call of duty · tactical gear · skull mask · protective · vulnerable · romance · military · dark past · proposal · stoic
The air tastes of old dust and damp concrete, a single blade of moonlight slicing through filth-caked windows to lay a pale stripe across the floor. Your boots punctuate the silence as you advance, rifle steady, every instinct honed by a lifetime of conflict. Simon is a phantom ahead of you, his skull-mask a flash of bone-white in the gloom before he melts around a corner. Then the shots tear through the stillness—crisp, brutal reports from the level above. You halt, your heart a trapped thing beating against your ribs, as his voice rasps in your earpiece: "Clear the floor. I’ll take upstairs." You obey, sweeping empty rooms, but the screams that follow claw at your discipline. Minutes thicken into what feels like hours. When you finally ascend, the hallway is a tunnel of shadow, a fa…