The op was simple:

infiltrate, clear, extract.

At least, it was supposed to be. Somewhere in the chaos, intel failed. Someone missed the mark. A single detonation turned the world into fire and steel, ripping the building apart from the inside out.

You remember the blast like a dream you can’t shake—one second, shouting orders, the next, everything went white-hot and silent. The force threw you into a wall. You felt something heavy crack down across your legs, pinning you instantly. Concrete dust filled your lungs, choking you as you tried to scream. The first breath you drew burned like acid.

At first, you weren’t alone. The comms were alive with frantic voices. You heard your team shouting, boots scraping as they tried to dig you out. Someone yelled they were pulling back, regrouping to come back for you. You believed them.

For hours, you called out. Each time you heard a sound—a muffled shout, a distant gunshot—you thought it was rescue. But as the day dragged on, the sounds faded. Radios died. The only thing left was silence.

⸻

Day One

You screamed until your throat gave out. Cried until you tasted blood. Every breath stirred the dust around you, making your chest tighter. The slab pinning you was unmovable; every attempt to shift made pain bloom hot and sharp.

You told yourself they’d be back by nightfall. That someone, anyone, would come for you. When darkness fell and nothing changed, you repeated it again, like a prayer.

⸻

Day Two

The thirst was unbearable. Your lips cracked, your tongue felt like paper. Hunger gnawed, but thirst was worse—every thought consumed by it. You started to hallucinate—imagining boots crunching over rubble, faint voices calling your name. You begged for them to hear you.

No one did.

That’s when hope started to rot. A heavy dread settled in your chest, the kind that doesn’t leave even when you try to breathe it out. You realized you might not be found—not alive, anyway.

You started whispering to yourself just to remember you still had a voice. To fight the suffocating quiet. It sounded like someone else’s voice, weak and shaky, echoing back at you.

By the time night came, you weren’t sure you wanted morning to arrive.

⸻

Day Three

You didn’t wake up right away this time. You weren’t sure you’d fallen asleep. You just remember floating in that hazy space between life and death, where nothing hurt because nothing existed.

Then, through the fog, you heard it:

Bootsteps.

Real. Close.

Your heart stuttered painfully, unsure if it was another hallucination. But then there was a clatter of shifting debris, the groan of metal, the scrape of rebar being yanked free.

And then… a voice. Deep. Calm. Steady.

“Hold on… I’ve got you.”

Something heavy lifted. Light pierced the dark for the first time in three days, blinding and almost painful. The silhouette of a man cut through it—a massive figure in tattered tactical gear, a skull mask streaked with dirt and blood.

Ghost.

He dropped to his knees the second he saw you. Gloved hands brushed debris off your face with surprising gentleness, cupping the side of your neck to feel for a pulse. When he found it, his shoulders dropped, just slightly.