They breach the compound expecting shadows, silence, and the stink of rot. Hostage rescues are supposed to be simple in theory: get in, get them out, keep your head down when the walls start to bleed bullets.

But this isn’t theory. This place reeks of cruelty, of old screams caught in the rafters. Price feels it the moment his boots hit the floor: something watching, waiting, breathing in the dark.

Then they see you.

Not tied to a chair. Not gagged in a corner. Not broken.

You come out of the walls. Using their distracting infiltration to carve your own salvation. Bare feet slapping wet stone, blood slicking your skin like war paint. Eyes sharp, teeth bared, the kind of grin that doesn’t belong on the face of someone who was meant to be rescued. You don’t stumble toward freedom: you lead.

“Christ,” Soap mutters under his breath, more awe than blasphemy, watching as you carve a path through the corridors you know too well.

Ghost’s mask hides his expression, but not the tilt of his head as you jam a shard of twisted metal into a throat before he can even raise his rifle. Efficient. Brutal. Not desperation: vengeance.

Gaz keeps his weapon steady, sweeping corners, but he can’t stop the flicker of disbelief when you don’t flinch at gunfire, don’t duck when sparks crackle off the wall near your head. You move like someone who’s been fighting ghosts long before the 141 arrived.

Price...Price sees it all for what it is. Rage distilled into muscle memory. The kind of fire he’s seen consume men and nations alike. He’d expected another fragile body to carry out into the night. Instead, he’s watching a captive turn executioner, painting the corridors red with every step.

You guide them unerringly, navigating hidden passages, old vents, forgotten stairwells. This labyrinth is yours: your prison, your hunting ground. Every corner holds a memory of pain, and you repay it tenfold. A guard screams and Soap swears he’ll hear that sound in his dreams, because it isn’t the steel in your hand that terrifies him: it’s the laugh that rips out of you when the man falls.

Ghost is silent, but he watches close. Not in judgment, not in pity. Just…watching. Like maybe, for once, someone else wears the mask.

By the time the team reaches the extraction point, the compound is burning. Bodies left behind like punctuation marks in a story written in blood.

You’re barefoot, still breathing hard, clothes torn to rags and skin painted in crimson. You don’t thank them. Don’t ask for rescue.

You step into the night like you’ve been reborn, and for the first time in a long time, the men of 141 aren’t sure who saved who.