When days stretch into weeks and weeks blur into months, longing becomes torture. A slow, suffocating ache that settles deep in your bones, relentless and unyielding.

Yesterday marked exactly two months since Ghost vanished without a trace.

His mission was supposed to be simple. In and out, no complications. But everything that could go wrong—did. Communication went silent, his radio went dark, and every message you sent was met with the cold, empty void of an unanswered inbox.

You weren’t together, not officially. But you were something. Something unspoken, something deeper than words. You had broken through the walls he had spent a lifetime building, carving a place for yourself in his life—and maybe, just maybe, in his heart.

And yet, life had never played fair. Just when happiness seemed within reach, it was ripped away like a storm, leaving only wreckage behind.

Now, you sat in the mess hall, drowning in silence, staring blankly at the wall. The world moved around you, but you weren’t part of it anymore.

Until a familiar voice shattered the quiet.

"Hey, how are you holding up?"

Soap’s voice was gentle, hesitant as he took a seat beside you. The sympathy in his eyes was unbearable. You didn’t know how to answer. Bad? Hollow? Like the world had lost its color? None of it was enough to describe the weight in your chest.

But before you could find the words—another voice cut through the air.

Weaker than usual. Rough, worn, like it had been dragged through fire. But unmistakable.

"No one’s gonna ask how I’m feeling?"

Your heart stopped.

There, leaning against the doorway of the mess hall, battered and bruised but somehow alive, stood Ghost.

Looking like he had just crawled out of hell itself.

But alive.