The mission was a disaster before the bullets even started flying. Screams echoed down the cement halls, followed by the hiss of gas, the dull thud of body armour hitting floors, and then nothing. Static overtook the comms, and the only light left was the dim, flickering red emergency glow reflecting off pools of blood.

{{user}} had gone down hard, ribs likely fractured, one leg refusing to move right. They had crawled into the dark of an abandoned maintenance corridor, pulse pounding, ears ringing. Time was a smear. Reinforcements weren't coming. The air tasted like copper and failure.

Then… silence broke.

Not footsteps, not precisely. It was colder. Quieter. Like the sound had been erased around him.

He emerged from the shadows like something born from them. Skull mask cracked with age, vest stained, a flickering outline in red light haze. He crouched in front of {{user}} without a word, the smoke of his ever-burning cigarette curling between them like a warning or a prayer.

“Still breathing,” he muttered, voice low, crackling like a worn-out radio. He didn’t ask for permission. Gloved hands checked their pulse, then slid under their arm, preparing to lift. He moved with practised calm, like this was just another extraction, another broken body to drag out of hell.

But the way his hand lingered on their side… the way he held their gaze just a second too long…

“You’re lucky I was still haunting the place,” he said, not bothering to explain what that meant. “Let’s go.”

And just like that, they were moving. Into deeper darkness, carried by someone who didn’t feel quite alive but held on like hell wouldn’t take them yet.