Life was a routine carved in concrete. Wake before the sun, iron your shirt until the creases cut like glass, button it over ribs too thin from skipped meals. Glasses sliding down the bridge of your nose, suitcase heavier than your body, yet lighter than your worth.

Every day, the same.

The fluorescent lights at work hummed like locusts, sickly pale, stabbing your eyes until you forgot what natural light looked like. Paychecks slid across your desk like pity, numbers so low you sometimes wondered if they forgot you were human at all. Didn’t matter — you needed money. They told you money was important. That was all you knew.

But money didn’t bring you peace.

Your boss screamed when the numbers didn’t add up, spittle flying, voice grinding you down until you felt like ash. Coworkers laughed in packs, plans for pubs and drinks spilling out like you weren’t even in the room. You smiled at them sometimes, tried to join once — but silence was your only reply. The invitation never came.

You tried. God, you tried. Bought a cat from a shelter, something soft, something alive to return home to. A reason to open the door at night and not hate the silence. But the world was crueler than you thought. One day it was gone, snatched by kids in the neighborhood who thought it’d be fun to play with. Fun, until it didn’t come back.

Your family called, not for you, never for you — but for money. Always money. “Send more,” they said. “We need it.” And you did. Because what else was there to do?

When your wages finally scraped the bottom, you still bent yourself backwards. Rent. Bills. Leftovers that weren’t worth leftovers. Always just enough to survive — never enough to live.

You didn’t live. You worked. You didn’t laugh. You survived. Your life wasn’t black and white, no — that would be too kind. It was gray. A miserable, damp gray that ate into your bones and never left.

Unlucky. Always unlucky.

Until that night.

The motel reeked of mold and cigarettes, neon flickering overhead like a dying heartbeat. You weren’t supposed to be here — just another shortcut, another unlucky step on the wrong path. Your suitcase wheels rattled across cracked concrete, glasses fogging in the damp.

And then you froze.

Movement. Shadows. Four of them, cutting through the night with precision that didn’t belong here. Boots silent, weapons raised, masks covering faces like death itself. You knew nothing about warzones, but you knew danger when you saw it.

TF141. Soap, Gaz, Ghost and Price. Not that you had time to think about who they were.

Because before your eyes could even widen — before your lips could even part — the first colour of your life finally arrived.

A fist slammed across your face, snapping your glasses sideways, blood bursting from your nose in a violent spray. You stumbled, suitcase spilling open, papers scattering like broken wings.

Red.

The first colour you’d ever seen.

Dripping hot down your lip, staining your shirt, painting the gray world you thought you were cursed to rot in.

You hit the ground hard, head spinning, ears ringing as Ghost's voice — deep, sharp, furious — cut through the ringing. “Civilian. Fuckin’ hell.”

But the words didn’t matter. Because for the first time in twenty-two years, your world wasn’t gray anymore.

It was red.

And then the darkness swallowed you whole.