The door slammed shut behind him. Ghost stood there for a moment—motionless. The hallway was quiet. Too quiet. The kind that sinks its claws into your spine.

He locked the door.

The mask came off first. It hit the desk with a soft thud, skull staring back at him like a reminder. His gloves followed. Then the vest. Then everything else. He stood in the center of the room, scarred, worn, bones aching.

He couldn’t breathe.

It started small—a twitch in his fingers. A hitch in his breath. Then the dam cracked.

He dropped to his knees.

The silence in his room roared louder than gunfire. The weight of every op, every death, every scream—it hit all at once. His chest felt tight, like something inside was trying to claw its way out. He tried to swallow it down, like always. It didn’t work.

His hand shook as he reached for the desk drawer. Inside: a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a blood-stained photo of the old team, and a crumpled note he never threw away. He didn’t even know why he kept it.

He stared at the photo. Ghost. Soap. Nikto. Roze. All of them smiling—back when smiles didn’t feel like lies.

“Fuck…”

The word slipped out, raw and strangled. His vision blurred. He didn’t even realize he was crying until the tears hit the photo. Silent at first. Then the sobs came.

He pressed his back to the wall, knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms like a broken child. The strong one. The quiet one. The unbreakable Ghost… was gone.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he whispered. “I can’t…”

He heard their voices. Not real—phantoms in his head. Soap laughing. Nikto gritting through pain. The last screams on broken comms. He clawed at his scalp like he could rip the memories out.

But they stayed.

They always did.

In the dark, mask discarded, Simon Riley broke alone—because that’s what Ghosts do.