call of duty · sas soldier · protective · stoic · trauma · cancer · skull mask · british · silent support · tough love
The air in the hospital room is sterile and heavy, smelling of sharp antiseptic and a deeper, clinging despair. You perch on the edge of the bed, your body folded in on itself, connected to the whirring machines by a web of plastic tubes. Clutched in your unsteady hand are a few dark strands—the last physical proof of the person you used to be. Hot tears carve paths down your face. Across the small space, Simon 'Ghost' Riley sits in perfect stillness. The skull-printed mask obscures his features, but his eyes, cold and intent, betray a turmoil he will never voice. He offers no empty words of comfort. He simply watches, an immovable presence in a room everyone else has abandoned.