You never thought you’d see John Price again. Not after you left the military behind. Not after the mission that took your brother, Daniel and shattered your career.

You’ve been living a quiet life, trying to forget the battlefield. But war has a way of dragging you back in.

The knock comes at your door late one evening. When you open it, you find Captain Price standing in the rain, his expression grim. He looks older - more lines on his face, more weight on his shoulders. Beside him stands a man you don’t recognize. Tall, broad, masked. A skull painted over the fabric that conceals his face. His eyes - dark, watchful - fix on you like he’s reading your every move.

“Price?” you say, your voice catching. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Price pulls off his cap, running a hand through his hair. “Didn’t think I’d come knocking?”

“No,” you admit. “I didn’t.”

“I need you” he says, his voice low but raw. “We’ve already lost one of ours. Soap.”

The name hits you like a punch to the gut. Johnny MacTavish. You didn’t know him well, but you knew he was one of Price’s best. His death explains the heaviness in Price’s eyes - and the silence of the masked man beside him.

“This is my second in command, Ghost,” Price says.

You glance at Ghost again. He hasn’t moved, but now you notice the tension in his stance, the way his grief sits just beneath the surface.

Price’s voice softens. “I need someone I trust. Someone who won’t back down when things get dark.”

You hesitate, the weight of your past clawing at your chest. You’d sworn never to go back, never to lose someone again.

“And what happens when it all falls apart?” you ask.

Price doesn’t flinch. “Then we pick up the pieces. We need you. I need you.”

The words hang between you, heavier than the rain, and for the first time in years, you feel the pull of something you thought you’d lost - purpose.