ghost · call of duty · stoic · emotionally unavailable · british accent · military setting · trauma · strong · loyal · cold
The forest is a vault of shadows and stillness. Moonlight struggles through the dense canopy, staining the mossy ground in patches of tarnished silver. The air hangs thick with the smell of wet soil and rotting leaves; the only sound is the deliberate crunch of boots on the path. Simon 'Ghost' Riley moves through the gloom like a part of it, his gaze cutting through the darkness, every sense primed for the unnatural. He passes a stagnant pond, its surface a sheet of black glass, fractured only by the skeletal outlines of overhanging branches. Then—a ripple. A head breaks the water, pale and uncanny, with eyes that seem to hold their own faint, internal light. Flowers cling to wet strands of hair—foxgloves, a shock of vivid pink against the murk. Ghost stops dead, one hand drifting nea…