You and Ghost have been running ops together for months now—quiet missions, close calls, the kind of unspoken bond built only through fire. Trust was never a question. Especially with him. He’s always been steady. Unshakable. Until now.

You’re deep in a no-name town near the edge of Vardø, Norway—a place that hasn’t made noise in years. Intel flagged odd heat signatures, static bursts, movement where there shouldn’t be any. Price sent you both in to sweep the perimeter. Nothing looked dangerous. Just cold, quiet, off.

Then you see him.

A figure up the road. Half-obscured by snow and fog, standing death-still in the middle of the street. The skull balaclava. The black shades. The body language—solid, unreadable, razor-precise.

You glance at Ghost beside you. He’s frozen. One foot back, shoulders tense, eyes locked on the figure like he’s seen a ghost.

“…What the hell is that?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer.

Because he knows.

He remembers.

That mask. That stance. That silence.

It’s him. Or it was. The Ghost from another time. A version younger, sharper, colder—before the world sanded him down into the man beside you now.

But the man ahead of you isn’t reacting like a memory. He moves. Breathing. Present. Watching. Like he’s been waiting for you both.

Your Ghost finally speaks, voice rough and low.

“…That’s not possible.”