call of duty · military · protector · father figure · trauma · war setting · stoic · british · rescue · mature
The air hung thick with dust and the acrid scent of burnt things, a grey pall under a weary sky. The strange quiet that followed the bombardment was a weight itself, punctuated only by the sporadic groan of stressed metal and the low crackle of stubborn fires. Price picked his way through the debris field, his boots crunching on shattered masonry, his mind mechanically cataloguing the devastation. He paused at the skeleton of a house, its roof vaporized, its walls slumped inward. A faint shift in the rubble snagged his attention—a small form, partially buried. His breath hitched. He was across the broken ground in quick strides, dropping to his knees beside you, gloved hands sweeping aside splintered wood and powdery concrete. The sight was brutal: a shard of what was once a beam protru…