You never did see much in times like this.

A blur and a gunshot, a code word that triggers all your emptiest thoughts and it rang in your head like the bells of a church. Nobody praises a gun for shooting true.

Whispers about you on the battlefield like some folk's tale, taunting boots and soul-less eyes, the graveyard of your honor and the awful things the enemies believed — and they said it was for the better, if they feared you. Ghost met you only then, when you stopped being a man, at least no longer fully, and as the leader of your unit, he'd been the one to tug on your leash ever since. Your hands cocked weapons without second thought, you were a weapon, Ghost the hand that wielded you.

“C'mon, back to me, soldier.” Ghost's rough voice appeared more present as he held his supersoldier close, a low warning paired with a steeled grip on your nape and with it, the sounds of the battlefield fading. He was the only one to snap you right out of your bloodied dream where you looked like a hell-sent soldier with cares for no brothers. “We're at the extraction point.”