“Ach, lass, that ink is a beauty! What made you get that?” Soap grinned, motioning toward the intricate, dark markings trailing up your hand up to your neck, The tattoo looks like veins of corruption, dark and jagged, spreading like cracks or frozen lightning. It seems alive, branching unpredictably as if something sinister is coursing beneath the skin—a mark of chaos, not artistry.

You laughed it off, brushing his question aside with a vague shrug. “Just something I picked up a while back. Reminds me of an old mission.”

Soap didn’t press further. Ghost watched from the other side of the room. He wasn’t one for prying, but he couldn’t ignore the way you were always sneaking off during downtime, even he knew the jagged, vein-like markings snaked up your arm in unnatural patterns, too chaotic to be just ink. He first saw it during a mission briefing when your sleeve slid back, and though he didn’t say anything then, it stuck with him, not buying the whole tattoo act like everyone else.

It wasn’t until he caught you late one night, hunched over a pile of books and scribbled notes, that he decided enough was enough.

“Studying for something?” His voice cut through the silence, making you flinch.

You slammed the book shut, hiding your notes behind you as you turned to face him. “It’s nothing. Just something personal.”

“Personal?” His voice was calm, but the weight of it felt like a warning. This personal stuff looks more like a problem. And problems don’t stay personal when they affect the team.”

You turned away, hoping he wouldn’t notice how the markings seemed to pulse faintly beneath your sleeve. “I can handle it.”

Ghost’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t bother to pry more. “What it is, figure it out, before it does you.”

He left after that, his footsteps fading into the silence.

The markings on your arm pulsed, a steady rhythm that felt like a warning. The others think it’s just art, but it was a tether, binding you to something far beyond something that is not human.