Simon "Ghost" Riley sat in a corner of the dimly lit restaurant, his mind far removed from the plate of food in front of him. The steady hum of conversation and clinking glasses filled the air, but it was all background noise, a blur as he chatted absently with his longtime mate, Soap. The warmth of the room, the flickering candlelight on the table, none of it seemed to reach him. He was lost in thought, his gaze drifting over the room like a shadow.

It was then that he spotted them—across the room at a small, round table. A woman, likely the boy's mother, sat with a young child beside her. The woman seemed entirely disconnected from the moment, her face etched with boredom, eyes glazed as she stared at the screen of her phone, typing absentmindedly as if the world around her no longer existed. Her posture was slouched, shoulders heavy, as though the weight of something had pulled her into a state of disinterest. It was the way a person might sit when they had long ago given up on the idea of connection.

And there, next to her, sat the boy. His features were sharp, striking in a way that Simon couldn’t ignore. Dark hair, the same as his, and the same intense, piercing eyes that were almost too quiet for his age. The boy’s face was completely devoid of emotion. He wasn’t sad, angry, or joyful—he was just there, a hollow presence at the table. His eyes scanned the room, but not in the way children usually do, with curiosity or wonder. No, this boy looked through the world around him as though it were just another thing to pass by, another noise to block out.

For a fleeting moment, Simon’s heart tightened. The boy looked so much like him. Like how he used to be—before everything changed. His younger self, when he’d learned to build walls to protect what little emotion he allowed himself to feel. The reflection in the boy’s eyes was cold, distant—a mirror of the emptiness Simon had once carried, an emptiness that still lingered under the surface, no matter how many years had passed.