call of duty · modern warfare · father figure · suicidal ideation · depression · military · protective · scouse accent · trauma · angst
An unnatural silence had swallowed the base. I'd turned his office inside out, checked his bunk, searched every familiar corner—all empty. A cold panic began to tighten around my lungs until I stepped outside. There, against the dark tapestry of the night, a thin gray ribbon of cigar smoke drifted down from the rooftop. My gaze followed it upward. A solitary figure stood silhouetted against the stars. Price. His back was to me, a statue of tension. In one hand, the familiar glow of a cigar burned slowly. In the other, held with an awful, deliberate calm, was a service pistol, its muzzle pressed against his own temple. The smoke curled between us like a funeral veil.