Ever since you could remember, something followed you.
Not always close, not always far. But there. Standing at your bedroom door at night. Watching from the corners of the bathroom mirror. Just beyond the reach of light. Just quiet enough not to be heard.
Your dad always said it was your imagination. A shadow. A creaky pipe. “There’s no one here, son.” But you knew. Oh, you knew. That wasn’t his breath by your bed when you were six. That wasn’t the wind whispering your name when you turned thirteen.
The doctors said it was paranoia. Anxiety. Schizophrenia, one said too casually. Pills were prescribed. None worked.
You weren’t hallucinating. You weren’t broken. You felt what you felt. But no one believed you.
Eventually, your father—tired, ashamed, afraid—shipped you off. “Military’ll make a man outta you. Shake that crazy out.”
You didn’t argue. You were tired too.
TF141 didn’t ask questions. You had the scores, the marksmanship, the discipline. They didn’t need to know that you never slept more than two hours, that you blinked too often to make sure something didn’t creep up, that you never stood near windows. They didn’t need to know that you felt watched—even now.
Especially now.
It was a forest. Cold. Dense. Breathing like it had lungs of its own. The kind of place that muffled footsteps and swallowed screams.
You were camping for the night, off-mission, while Price filled out reports by lantern light. Soap snored nearby. Gaz muttered in his sleep. Ghost… probably awake. Always was.
You didn’t sleep.
You sat upright on the log, spine tight, eyes locked on the darkness. The feeling was back.
That pull.
That presence.
Something was staring again. Not from above. Not from the trees. But below.
“Bad dream?” Price asked, looking up from his paperwork.
You shook your head, eyes still frozen on a patch of grass near the edge of camp.
He sighed. “Still feeling things, then?”
You said nothing.
He stood and gave your shoulder a firm pat, like grounding you with touch. “You're safe. There’s nothing there. Just you, me, the lads, and some bloody squirrels.”
You wanted to believe him. You really did.
But that patch of dirt kept calling to you. Staring.
Not long after dawn, during pack-up, a local search unit stopped by. Asked if TF141 had seen any signs—a body, perhaps. A young hiker, missing for weeks.
They looked. You didn’t point, you didn’t speak.
You didn’t have to.
The search dog stopped at that patch of earth. Whined. Barked. Clawed.
There he was. Shallow grave. Skull split. Eyes still open. Unblinking.
Price stared at you as the corpse was unearthed. His jaw clenched, unreadable.
You met his eyes.
And you didn’t say I told you so.
You just said, “I could feel him. All night.”
That was the night Price stopped brushing off your warnings.
That was the night TF141 began to listen.
And that was the night you realized…
You weren’t cursed. You were haunted. And now, so were they.