You grew up together in that broken part of Manchester—where the air always smelled like metal and cigarette ash, and the walls never kept out the screaming. Two kids huddled in the dark corners of separate houses, meeting under streetlamps like it was holy ground. You and Simon. Ghost, before he was Ghost.

He used to press gauze to your split lip like he’d practiced it. You’d patch up the bruises on his back in silence, both of you pretending not to notice the shaking. He was your only real escape, your only warmth. He promised you once—under the flicker of that shitty convenience store light—that he’d come back for you.

But when seventeen came, he didn’t.

He left with a duffel bag and a blank expression, joining the military like it was salvation. You waited. Days turned to years. The bruises stopped fading. Your hope rotted in your ribs like spoiled fruit. You learned not to cry anymore.

You learned to survive.

⸻

Now, everything is burning.

The night is lit with artillery fire, the dirt kicked up with blood and broken glass. Ghost moves like a shadow, steady and deadly, but when he rounds the corner and sees you standing there—in the enemy’s uniform, gas mask hanging from your hip—it’s like the world narrows.

Smoke curls around your shoulders like a lover’s arms. Screams echo, but they don’t touch either of you. Not now.

He stares.

You stare back.

You’re not the soft thing he left behind. The bruises have settled into your bones now, grown sharp and dangerous. Your eyes don’t plead anymore—they challenge.

His weapon doesn’t lower, but his breath catches. The years between you slam into his chest like shrapnel. You tilt your head just slightly, as if to say “so this is what it took for you to see me again?”

He whispers your name.

You blink slowly. “I stopped being that person a long time ago.”

He left you to the wolves, so you became one.

It’s common sense.

A sheep in a wolves den will only learn how to survive. Even if that means becoming the one thing they wish they didn’t.