Part 1: The Subterranean Mandate

The tropical rainforest rain hammered down on the border, as if trying to wash away any trace of the “Ghost” special ops team. Captain Marcus checked his mechanical watch—the only thing unaffected by the strange electromagnetic interference radiating from the mountain. 02:00 AM.

“Objective: Bunker ‘Omega.’ Rescue VIP codenamed ‘Keykeeper.’ He holds the activation codes for a stolen nuclear arsenal. No prisoners, no exceptions,” Marcus repeated the order through the comms.

His team consisted of four men: Jax, the demolition expert; Elias, the sniper; and Kael, the tech specialist. They were old wolves of the U.S. military, veterans of a hundred battles, yet they felt a chilling unease they had never experienced before. This bunker appeared on no satellite maps, and the enemy—an unidentified force—seemed to have been waiting for them.

They approached the half-meter-thick steel gate. Jax set a shaped charge. A muffled thud tore through the night, and the darkness of Bunker Omega swallowed the Ghost team whole.

Part 2: Nameless Corpses

Inside, the bunker was a labyrinth of cold concrete, smelling of ozone and stale blood. Strangely, enemy resistance was weak. The guards wore black tactical gear—no insignias, no dog tags. When Elias took one down with a silenced shot, he moved in to inspect the body.

“Captain, something’s wrong,” Elias whispered over the radio. “This guy… he has a ‘Born to Kill’ tattoo on his wrist. It’s identical to mine.”

“Focus on the mission, Elias! It’s a coincidence,” Marcus snapped, though his own heart was racing with dread.

They pushed deeper into the central hub, the high-security cell block. Endless corridors with flickering red lights created an atmosphere straight out of hell. On the walls, human fingernail marks were gouged deep into the concrete, as if someone had spent decades trying to escape in vain.

Part 3: Whispers from the Dark

The final cell door groaned open. In the center of a vast room, a gaunt figure sat bolted to a steel chair. His head was entirely encased in a cast-iron mask, with only tiny holes for breathing.

As the Ghost team approached, the prisoner showed no fear. Instead, a raspy, broken voice emerged from behind the iron:

“34.0522 degrees North, 118.2437 degrees West… The house with the white picket fence, Jax. Your daughter turned five last Tuesday, didn’t she?”

Jax froze, his rifle trembling. “How… how do you know my home coordinates?”

The prisoner didn’t stop, his voice as mechanical as a broken tape recorder: “40.7128 degrees North, 74.0060 degrees West… Elias, your mother still waits for you for dinner every Sunday. But you’re never going back. Never.”

Panic began to spread. This prisoner didn’t just know coordinates; he knew their deepest secrets, the dark corners of every soldier’s soul. Marcus stepped forward, pressing the muzzle of his rifle against the prisoner’s temple.

“Who are you? Who gave you this intel?” Marcus roared.

The prisoner tilted his head slightly, the iron mask clinking against Marcus’s gun. He laughed—a dry, hollow sound. “Marcus… do you remember the scar under your chin? The one you tell everyone came from shrapnel in Iraq, but was actually from the first time you learned to shave… using your father’s razor?”

Part 4: The Twist – The Face of the Future

Marcus felt his blood turn to ice. He couldn’t take it anymore. With a violent motion, he used the butt of his rifle to smash the locking pin of the iron mask.

The mask hit the concrete floor with a deafening clang.

Under the dim beam of the weapon-mounted light, the prisoner’s face was revealed. It wasn’t a stranger. It was Marcus. But it was a Marcus from 20 years into the future—aged, scarred, and eyes clouded with madness.

“Hello, my younger self,” the elder Marcus wheezed.

Instantly, the bunker shook violently. The intercom system, silent until now, crackled to life with a cold, synthesized voice:

“PHASE 742 COMPLETE. THE OLD SUBJECT HAS BEEN ELIMINATED. NEW STRIKE TEAM: SHACKLE THE CAPTURED TARGET TO THE WALL. PREPARE FOR THE NEXT TRAINING CYCLE.”

From the shadows, the concrete walls began to shift, revealing glass chambers holding hundreds of clones of the Ghost team in cryo-sleep.

Part 5: The Cruel Truth and the Infinite Loop

Young Marcus looked at his teammates. Jax, Elias, and Kael were no longer rescuers. They stood like robots, their eyes vacant as they received new orders from the radio.

“Marcus, I’m sorry,” Elias said, his voice devoid of emotion as he stepped forward to shackle Marcus to the very steel chair “Old Marcus” had just occupied.

The truth exploded like a nightmare: There was no enemy. No stolen nukes. Bunker Omega was a psychological and temporal laboratory run by the U.S. government. Its purpose was to create “Super Soldiers” stripped of emotion and humanity—killers who would follow any order, no matter how brutal, including the capture and torture of their own selves.

Every strike team sent here was actually sent to capture their future selves. The “prisoner” would be tortured by isolation and memory until they went insane, serving as “target practice” for their younger versions. It was a perfect loop designed to purge all mercy.

“What are you doing? We’re teammates!” Marcus screamed in desperation.

But it was useless. Jax began to fit the iron mask over Marcus’s face.

“Don’t worry, Captain,” Jax whispered, his voice now identical to the nameless guards they had killed earlier. “In the next cycle, I’ll be the one in the chair. And you’ll be the one coming to save me.”

The steel door slammed shut. Marcus was left in total darkness. He began to mutter. He had to remember. He had to remember the coordinates. He had to remember the names of the children, the mothers, the homes… He muttered to stay sane, or perhaps, he muttered to prepare for that moment 20 years from now, when another young Marcus would walk through that door and ask: “Who are you?”

Outside, a fresh Ghost team awoke from their chambers, checking their SCAR-H rifles. 02:00 AM. The rainforest rain began to fall.

“Objective: Bunker ‘Omega.’ Rescue VIP codenamed ‘Keykeeper’…”