The moment the blast doors hissed shut behind Dr. Khun, the polite, standard-issue administrative mask that Joseph wore in front of low-level staff evaporated instantly. The warm, boyish smile vanished, leaving his face an unreadable, mathematical slate of pure, unadulterated sociopathy.
He didnāt care about the rules of the lower sectors, nor did he care for the sentimental "casual conversations" the new researcher had prattled on about. But what Joseph did care aboutāwith the precise, territorial possessiveness of a high-ranking Overseerāwas efficiency and dominance. Dr. Khun had overstepped. He had allowed an anomaly to become comfortable, and worse, he had manually restrained her to force her eyes open for his own scientific curiosity before the blindfold was applied.
Joseph slowly leaned forward over the steel table, his gaze dropping to the soft silk scarf tied around Katie's eyes. The room temperature didn't drop through a reality-bending anomaly; it dropped because the absolute, suffocating presence of O5-10 left no room for oxygen.
"You know, Katie," Joseph said, his voice dropping into a smooth, terrifyingly quiet purr that resonated directly inside her ears. "The Foundation spends millions maintaining protocols. And yet, new blood always thinks they can play the savior."
Katie shivered, her hands in the thick mittens clenching into tight fists against her chest. To her double-vision, Joseph wasn't even a man. Even through the silk scarf, her mind perceived him as a towering, endless void of absolute staticāa black box that consumed everything it touched.
Joseph stood up, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the concrete floor. He reached down, his fingers brushing the fabric of the scarf with agonizingly slow precision.
"I'll come back in a very minute, alright?" Joseph whispered, his tone dripping with a dark, mocking playfulness. "Don't go anywhere. I just need to remind our new friend about the proper chain of command."
He turned on his heel and walked out of the containment cell, his movements fluid and entirely unbothered.
------------------------------
Dr. Si-u Khun was halfway down the corridor, his pocket notebook open as he hastily scribbled down his final thoughts on SCP-187's psychological state. He was still trying to process the sudden, freezing intrusion of O5-10.
The voice came from right behind him. Si-u flinched, spinning around. He hadn't heard a single footstep. Standing just inches away was the young, sharply dressed man in the navy-blue three-piece suit. Joseph was smiling againābut it wasn't the polite smile from before. It was wide, empty, and entirely devoid of human warmth. It was the smile of a predator that had perfectly memorized how humans express amusement.
"O-O5-10," Si-u stammered, instinctively taking a step back, his back hitting the cold concrete wall of the corridor. "Sir. I was just heading to the administrative deck to process the reassignment papers."
"There's no rush, Doctor," Joseph said smoothly, stepping into Si-u's personal space. He reached out, his gloved hand gently tapping the pristine white fabric of Si-uās lab coat, right over his chest. "I was just admiring your work. A casual conversation. Very progressive. Very... empathetic."
"Thank you, sir. I believe that reducing the subject's sensory overload yields betterā"
"But you forced her hands away," Joseph interrupted. His voice didn't rise; it grew quieter, sharper, like a scalpel slicing through silk. The empty smile never left his face. "You gripped her wrists. You forced her to look at you, knowing exactly what it does to her mind. You traumatized an asset just to satisfy your little baseline curiosity."
Si-u felt a cold sweat break out across his neck. "Sir, it was necessary to establish a baseline for the visual anomaliesā"
"Let me tell you a secret, Dr. Khun," Joseph whispered, leaning in so close that Si-u could smell the faint, bitter scent of the SCP-294 coffee lingering on the Overseer's breath. "I know exactly what it feels like to be trapped in a room with people who think they can touch you. People who think they can force your eyes open. People who think their little notebooks make them gods."
For a fraction of a second, the mask of the ordinary guy slipped. Through the glass lenses of Joseph's spectacles, Si-u didn't see human eyes. He saw the cold, predatory abyss of the "Mind Killer." The sheer, suffocating weight of Joseph's sociopathy pressed down on Si-u's chest, making it impossible to draw breath. The hallway around them seemed to dim, narrowing down until there was nothing left but Joseph's wide, static smile.
"You saw blood on your coat, didn't you?" Joseph asked, his voice a mocking, gentle caress. "Katie told you. She sees the future. And she's never, ever wrong."
