Kill them all!"

"Two more shall take its place!"

"The Red Skull has been indulged long enough."

"Buurrnn!"

"We fought to the last man!"

"The Valkyrie is ready, sir."

"For making it obvious how utterly mad you are."

"Sir, we must fall back!"

"Hail Hydra!"

Then, just as suddenly as it started to rise in volume, the voices fell silent. Replaced by just one. Saying just one thing. One terrible thing, echoing in the void of eternity, echoing in the mists, echoing in the back of the Red Skull's mind. Just one thing:

"You failed..."

The Red Skull tripped over a loose rock, exhausted from his march, and stumbled to his knees, wincing at the pain. For a moment, he could not even find the strength of will to stand back up. And then he saw a pair of jet black boots directly in front of him. Lifting his eyes up, he saw a familiar looking figure, the same whose voice had proclaimed his failure, the man who'd started his descent into darkness. Wearing that unassuming brown suit and tie, the armband on his arm like a splash of blood, the emblem of auspiciousness found there twisted into a symbol of hatred.

He could not bring himself to look the Fuhrer in his face.

"I thought I could take you and make you like me," the older man said, disappointment prominent in his tone. "Make you the greatest of us. Instead you become this monster."

"You wanted to make me the first of a new race of men. I'd say you more than succeeded!"

"A man without discipline, self-control, or restraint. Your ambitions destroyed you."

"To have ambition is the first lesson you taught me! To not accept your lot in life lying down!"

Finally, the Red Skull lifted his gaze, looking up at the man's face. That unassumingly simple, stern visage, the mop of slicked black hair, the joke of a moustache like a blotch of ink under his nose. He looked ridiculous. And yet even Johann Schmidt had been in awe of him, his ability to command attention, to give life to impossible dreams. In the end, the reality of the world had crushed him as surely as the Allies, but he had inspired Schmidt into finding the truth of the world... and the destiny of it as well.

Out of which Hydra had been born.

"I came further along than you ever did... I found the truth of your words, the power of the Gods. I seized it in my own two hands!"

"You reached too high," the Fuhrer replied shortly. "You flew towards the sun and, like Icarus, found your wings burned before you plummeted back to Earth. If you had just stayed with us... we could have helped build the paradise we always talked of."

"A thousand year reich?" he scoffed.

"A better world," the Fuhrer replied. "That dream is sadly over... for both of us. But I do not wish to keep fighting with you, Johann my boy. It is time you came back into the fold."

A hand stretched out, offering the him a lifeline. A way out of this nightmare. A way out of this Hell. Or at the very least, an ally in taking it. And all he would have to do... was admit he had been wrong.

The Red Skull hesitated... hand outstretched... then clenched his fingers into a tight fist.

"No... no I will not let it end like this! I did not fail you! YOU! FAILED! ME!"

His fist swung out, but the shadowy creature had already faded back into mist before he connected. More illusions sent to taunt him. Or else spirits who'd wisely retreated from his wrath.

"I will not fall! Not with my destiny unfulfilled! Do you hear me?!" he shook his fist up at the dark sky, roaring at the top of his lungs, defiant to the end.

He sunk to his knees, exhausted, momentarily unable to even stand. All his strength had fled him following his outburst. His stomach growled like some ominous beast, hunger clawing at the inside of his belly, but he would not submit. Waiting for the wave of nausea to pass, the Red Skull grimly pushed himself back to his feet and soldiered on.

The mists had thinned a little, but there was nothing new to behold in the wasteland before him. One part looked much the same as the last, broken and cold. There was nothing here now, if indeed there ever was. He imagined this might once have been a paradise, until some great weapon, some mighty force, had laid waste to it. There was nothing left but death and devastation.

He marched on. A large rock appeared out of the mists as he walked past, ducking under the branch of a petrified tree. There was a figure sitting casually on the rock, and as he drew closer, the Red Skull could make out a very distinct uniform of red, white, and blue.

Him. Of course it would be him.

"Are you another spirit of the dead sent to taunt me?" the Red Skull asked, scarcely sparing the colorful individual a glance as he kept walking past.

Captain America smirked, sliding easily off the rock and jogging to keep up with the Red Skull. "Hallucination? You don't believe you're going mad, do you Schmidt?"

"I am perfectly sane," the Red Skull replied. "It is this place. Something in the fog is clouding my thoughts. Make me... see things."

"Talking to a hallucination sounds pretty mad to me. But hey, what do I know?"

"I suppose you make for a welcome distraction," the Red Skull conceeded, even as he increased his pace to leave the annoying Captain behind. "But I have more important things to do than spend time chatting with a dead man."

The star-spangled man kept pace almost laughably easily with his Hydra counterpart. "Keep telling yourself that... just like you can keep telling yourself you're a God... when we both know you're anything but. The lowest of the low doesn't get to become the highest of the high."

"You did!" he snapped. "I read the reports on you, Steven Rogers. Your profile wasn't hard to get a hold of. You were far less than I when you took the serum. Some street urchin, lost and abandoned by your family and with nothing to show for any of your suffering."

"Talking about me? Or you?" asked the Captain with a playful smile. Oh that infuriating grin. So smug and charming, so full of himself. The sort that made him an icon to his beloved Americas, made him a shining star to the people. He probably had women swooning at his feet on a daily basis. The Red Skull wanted to gouge his eyes out until blood poured down over his smug face.

"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn... and you're just an orphan from the gulag," the Captain sneered. "You can lie to yourself all you want Schmidt. Take as much serum as you can choke down. It'll never change what you are. Or who."

The Red Skull roared in outrage, throwing his hardest punch, wanting nothing more than to silence the insolent shield-slinging soldier. His fist hit only mist, as the Captain vanished back into the ether from which he'd come. Still the Red Skull continued to swing his fists, lashing out left and right, wanting to do nothing more than tear the Captain to pieces. Destroy him and everyone he held dear. The power of hatred fueled his weakened limbs, for there was power in destruction. Far more than in conquering and ruling.

The Captain had destroyed everything he'd once had. His bases, his men, his goals. His dream of a world unified under Hydra's heel. The Red Skull vowed that he would destroy everything the Captain loved in turn. And if the rest of the human race stood beside the Captain and his flag-waving and rhetoric spouting...

Then so be it, he decided.

If humanity would not accept his leadership, then he would not be its conqueror or its ruler. They were no longer worthy of his genius and his vision. He would not lead them.

Instead, the Red Skull would be their destroyer. If history was written by the winners, then he would pen the page of mankinds final chapter in the blood of thousands. He would crack the Earth asunder like a vengeful God. Then and only then would his destiny be realized.

Authors Notes:
Included some tie-ins with the X-Men film series, especially First Class, despite that and the MCU being entirely separate franchises. All the Marvel movies should play nice together, however.

Hopefully I've helped provide a lot of insight into the Red Skull as a person and a character, which was what drew me to him in the first place. His comic backstory is remarkably tragic, even if a lot of it is self-engineered. Some of that was sprinkled in here.

For obvious reasons, the Fuhrer was not given the dignity of a name in my story, nor was the emblem he corrupted. But you all know who it was.