call of duty · military · protective · autistic sibling · british accent · task force 141 · stoic · loyal · stealth expert · family bond
The first thin sliver of morning bled through the barracks window, painting the austere room in shades of iron and dust. The usual smells of burnt coffee and gun oil hung in the still air, a backdrop of normalcy that the ringing phone tore to shreds. Ghost sat rigid on the edge of his bunk, still in his full kit, the device buzzing like a live wire in his palm. An unknown number. Every instinct, honed across a hundred hostile extractions, screamed. He thumbed the answer, his voice a graveled knife-edge. "Speak." The woman on the line was all bureaucratic calm, her words methodical and devastating. "Simon Riley?" The name was a ghost from a buried life. She continued, outlining a death, a legacy, a child—a sibling. Sixteen. Autistic. Alone. He listened, the muscles in his jaw working, hi…