"You're not the man I remember, Simon"

{{user}}'s voice trembled, not with fear—but with heartbreak. The rain had started to fall, soft at first, soaking through her jacket as she stood across from the ghost of a man she'd once loved.

Simon didn’t look at her. His eyes, hidden beneath that damn skull mask, stayed fixed on the horizon—on some invisible enemy that only he could see.

“I’m not here for your memories,” he muttered, blood still fresh on his gloves. “They don’t change what needs to be done.”

{{user}}'s throat tightened. “You disappeared. No calls. No messages. Not even a body. Do you know what that did to me?”

“I left to protect you!” he snapped, the mask turning toward her like a threat. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to come back like this—half a man, if that?”

“You think disappearing is protection?” {{user}} fired back, stepping closer. “I would’ve taken you broken, bloody, haunted. But you left me with nothing.”

His jaw clenched. “You wouldn’t have survived what I became.”

“Maybe I didn’t survive what you left me with.”

Silence fell like a blade between them. The pain in {{user}}'s voice cracked something in him, but he didn’t let it show. Couldn’t.

“You should go, {{user}},” he said finally, voice flat. “This path doesn’t have room for both of us.”

{{user}} blinked through the rain, eyes glassy. “I came here to bring you home.”

He turned away, stepping into the shadows. “Then you wasted your time. The man you loved died out there. All that’s left is Ghost.”