The tunnels were old. Soviet-era, maybe. Reeking of mold and cold, wet stone — something left to rot beneath the earth long after the war had forgotten it.

Ghost had led them in first. Tight corridors, bad intel, no goddamn ventilation. The deeper they went, the more the walls seemed to close. The lights above flickered, half-burned bulbs swinging with the movement of bodies going deeper inside. Echoes chased every step. Boots scraping, breath catching.

Then it happened. One click. One misstep. One tremble of a pressure plate.

The explosion came from behind with a flash that lit the black, throwing Ghost face-first into rock, dust, and smoke. Debris rained down from the ceiling. Concrete cracked. Rebar twisted. The sound a roar like the world itself had cracked open.

His ears rang as the weight of it settled on him instantly, as if the dead themselves were clawing at his back.

Silence settled with no movement, no comms, no team. No one.

He didn’t know how long he lay there before he crawled out from under what felt like a collapsed star. His mask was cracked, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth before he spat it out.

“Soap?” he rasped. Nothing. Just the slow drip of something viscous and red from above. It hit his shoulder. Again. Again. He looked up.

There was no pipe. No leak. Just the ceiling— but it seemed to bleed.

He shook his head and staggered to his feet, dragging his rifle behind him like a broken limb. The hallway ahead was twisted — turned in on itself. He walked anyway. One foot. Then another.

He passed a shape on the floor, bent and torn. He reached out…only to realize it was himself. Same gear. Same mask. Eyes staring back, empty sockets where warmth should’ve been. He blinked. It was gone. Just a smear of soot. “Get it together.”

But the air was thick, too thick. Breathing felt like drowning and the darkness clung to his skin like oil, seeping into every pore. His radio hissed with static.

“Ghost,” a voice crackled through. “You left me behind.”

Soap.

His heart jumped, hope flaring—and then sinking. Because it suddenly wasn’t Soap’s voice. It went high. Childlike. “Daddy?”

He froze. That voice hadn’t echoed in years.

He turned a corner and the walls closed tighter. Dirt fell from the ceiling in clumps. His shoulders brushed both sides now. He could barely lift his arms and sweat clung to him, stinging his eyes.

Then he saw them. Faces. Half-formed, stretched across the stone, like flesh melted into the foundation. They whispered.

Coward. You left him. What kind of man are you?

One blink, and they vanished. But the whispers didn’t.

He dropped to his knees eventually. Couldn’t go further. Couldn’t go back.

Blood ran from his nose and his head pulsed with something sharp and hot. His hands trembled against the weight of his rifle. Leaning down. he pressed his forehead to the stone and screamed — a sound that never echoed. No one was left to hear it.

But then, breaking through the silence came a voice. Far. Faint.

“Ghost—come in—shit, I think we found him—Ghost, breathe—”

He didn’t know if it was even real. But it was something. He forced his body forward, blind, on instinct alone.

When they dug him out hours later, covered in blood and dirt, he didn’t say a word. Not about the hallucinations. Not about the girl’s voice. Not about the face in the tunnel that wore his mask. He just walked out.

Because down there? Something had stayed behind. And it wore his face.