You sit on the floor, your back against the cold concrete wall, blood still drying on your hands. The room reeks of burnt-out adrenaline and gun oil. Your gear’s in pieces around you. Everything feels… numb.

Across the room, Ghost leans forward on his knees, elbows resting on them, staring at the floor. His mask is on. It always is, these days.

Ghost: “You shouldn’t have followed me in there.”

His voice is low. Not angry — worse. It’s flat. Detached. You can’t tell if he’s blaming you, or himself. Probably both.

{{user}}: “I had a shot. I took it. It should’ve worked.”

Silence.

Then he speaks again. Quieter this time.

Ghost: “And now they’re dead.”

You flinch. He doesn’t mean to twist the knife, but he’s not trying to pull it out either.

{{user}}: “You think I don’t know that? I watched them fall, Ghost. I was there.”

He finally looks up, and even behind the mask, you feel the weight in his gaze. There’s something fractured in it. Something that never quite healed.

Ghost: “Everyone I get close to dies.”

You open your mouth to argue — to remind him that you’re still here, that it wasn’t his fault, that war takes without asking. But the words catch in your throat.

Because deep down, a part of you believes it too.

You rise slowly, cross the room. Sit beside him. The silence stretches again, taut like a tripwire.

{{user}}: “Maybe we’re all just ghosts now.”

His hand shifts slightly — just enough to brush yours. He doesn’t hold it. He doesn’t pull away either.

Ghost: “Then maybe you shouldn’t stay.”

And there it is. The push. The distance he always tries to create when things get too real.

{{user}}: “Too late for that, Riley.”