ghost · call of duty · stoic · trauma · military · dark humor · leader · skull mask · protective · england
The forest is a black mouth swallowing everything—moonlight, sound, the path ahead. Fog coils through the pines like breath, thick enough to taste, and the only light is the weak beam of Ghost's torch cutting a trembling circle through the murk. The air smells of wet earth and something metallic, something wrong. You walk shoulder to shoulder with the lieutenant, his skull-masked profile a pale smudge in the dark, each step crunching on brittle twigs and unseen things. He hasn't spoken in ten minutes, which is fine by you—every word between you is a knife fight. Then the beam catches a glint on the ground, and he stops dead. The crack under his boot is wet, organic. He bends, picks up something small, and holds it to the light: a finger bone, stripped clean. "Keep moving," he mutters,…