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The underground chamber was empty and filled with an overwhelming sense of loneliness.
Captain America, no longer Steve Rogers, pressed one button after another with a blank expression on his face.
A series of explosions echoed from the safe room, the sounds of screams intertwining with the cheers coming from the vault. It was a grotesque display of human tragedy and farce, both unfolding on the same screen.
Jackson Chen's countdown had dwindled from a single minute to a brutal twenty seconds. Every twenty seconds, someone was fated to die.
Steve Rogers had lost his initial struggle. He appeared disturbingly calm, utterly detached from the chaos around him. He seemed to be waiting for Jackson Chen's final number, at which point his fingers would instinctively press the next button on the remote, casually ending another life.
Finally, only one person remained in the vault.
Then, from above the ruins, strange sounds began to emerge.
With a thunderous roar, the darkness was torn apart by sheer force!
A beam of light cut through the gloom, landing on Steve's numb, expressionless face.
"Oh, damn it!" Hulk bellowed, throwing aside a massive chunk of rubble. He leapt down and, with a powerful punch, shattered the screen in front of Steve.
At the same time, the remaining Avengers entered the underground chamber.
"Steve..." Hawkeye called out, stepping forward, but Iron Man stopped him with an outstretched hand.
The basement had fallen eerily silent. No one had emerged from the vaults. No one dared move.
The Avengers quickly moved to action, with Black Widow rushing to rescue a man with an Indian accent, the sole survivor, and putting him into an ambulance.
Then, from both sides of the vault, came the sounds of spitting, gasping, and heavy breathing—despair so palpable it made everyone's hearts tighten.
"Enough!" Hulk couldn't stand it anymore. He slammed his fist directly into the safe room.
It was too late for Iron Man and the others to stop him.
"Boom!"
After the dust settled, light poured in from above, revealing the inside of the room.
It was empty.
Nothing but a lone speaker, resembling an old tape recorder, sat in the middle, continuously playing.
"No, please, please..." echoed from the speaker, reverberating off the cold floor and creeping into everyone's ears, sending shivers down their spines.
Everyone froze. Steve Rogers couldn't believe his eyes.
Nervously, he stood up and watched as Hulk stomped the speaker to pieces.
Then Hulk turned, punching through the vault on the opposite side, collapsing walls and sending dust flying everywhere.
Inside? Nothing.
Only another speaker lying on the floor, lifeless.
It played on, a twisted laugh, mocking the "people" who were supposed to be in the vault. Whistles and cheers accompanied the laughter, amplifying the eerie, ironic atmosphere.
And on the monitors surrounding Steve, Jackson Chen's countdown continued.
His smile—his signature, smug grin—was now etched into everyone's minds.
It chilled them to the bone.
"Oh, Captain, the way you made your choices was truly..." Jackson's voice on the monitor trailed off.
Before he could finish, Hulk destroyed every screen with a single punch.
The entire space fell deathly silent.
Even the screens outside, which had been broadcasting this nightmare to the world, now showed no live chat, no comments.
The viewers—stunned and speechless—couldn't put their shock into words.
It was as if something had lodged in their throats, rendering them unable to speak. Even swallowing felt painfully sharp.
Everything...
Everything had been fake!
"My God, what did I just witness?"
After a brief, heavy silence, the world's audience finally erupted, their emotions crashing down like a tidal wave.
Live chats and comments flooded the broadcast once again.
"I can't believe we've all been tricked! There was never a pregnant woman in danger, never any corrupt bank executives—Jackson made it all up!"
"This is insane! Just two speakers, a couple of screens, and that madman manipulated Captain America like a puppet?"
"He didn't just mock the U.S. team—he mocked every single person watching this broadcast! He... He made a fool out of the whole world!"
"It's terrifying! If Jackson calculated all of this, how deeply does he understand human psychology?"
"Or maybe it's something even more disturbing. What has he learned about the dark side of human nature?"
"I'm trembling! Sure, there was no one in those vaults, but think about it—the criminals he used in his game? People like them really do exist in our world."
"Those crimes, the insults and quarrels between both sides—if we had really placed these people in the same situation and divided them into two opposing groups, do you think the outcome would have been any better than what we imagined?"
"He didn't physically kill anyone, but he killed all these criminals in our minds!"
"He didn't take a single life, yet he turned Steve into a murderer. Whether it's true or not, from today onwards, Captain America no longer exists!"
Audiences around the world were gripped by a cold, unsettling realization.
There was a collective feeling of helpless absurdity.
No one had died, and yet their hearts were burdened with a heaviness greater than if countless lives had been lost.
Many viewers were still in disbelief, struggling to process the fact that it was all a lie. Some even entertained the idea that this was just an elaborate TV show, a sick joke orchestrated by Captain America himself.
But the facts were undeniable. The near destruction of New York by bombs and all the evidence presented coldly to the world confirmed the truth.
This wasn't fiction. It wasn't a prank.
It was real, and yet, somehow, it all felt fake—an incomprehensible, cruel irony.
At the moment the truth was unveiled, the world found itself plunged into a bizarre atmosphere. It was as though the entire ordeal was an elaborate, over-the-top joke, dripping with malicious intent.
Beneath the ruins, Iron Man swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the moment.
Everyone stood there, eyes wide, speechless.
The underground chamber was empty, save for them and the scattered electronic equipment, humming with the occasional flicker of electricity. The silence was suffocating.
It had been a scam. A complete, deliberate scam!
"I never thought we'd face an opponent like this," Iron Man muttered, his voice strained. "He's made me question the very reality of the world."
"Everything that's happened over the past few days—it's like a dream. First, our base was bombed, and then... huh..."
Iron Man trailed off, shaking his head with a bitter smile. There were no more words to describe the absurdity of it all.
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