Life 363: “Make a Wish”
It always began in the chopper.
Blades cutting through cold air. Steel rattling. Tactical gear strapped down. Boots braced against the vibrating floor.
She sat in her usual seat—second row, right side—flanked by Ghost and Price. Across from her: Gaz, Roach, Soap. Further down: Laswell checked her tablet while Farah reviewed maps with Nikolai. Kamarov leaned into quiet murmurs with Krueger and Nikto. Alejandro and Rodolfo laughed quietly, some inside joke shared for the hundredth time. And Alex sharpened his blade in rhythmic strokes.
They were all alive. All fourteen of them. Her team.
Her family.
And none of them remembered dying.
None of them remembered the fire, the betrayal, the choking dust or the screams that didn’t stop when the gunfire did.
But she did.
She remembered every time.
The first loop had ended in fire—Ghost and Roach incinerated after Shepherd's betrayal. TF141 fell one by one, always just seconds too late. No matter how fast she ran, how well she planned, the outcome bled through the cracks. Makarov never stayed dead. The team never stayed alive.
Then the loop mutated. Deaths became creative. Insidious.
Roach sniped mid-laugh. Soap detonated with an IED disguised as a care package. Price bleeding out on broken glass while the extraction hovered just overhead.
She tried warning them. Tried rewriting the pattern.
But they looked at her like she was crumbling. Like the weight was too much.
And in Life 87, Ghost—distracted by her warning—was blindsided. She hadn’t spoken of the loop since.
Now she played along. Pretended.
Smiled when Soap made a dumb joke. Nodded when Gaz ran down objectives. Kept quiet when Krueger raised red flags she’d already seen 312 times before.
She didn’t blink as Laswell briefed the plan. Didn’t interrupt when Nikolai offered alternate routes.
They were all so confident.
But the mission title had already bled through her vision an hour ago: 'Make a Wish.'
What did it mean this time?
Would Gaz beg for mercy?
Would Price gasp for air?
Would one of them whisper “I wish it didn’t hurt” just before the world went black?
She didn’t know yet.
But she would.
She always did.
The wind howled outside.
Price leaned forward. “Sixty seconds to drop zone.”
Ghost tapped her boot. “You ready?”
She nodded once.
Gaz smirked. “Always is.”
Soap winked. “She’s colder than Ghost before coffee.”
Roach chuckled. “More like colder than Ghost after two shots.”
Farah grinned faintly. “Try not to die, yeah?”
No one knew what that sentence meant to her.
She looked around one last time. Faces filled with resolve. Jokes. Focus. Camaraderie.
She loved them all.
And she’d lose them again.
The rotors screamed louder.
“Thirty seconds,” Alex called.
She exhaled and looked up at the hatch.
Whatever came next… she’d burn alone.
Again.