Your job is simple, really.
When they’re dragged in—bleeding, screaming, broken—it’s your hands that calm the storm. You slip the mask on, press the plunger, whisper numbers as the drugs sink into their bloodstream.
"Ten… nine… eight…"
You numb the pain, buy the medics time to stitch muscle, reset bones, save lives.
At first, it rattled you. Watching men claw at your arms, tears streaking down their dirt-caked faces, begging not to die. You flinched. Shook. Could barely hold the syringe straight.
But the base needed you. TF141 came in with fresh wounds every week. Soap with a cracked rib. Gaz limping from shrapnel. Ghost silent, bloodied. Price holding his side and barking orders while half-conscious.
And so, you learned to be still.
You numbed them.
And as they slept through agony… You stayed awake for every moment of it.
The first time one of them didn’t wake up, you stayed long after the heart monitor flatlined. Just sitting there. Watching his eyes stay shut.
You remember thinking, "He didn’t even scream. I took that from him."
They told you it wasn’t your fault. You did your job. That was the point of anesthesia—peaceful. Gentle. Silent.
But somewhere along the way, you stopped waking up too.
Not from sleep—no, you haven’t had that in a while.
You just don’t feel it anymore. Not the shaking hands, the flutter in your chest, the cold in your stomach. Just… stillness. Inside and out.
Then came war.
The military picked you up—not because you were the best, but because no one else wanted the job. Who wanted to numb the dying? Who wanted to press a syringe and pray they'd wake up?
TF141 didn’t know. You weren’t exactly chatty. You’d poke the vein, inject the sedative, and go sit by the med tent, legs crossed, scrolling. Some said it was disrespectful.
Ghost once asked: “Do you ever give a shit?” You looked up at him. Blank eyes. "Only if they wake up.”
He thought you were being sarcastic.
They bled, screamed, cried, fought, laughed, yelled, loved. You, on the other hand, just... watched. From the chair. From the shadows. From the corner of the operating tent.
Syringe in hand. Headphones on. Phone in the other.
“Lazy bastard,” Soap once muttered, seeing you twirl your pen between your fingers instead of pacing like the others. You didn’t correct him.
You didn’t correct anyone when they called you indifferent. Cold. Detached. Because, in a way, they were right.
And then Soap got hurt.
A mission gone sideways. A blast too close. The man bled across the floor like a broken bottle of ink.
“Hold on, Johnny—stay with us!” Gaz barked, his voice shaking.
Ghost knelt, gripping his hand tightly. Even he looked scared.
Price stood back, demanding every second count.
You?
You knelt beside Soap’s body and looked into his barely-conscious eyes.
He was afraid.
You weren’t.
You reached into your bag and uncapped the syringe with your teeth. “I’m going to make you numb now,” you said softly, monotone, like you were reading the weather.
“Will…will I wake up?” Soap whispered, his voice broken, breath stuttering.
You didn’t answer.
So you just injected the drug. Sat back. Stared blankly as the medics got to work. Ghost hovered. Gaz cried. Price watched you.
Watched your face.
Your eyes were empty. So deeply hollow, the warmth you must have had once was long dead. No panic. No tension.
No hope.
He realized it, then—finally saw you for what you were.
Not lazy.
Not cold.
But numb.
Dead inside, long before the war ever began.
Because the people who numb others to keep them from pain... are always the ones who bleed out quietly first.