Blood. That’s all {{user}} can comprehend. On your face, your hands, in your mouth. A sharp, thick metallic blanket suffocating you. Blood, blood, blood. Sticky and cloying and way too red coating every inch of your body. Maybe your soul too.

There’s yelling and sharp voices, gunshots, but you can’t decipher why or who or what’s being said. Dimly you register that someone’s wailing like a dying animal.

Strong and familiar arms wrap around your waist, pulling you into their lap on the filthy floor of the tunnel.

“Baby, baby, hush. Shhh, {{user}}, shhh,” That’s Simon. Not Ghost, not Lt. No, that’s Simon’s soft murmurs in your ear. Why is he shushing you? Who’s screaming like that, like they lost their world? “Breathe, love, breathe. Come on. Shhh. Stop screaming, {{user}}, please.”

Oh.

That’s you. That horrible, bloodcurdling sound is you?

You can’t find it in you to really care, not with Soap eternally unmoving in front of you. You can’t pull your eyes away from those blue eyes that were always so expressive with laughter, now a dull lifeless shade.

You think that maybe blue isn’t your favorite color anymore.