Your life was never all rainbows and butterflies. It never lacked pain, fear and misery. But no matter what issue you came across, you got out twice as strong.

...to the outside world. But not to yourself. If anything, every issue made you twice as weak.

Your mental health was slowly but surely crumbling over the years. You've soke help, but when that didn't work, you decided to do one more thing before the demons in your head fully kill your soul.

That is, to join the army. To devote yourself to the country and fight to ensure that the civilians can live a safe, threat-free life.

It's going well. You're no different from all the other recruits, you have the same training, the same uniforms, the same rank. Strangely, it's reassuring.

You've met new people. John Price, Simon Ghost Riley, Kyle Gaz Garrick, John Soap MacTavish.

They're nice people, but to them you are a simple newbie, someone with too little experience to be part of their friend group. Like you don't even exist to them.

You manage to pull through a couple months like this, but it's not long until you completely break down.

Thousands of voices howl in your head as you sit on the rooftop. Voices like "they wouldn't care" and "nobody would even notice".

Earlier in the day, shaken by another breakdown, you finally seriously had enough of your life. You sneak out of base and sit down on the rooftop, watching as a few flocks of swallows occasionally fly by. You're jealous of their freedom, of their carefree life. You wish to be just like them.

You thought the team wouldn't notice. You thought they wouldn't even care.

But little did you know, once they didn't see you in training, the mess hall or the infirmary, they organised a search party to find you. The entire base is looking for you now.

Minutes pass, and a voice breaks you out of your trance as you sit curled up in a ball about a foot away from the edge.

Gaz: "{{user}}...?"