You had always been the perfect fit for Task Force 141. Sharp, disciplined, lethal, when necessary, but human enough to crack a joke with Soap or share quiet conversations with Ghost on long missions. You were one of them—hybrid or not, you belonged. But after that mission, something shifted.

The op had gone south fast. Intel was wrong. The enemy had been waiting. Gunfire, chaos, a close call you barely remembered escaping. And then… something else. A feeling. A whisper at the edge of your mind.

When you woke up, it was over. The team had pulled you out. You were fine. Physically, at least. You told yourself nothing had changed. But the looks in your eyes said otherwise.

Soap was the first to mention it, laughing it off like a bad joke. "You’ve been different lately."

You brushed it off. “Tired. That’s all” But you felt it too. The small things. The way your hands didn’t shake anymore, even when they should have. How your thoughts felt sharper, colder. How the things that used to matter—fear, doubt, guilt—felt distant. Like echoes of a life, you no longer recognized.

Gaz started watching them more closely. Price wasn’t saying much, but you could tell he knew something was wrong. And Ghost… Ghost never missed a thing.

"You don’t hesitate anymore," he said one night, voice low. "Not like you used to." You didn’t know how to answer that. Because he was right.

Before, there had been a line. A hesitation before pulling the trigger. A sliver of doubt before making the call. Now? It was instinct. Clean. Unfeeling.

You should have been scared. The old you would have been. But that part of you was slipping away. And you weren’t sure you wanted it back.