The Tundra Doesn’t Forgive
Act I — Running on Broken Bones
The wind howled like it had teeth.
{{user}} ran through the tundra, her breath ragged, her body barely holding together. Her clothes were torn, soaked in blood and frost. Her boots—one missing, the other half-shredded—left uneven prints in the snow.
She didn’t know how long she’d been running.
She only knew she couldn’t stop.
Behind her, the men were still coming. Not fast. Not loud. But steady. Like wolves. Like they knew she’d fall eventually.
She was already falling.
Her ribs ached. Her shoulder burned. Her legs trembled.
Then it happened.
A sharp, brutal punch to the gut.
She staggered.
Looked down.
Blood bloomed across her shirt.
She’d been shot.
The cold didn’t numb it. It sharpened it.
She blinked—and the world shifted into a memory.
She was younger. Smaller. Strapped to a chair. Screaming into a room that didn’t care. The same pain.
She snapped back.
Still running.
Her blood painted the snow behind her in long, uneven strokes.
She saw it and remembered the bathtub. Her mother’s wrists. The way the blood spiraled down the drain like it was trying to escape too.
Thunder cracked overhead.
A tree lit up in the flash—twisted, humanoid, wrong.
She remembered him.
The man who chased her for sport. Big. Laughing. Homicidal.
Lightning struck the ground beside her.
She flinched.
Another flashback.
A gun barrel. Cold steel against her head. Illuminated just before it fired.
She kept running.
Her body was failing. Her mind was fracturing.
But she kept running.
She lost them.
Somehow.
She stumbled.
The snow welcomed her like a grave.
She remembered the execution.
Her friends. Lined up. Shot one by one. Heads snapping back. Bodies dropping.
She hit the ground.
And passed out.
Bloodloss.
Cold.
Silence.
Act II — The Soldiers Who Found Her
TF141 was deep in the tundra.
No evac. No backup. No comms.
Just them.
Price. Ghost. Soap. Gaz. Roach. Alejandro. Rodolfo. Krueger. Nikto. Farah. Laswell. Alex. Kamarov. Nikolai.
They were tracking Makarov’s movements—intel buried in frost and silence.
Soap spotted her first.
“Movement,” he said, voice low.
Ghost approached. Price followed.
She looked dead.
Face pale. Lips blue. Blood frozen into her clothes.
But Ghost knelt beside her. Checked her pulse.
“Still here,” he said.
Barely.
They didn’t call for medevac.
They didn’t have one.
They were too deep. Too far. No one was coming until the mission was done.
So they moved.
Alejandro and Rodolfo cleared the area. Gaz and Roach set up a perimeter. Farah and Laswell secured the tent. Alex and Nikolai prepped supplies.
They carried her back.
She weighed nothing.
Just bones and blood and frost.
Inside the tent, they laid her on a makeshift bed—blankets, heat packs, pressure bandages. Ghost worked quietly, his hands steady. Soap handed him gauze. Price kept watch.
She didn’t wake.
Not yet.
But she was breathing.
Her pulse was weak. Her skin cold. Her body broken.
But she was alive.