The Stronghold Head of Operations, a tall American named Marcus Dean, had been troubled by wakefulness recently. It wasn't uncommon for a man with his background. Former cult member, trained fighter, all the credentials of a mass murderer. Still, though he had often spent entire nights in waking dreams, recalling the innocents he had slaughtered in his younger days, he had never been a schizophrenic, so he found it strange that he was being kept awake by a voices. Not many, just four or five, ("It's funny," Marcus thought, "that I'm hearing voices and my first thought is, 'I'm glad there are only a few mysterious voices talking to me'") all alternating between whispering dire warnings and telling him to "look in the basement."
Ah, the basement, realm of infinite horrors. As a child growing up in a perfectly normal east-coast suburban home, the basement had terrified him because of his fear of the dark, but now, as an adult living in a bizzare fortress with many ancient relics, the basement terrified him because going down there (where extra weapons and munitions were stored) meant he would have to interact with the guard on duty at the basement door. He was no one important in particular, just a guy who everyone found so infinitely irritating that he had been assigned to basement detail where, hopefully, interactions with him could be kept to a minimum.
"Screw it," Marcus muttered as the hour hand on the clock reached for 3. "It's not like I have anything better to do." He descended the three flights of stairs from his combined office-bedroom to the basement door.
"Doug, wake up!" He yelled into the intercom. Doug, the guard, lived in a room directly adjacent, connected only by a two-way intercom and a one way-video feed to the outside world, as well as a 2-inch reinforced steel door. "Doug, it's me, Marcus. I need to get in the basement." Nothing. Marcus grunted in disgust and turned to walk back upstairs when he heard the intercom click on and a faint moan issue from the speaker. He spun on his heel. Maybe, maybe Doug was just pulling a prank on him. He wouldn't put it past him. But Marcus took every threat seriously, which is why he was still employed. He entered the access code into Doug's office door, hoping that the bastard hadn't changed it (and also that he wasn't seriously injured). Sure enough, the door slid open. Marcus was lying on the floor, whimpering in pain. The sleek metal of his office was streaked red, especially where he had dragged his arm up to push the intercom button. Marcus rushed over to him, dropped to one knee, looking him over. Bizarrely, Doug was uninjured, except a small cut, about three inches long and half an inch wide, on his wrist.
"Shit," Marcus muttered. Doug's eyes opened at the word and he grabbed at Marcus with his left hand. His mouth opened, but all that came out was a weak, high pitched whine.
"Shit," Marcus repeated. His hand scrambled in his pocket for his phone. He found it, and scrolled down his contacts, looking for the right name.
"Erin!" he cried, the moment the call connected. "I need you to send someone down to Doug's office now. And prepare a transfusion up there. He's lost a lot of blood."
A moment passed, as the Erin's many questions stumbled on their way out of her mouth. Then: "I don't know! He's hurt, bad. Just get down here." Erin was still asking questions as Marcus ended the call. He found the right buttons on the console to open the basement door and as it slid open and he quick-stepped down the last few steps he realized that absurdly, he didn't have a weapon because he hadn't expected this much violence or danger - or in fact any violence or danger.
The lights in the basement flickered on, dimmed so that the light wouldn't be blinding at this late hour. Marcus would've preferred that they be on full brightness, but he would also prefer to find what was waiting in the basement before someone else got hurt or killed. He noticed that as he walked deeper into the basement, as he penetrated further into its racks of guns, both terrestrial and alien in origin; its stacks of ammunition, both small and large; its haphazard piles of bladed weapons - swords and knives and spears, he noticed that the whispers, which at first had been within reach of inaudible, were growing louder and louder.
It was then, after this realization came, that Marcus stopped walking forward, turned to the nearest rack of weapons, and grabbed the largest and deadliest-looking gun he could find.
As he neared the source of the voices, the air began to take on a reddish haze, at first invisible, then, like the voices, growing stronger until his whole world took on a crimson tint. Marcus's pace quickened until suddenly he reached a junction created by four particularly large closed crates, wrapped in plastic. At this junction the voices seemed to be screaming, their once-clear voices replaced by high pitched tones, and all Marcus could see was a wall of red fire. Then, at last, in the space of an instant, a blessed silence fell over. Marcus's vision became clear again, and his eyes were forced to adjust again to the dim lighting. As the weight of crushing relief fell on his shoulders, he heard one last voice fleeing over his shoulder whispering,
"The way things are is not the way you will think they are." Thus reassured, Marcus looked around for anything out of the ordinary. It didn't take long for him to find it.
On the floor lay a young woman, a woman who Marcus didn't recognize. A diamond-shaped hole in her chest, unnaturally symmetrical, confirmed his worst fears. He had only seen one weapon capable of making such a wound - a stab wound. The woman's blood splashed under Marcus's boots as he stepped closer, knelt reverently by her side. As he examined her injury (not out of necessity, but out of an absurd denial, a hope that his initial assessment was somehow wong), he felt his bile rise. Not because of the horrible wound, the likes of which he had seen before, but because of the sheer randomness of it all. This woman was a nobody, probably an errand runner. She wasn't a criminal, or an enemy, or a spy, just a woman who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seemed pointlessly cruel to kill her.
He fumbled for his phone again, this time tapping on another contact.
"Frank, could you come down to the basement? I need some help to… well, you'll know when you see it." Marcus slid his phone back into his pocket and stayed where he was, kneeling in a pool of blood, feeling vaguely ill and deeply sad, until Frank Castle arrived.
Years ago Castle had arrived on this island, this Stronghold, not by choice. He had been pursuing weapons dealer Brock Rumlow, looking for a tip on a killer Rumlow had sold a weapon to, when Sauvage mounted a sting against Rumlow. He had escaped, but Castle, wounded in the crossfire, had been evacuated to Stronghold for medical care. He decided to stay for the long haul.
"Marcus, what the hell, it's four in the morning…" Castle trailed off. Finally, inadequately, he muttered, "Ah."
"Help me move the body," Marcus said. He lifted the woman under her arms, Castle grabbed her ankles, and they slowly shuffled out of the basement.