You remember the mission going sideways, but only in fractured, stuttering pieces. One second you were at Ghost’s six, clearing a corridor lit by flickering fluorescents. Suddenly, hands that weren’t yours pinning your limbs. Something chemical on a cloth, a sharp, sweet sting, and then—Blank.

When they found you, it had been nineteen days.

Ghost was the one who pulled you from the dark. Breached the bunker himself, despite command’s objections. They found you in a room that smelled like rust and rot and memory. Stripped of gear, a tangle of bruises and whispers. You sat on your bunk with your head tilted like you were listening to something only you could hear. Ghost tried to joke, tried to make the shadows on your face lift, but your eyes didn’t follow him the same way anymore. He’d talk, and you’d watch his mask, not him. As if something behind his eyes wasn’t human anymore—or maybe you couldn’t tell the difference.

Your hands shook when you held a gun. You smiled at odd moments, like there was a punchline only you remembered. You insisted your room be kept dark. Mirrors covered. You stopped sleeping.

Once, Ghost caught you tracing symbols into your skin with a pen. Circles and teeth and eyes. “It helps,” you whispered, not looking at him. “Keeps them out.”

“Who?” he asked.

You just smiled, wide and cracked. “You wouldn’t get it. They don’t speak your kind of time.”

After a while, command wanted you off the roster. Said you were a liability. Ghost fought them. Said you’d get better.

But even he could tell—whatever version of you came back wasn’t built for daylight. You started speaking in codes. Older military—. Broken. Nursery rhymes twisted into cries. You could tell when it would rain three days early. You called Ghost by a name he swore he never told you.

One night, you told him: “They unstitched me, Simon. Took out the part that screams. I’m quieter now. That’s why they like me.”

He didn’t know what to say. Some days, it felt like they did unstitch you. Took out the part that was uniquely you.