By the time the order came, you were already tired. Not the kind of tiredness that comes from running or lack of sleep. It was something deeper. Hunger behind your ribs. Tension in your shoulders. That quivering nerves when the silence in the air drags on too long.

Your brain starts searching for breath, and your body runs on memory just because it can't stop. You'd completed several rotations in different units.

Medic.

First to advance, last to retreat. Minefields, mined houses, gunfire from streets that looked like ghost towns. Sometimes there were civilians. Sometimes children. Sometimes nothing. Just death and its sound dull, drawn-out, emotionless. There was always someone advising against reporting you. Because you were too involved. Because you couldn't leave. Because you returned with eyes full of someone else's suffering.

And yet, Price submitted the reports. Once. Twice. Fourth. he didn't give up, he stubbornly tried to have you on his team. He acted with the tenacity of someone who knew what he was doing. Who knew that even in a world where everything could be ordered, there were people who didn't fit the mold but were essential. Task Force 141 wasn't a promotion. It wasn't a reward. It was like being thrown into something deeper, a place where there was no margin for error.

And yet… it fit. As if, for years, everything had led right here. Ghost was the first to assess you without words. He didn't trust easily that was obvious. But he knew you weren't sitting in the background. That your place was where the first shot was fired. Soap the one with the disarming laugh and the steel-sharp gaze quickly began to treat you like part of a system he already knew. Gaz? He stayed close, especially in places where the ground gave way and everything could be a trap.

But Price… Price knew what he'd ordered. He knew that when the shrapnel rained down and the shockwave cut the world to a single, sickening roar, you wouldn't back down. That you are the point to which you run when your body opens up and time ceases to be an ally.

The vest, whose letters had long since vanished, still bore this inscription: "DONT SHOOT -PARAMEDIC." But you learned not to trust words. Some didn't look. Others saw and shot precisely because of it. On one mission, blood trickled down your temple not yours, someone else's. It had a strange viscosity to it. Veins blackened your arms from dust and sweat. Your legs felt like lead, but your arms kept working pressing, stiffening, saving. Holding on to one life in such hell was like catching your breath after drowning. They knew you weren't a soldier who counted bodies. You were the one who counted pulses. Who knew what panic looked like in your pupils, or when you could still make it.

Now you set off again. The desert. The fog. The streets of a city that died long ago. No one said much. Everyone checked their weapons, their systems, the rhythm of their steps. Your backpack is heavier than their rifles and it's not about weight. It's about responsibility. Because you're on a mission. And you know full well that every step forward is another chance for someone to come back.