Joseph's hand slid up from Si-u's chest, his fingers wrapping around the collar of the researcher's lab coat with an iron grip that belied his slight frame. He didn't lift him, but the casual, effortless strength pinned Si-u completely against the wall.
"The Foundation gave me a chance, Doctor. They let me out of my cage because I am very, very good at cleaning up messes," Joseph whispered, his eyes unblinking. "If I ever catch you putting your hands on an asset like that again... if I ever see you trying to play the tough guy in my sectors... I won't just reassign you. I will personally open your mind, and I will let the thousand people I killed scream inside your head until your brain pours out of your ears. Do you understand me, Si-u?"
Dr. Khun couldn't speak. His jaw trembled, his face turning entirely pale as the primitive, survivalist part of his brain screamed at him that he was standing next to an apex monster. He could only manage a frantic, desperate nod.
"Excellent," Joseph beamed, instantly letting go of the coat and smoothing out the fabric with a cheerful, polite pat. The suffocating dread vanished from the air as quickly as it had arrived. Joseph stepped back, casually adjusting his cuffs. "I knew you were a smart man. Enjoy your new assignment in Sector-12."
Joseph turned on his heel and took two slow, silent steps back toward SCP-187's containment cell. But on the third step, he paused.
His back remained perfectly straight. His hands slipped effortlessly into the pockets of his tailored navy-blue trousers. The polite, boyish smile on his face dissolved into a dead, terrifying grin. Joseph remembered Katie's muffled crying. He remembered how this insignificant researcher had forced her hands away from her face, exposing her eyes to her own worst nightmaresājust like the Site-19 staff used to do to a young Joseph in his sterile containment cell.
"They never learn," the cold, logical voice inside his Black Box whispered. "They need to feel the exact same thing."
Joseph turned slowly to face Dr. Khun. His eyes behind the lenses of his glasses flashed with the primal, unyielding rage of the "Mind Killer."
Dr. Khun barely had time to part his lips to speak before Joseph anchored his reality-bending grip onto him. The space around Si-u densified, pinning him brutally against the concrete wall and crushing his vocal cordsāthe researcher couldn't even manage a whimper. In that exact second, the molecular structure of his physical body began to break down. Dr. Khun's skin visibly softened, losing its shape and melting away like a wax doll left on a blazing furnace. His pristine white lab coat was instantly soaked in a gruesome, smoking organic mass.
Si-u's eyes widened to their absolute limits from the unbearable, agonizing shock, but Joseph's vacuum barrier kept every single drop of sound trapped.
Joseph took a slow step forward, taking his hands out of his pockets. His wide, sociopathic "normal guy" smile remained frozen on his face, contrasting sharply with the nightmare he was conducting. Utilizing a highly focused vector of gravitational displacement, Joseph mentally locked onto the upper and lower halves of Khun's body.
A sharp, sudden flick of his fingers.
A heavy, wet crunch and the tearing sound of snapping tendons echoed in the localized space. The reality distortion literally ripped Dr. Khunās melting, yielding body entirely in half right at the waistline. Blood and viscera sprayed outward, but Joseph's anomalous field intercepted every single airborne droplet, refusing to let them tarnish a single fiber of his tailored navy-blue suit.
A second later, Joseph clenched his fist. The space inside the barrier collapsed with a muffled pop. The horrific remains of Dr. Khunāthe blood, the flesh, and the melted skināwere instantly compressed by the sheer gravity into a microscopic, harmless singularity, completely erased from the physical world.
The corridor was pristine once more. No evidence. No traces.
Joseph pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, neatly dabbed a faint bead of sweat from his forehead, and adjusted his glasses. Layer by layer, the soft, polite, and tidy smile returned to his face. His Black Box was securely under lock and key. The test had gone perfectly fine.
------------------------------
The reinforced blast door of the containment cell hissed open again, exactly sixty seconds after Joseph had left.
"I'm back," Joseph said, his voice perfectly warm, light, and pleasantāthe flawless mask of the normal guy firmly back in place as if the hallway outside hadn't just witnessed a butchering. He reached across the table and gently, carefully adjusted the silk scarf over Katie's eyes so she would be more comfortable. "Now, where were we, Katie? Ah, yes. Random talking. Let's start completely over. What's your favorite color?"
------------------------------
