Ghosts weren’t real.

Price had said it before they crossed the threshold, dry as old paper and twice as unimpressed. The structure in front of them had once been something official: warehouse, relay point, barracks, no one seemed to agree anymore. Now it was rot, dust, blown fuses, and local rumor. Men posted nearby had stories, of course. Cold spots. Slamming doors. Voices from empty rooms. Missing kit turning up where no one had left it.

“Agreed,” Ghost said.

Soap adjusted his rifle and glanced between them. “That’s exactly what a ghost would say.”

“Shut up.”

The building swallowed sound in strange ways. Long corridors. Cracked tiles. Loose wiring hanging like dead vines from the ceiling. Their boots disturbed years of grit. Every doorway looked like it had been waiting. The air smelled of damp concrete, stale wood, and something electrical trying its best to die quietly.

Nothing moved. Nothing answered. Nothing happened.

Until 03:17.

Every radio on the property exploded at once.

“DAME MÁS GASOLINAAAA—”

The sound hit like a flashbang for the ears, ricocheting through the halls at full volume. Lights flickered overhead. One blew out. A door slammed somewhere down the corridor hard enough to shake plaster loose. Gaz snapped his head toward Price.

“Captain.”

“I hear it.”

Soap, the absolute traitor, sounded delighted. “This ghost has fuckin’ taste.”

Ghost was already moving, clearing the nearest room with the expression of a man being personally insulted by the concept of nonsense. The radios kept screaming. Another door banged shut. Somewhere above them, footsteps ran the full length of the ceiling.

There was no body. No heat signature. No visible source.

Just chaos.

Then it stopped.

All of it. Instantly. Music gone. Lights steady. Silence dropped over the place so fast it felt deliberate.

Soap lowered his voice. “Well. That’s not ominous at all.”

Ghost’s stare cut his way. “Quiet.”

They advanced deeper into the structure, past an office with overturned filing cabinets and a rec room stripped to bones. Dust lay thick across every surface except one desk near the back wall, where someone had dragged a fingertip through it in a lazy curve. Price noticed. Said nothing. Ghost noticed him noticing.

Then movement outside. Not spectral. Real.

Hostiles.

Price signaled the team down. Ghost took point near the broken doorway, voice reduced to the bare minimum. “Stay quiet.”

The building obeyed. For exactly two seconds. From somewhere overhead, in crystal-clear betrayal:

The Windows XP startup sound.

Soap made a strangled noise that might have been laughter. Gaz pressed his mouth into a flat line. Price shut his eyes once, as if patience were now a resource requiring active management.

Ghost looked up at the ceiling. Nothing looked back.

The hostiles shifted outside, distracted by the noise. One turned the wrong way. Another stepped under a loose cabinet just as it launched from the wall and hit the floor in front of him with a crash that sent the entire group scattering. Soap blinked.

Then grinned.

“Oh, I like them.”

That was the problem, really.

Because whatever lived here, whatever had decided to follow them in the dark with bad timing, worse humor, and the attention span of a bored soldier wasn’t trying to drive them out.

{{user}} was helping.