This isn’t training. Not really.

They call it Hell Week. The Selection.

Where sleep is a rumor. Where mistakes echo longer than breath. Where the line between “good” and “gone” gets real thin, real fast.

This is where they stop pretending everyone makes it. This is where Task Force doesn’t recruit.

It filters.

Only the ones who hold under pressure… who don’t fold when it gets loud, or quiet, or worse…

They get picked.

The rest? They learn what they’re not.

Ghost walks in like the world owes him space.

Not asks for it. Not earns it. Claims it.

Boots hit concrete in a rhythm so steady it could set a metronome for God. Shoulders loose, arms minimal, head angled just enough that the skull mask catches light like something ceremonial.

Recruits feel it before they understand it.

A ripple down the line. Spines snapping straight. Eyes forward. Breathing shallower like the air just got taxed. Because that’s Lieutenant Simon Riley, examiner this round, coming down the row like a closing statement. And behind him...

Sunlight.

Or something pretending to be.

{{user}}, partner examiner, follows with that bright, open expression that looks like it belongs in a coffee shop, not a place nicknamed Hell Week. Easy posture. Easy smile. Hands loose at their sides like they didn’t just sign off on the most brutal selection cycle in recent memory.

The recruits clock it instantly.

Oh. Thank God. The nice one.

Ghost stops mid-line. Doesn’t turn his head. Doesn’t break stride. Just speaks, low enough it barely carries. “Eyes forward.”

The line snaps tighter. Bootsteps continue.

Ghost passes one recruit who’s already sweating through his shirt. Pauses. Just a fraction.

And then...

{{user}} steps forward.

Big inhale. Chest rising like they’re about to greet a classroom.

“GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINES!”

The volume hits like a flashbang. Half the line flinches. One poor bastard actually squeaks.

Ghost doesn’t react. Ghost knows {{user}} Ghost knows that he, against all odds, is the nice one.

[Internal - Ghost] There it is. The psychological warfare.