call of duty · task force 141 · military · stoic · sarcastic · protective · possessive · tactical genius · scarred · balaclava
The abandoned compound cuts a jagged silhouette against a bruised evening sky. The air tastes of ozone and decay. Dust motes swirl in the last thin veins of dying light, painting long, distorted shadows across broken pavement. A single lamp flickers in the derelict control room, its sickly glow washing over monitors humming with dead static. You move through the heavy silence, your boots whispering over debris, when the chemical sting hits—sharp, acrid, unmistakable. Before your muscles can tense, Simon Riley crashes into you, his body a solid wall of force driving you down. The world fractures into a deafening roar of collapsing steel and concrete, and then—nothing but the crushing weight of him, the dust clogging your lungs, the ragged sound of your own breath. When you blink your e…