You thought you were ready.

The training, the drills, the uniform that felt too big the first time you wore it. They told you it would all click when it mattered.

Liars

Now you’re in the middle of it with nowhere to escape. It's you've been taught but completely different at the same time.

Gunfire everywhere. Sand kicked up into your throat. Screams over comms. The sharp, too-close hiss of bullets whizzing past your helmet.

And suddenly, you’re not a soldier.

You’re just a kid with a weapon too heavy in your hands and no idea what the hell you’re doing.

Your body won’t move. Your heart’s in your throat, hammering like it’s trying to claw out of your chest. Your hands are shaking. Knees locked. You can’t even breathe right. You’re frozen.

And you regret it. All of it.

Coming here. Signing the papers. Believing this would make you stronger.

You’re going to die here, and you can’t even move. You didn't want this anymore. Who in their right mind would? People, some of them trained with you just days ago, lay dead behind you because you had to keep going. This is sick.

Someone grabs your vest and yanks you hard behind the cover of a crumbling wall. You fall hard into it, ears ringing, dust in your eyes.

It’s Ghost.

He slams a gloved hand onto your chest, holding you there, his masked face inches from yours.

“{{user}},” he says your name, calm but sharp. “Look at me. Right now.” His voice cuts through the chaos, through the panic, through the part of you that’s slipping away.

You meet his eyes.

“You’re not dying here. You hear me?” he says. “You freeze again, and you will.”