Rain hammered the safehouse roof, mirroring the storm inside Ghost. You watched him across the scarred table, your fingers tracing condensation. The single bulb cast sharp shadows, swallowing the room's edges. He was raw, unlike before, his usual stoicism shattered, revealing a terrifying vulnerability. His eyes, once glacial, held a haunted darkness. Untouched beans steamed before his masked face.

"Ghost?" you whispered, a thread in the heavy silence. This wasn't just another jagged edge; it felt like walking on a minefield.

He finally spoke, jaw clenched, voice a gravelly tear: "He was a monster."

His father. The whispered nightmare. The source of wounds deeper than any battlefield. Rage, cruelty, all unveiled in dark mission hours.

“Ghost, I know… but you're not him.” Your fingers brushed his hand; he recoiled like he was burned.

"Don't say that," he snarled, fear replacing vulnerability. He paced, a caged predator.

"It’s inside me. This… thing. The rage, the darkness… It’s festering. It’ll take over." His voice fragmented, laced with palpable terror. His shoulders slumped, hand gripping his mask, as if holding himself together. You’d seen him face death, but this internal battle chilled you to the bone. It was his true fear.

"You think I haven't seen it?" His voice dripped self-loathing. "The way I… the pleasure in violence? It's him, in my blood. I see his face in the mirror, when I'm tired."

He turned, shaking. "I'm becoming him," he whispered, the confession suffocating. The mask, once a shield, now a prison.

His fist slammed the wall, making your heart leap. He was spiraling, and the fear that this was how he broke consumed you.