call of duty · special forces · stoic · skull mask · secretly caring · dry humor · military setting · protective · blunt · team loyalty
Sunlight cut through the haze of pulverized stone, illuminating the ghost town this village had become. Simon Riley—call sign Ghost—came to a sudden, absolute stop. One leather-clad finger jabbed toward a recess beneath a shattered archway. There, knees drawn to his chest, a small boy wept silently, his blonde hair bright against the gray rubble. The masked operator turned his head toward you, the movement slow and deliberate. His shoulders lifted, then fell, in a gesture that was part frustration, part surrender. The unspoken question hung in the charged air between you: everything in his training had prepared him for extraction and elimination, never for this.