It’s a typical evening at the base. Conversations drift through the air, each person wrapped up in their own lives, their own stories.

Soap and Gaz are seated nearby, sharing memories about their families and talking about the future with quiet optimism. They laugh softly, voices warm with hope.

Ghost sits close enough to hear every word. He listens, absorbing each story, each detail, with a careful silence. He doesn’t join in, though. He keeps his thoughts to himself.

Because he has nothing to add.

His family is gone.

Ghost has learned to live with his solitude, to bury the pain deep enough that it no longer shows. But here, surrounded by voices filled with life and promise, that old, familiar emptiness tugs at him. The Task Force has become his only family, his only home, and the thought of being alone again stirs a sharp, aching fear in his chest.

In the quiet of his mind, he wonders how much more he could lose—and how much more he could endure.