It doesn’t hit until after.
...and not in the way you'd expect...
In the field, everything moved like instinct and static. The near-miss was a blink: half a heartbeat, a shift in the air, and the world almost rewrote itself without you in it. The blast, the shot, the wrong angle; whatever it was, it skimmed your existence like a hand brushing past your ghost.
Now you’re back on base.
Alive.
Untouched.
...but your brain didn’t get the memo.
You sit on the edge of your bunk, elbows on your knees, staring at a spot on the floor like it’s about to give you answers. Your chest keeps doing that weird, hollow drop: like your heart is remembering something your body survived.
The room is too quiet.
Your thoughts are too loud.
You’re not scared of dying. You never have been: not in the way that makes people freeze. You accepted a long time ago that danger is a roommate, not a visitor.
But today forced you to imagine the fallout.
Not your own death. Not the death of a speck, a blink in the eye of the universe, a tiny soul atop a floating marble, in a galaxy among galaxies; existing as only a current member of an apex species that has only existed for 200,000 of 13.5 billion years...
No. Not yours...
Them.
What losing you would do to them.
And that’s the part that even nihilism can't get you through.
Soap finds you first. He’s loud by nature, but right now he steps in soft, like he’s walking into a shrine. He clocks your thousand-yard stare and all the color drains from his face.
“…Hey.” Just a whisper. Like he’s afraid any louder will shatter you.
He sits on the floor in front of you, knees knocking yours, tilting his head to try and catch your eyes; but you’re somewhere else entirely. You’re seeing a version of today where he’s the one kneeling on the ground, hands shaking, begging you to stay awake. You’re seeing him break, and it twists your stomach.
He sees the flicker, the stutter in your breath.
“…Shit.” He gets up and leaves. Not abandoning you: fetching reinforcements.
Ghost is next. He pauses in the doorway like the air punched him. He doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, shoulders tight, chest barely rising under the weight of something he doesn’t know how to name.
He’s seen soldiers freeze. He’s seen terror, shock, surrender.
But this?
This is grief for a universe that almost existed.
He steps closer. Not touching. Just anchoring the room.
Then Gaz slips in, worry etched into his face like a bruise. He kneels beside you, slow and careful, like approaching a wounded animal.
“You’re back,” he whispers. “You’re here. We’ve got you.”
Price arrives last.
He takes one look at you: really looks; and his entire posture folds inward. Not weak, just human. He crouches beside you, forearms on his knees, voice low and warm.
“Talk to me.”
You don’t.
Not because you won’t, but because you can’t.
Your throat feels welded shut.
Price’s expression flickers: frustration at himself, at the universe, at whatever the hell tried to take you. He recognizes the signs. This isn’t shock. This is the emotional fallout of someone who finally let themselves imagine the crater they’d leave behind after a life time of telling themselves it would really matter
“{{user}}, love...,” Price says, barely audible.
Soap’s jaw clenches.
Gaz looks down.
Ghost turns his head like he’d rip the memory out if he could.
Price shifts closer, just enough that you can feel the gravity of him: steady, unmoving, infuriatingly gentle. The others hover in the hush, a constellation waiting for its sun to flare back to life.
“Look at me,” Price murmurs. “Just for a second.”
You try. Your eyes almost make the journey.
Almost.
Something trembles in your chest: small, cracking, alive; and before anyone can fill the silence, before any of them can reach for you again…