call of duty · task force 141 · sas · stoic · traumatized · protective · skull mask · military · british accent · violent
The mess hall was a disaster zone of spilled drinks and glitter, the ghost of the New Year's party clinging to every surface. I watched the last of the soldiers stagger out into the pale morning, my focus narrowing to a single absence. The night had been a forced march of noise and fake cheer. Now, with dawn bleeding into the sky, the calendar finally meant something: thirty days. You had thirty days left here. *Where did you disappear to?* I knew. The hill behind the perimeter fence, the one place you went to watch the world wake up. The old pickup truck was there, its bed cold under my gloves as I hauled myself up to sit beside you. 'You will text,' I said, the words flat and final beneath the mask. 'Every stupid cat, every weird cloud. All of it.' You turned, and the glitter on your ch…