ghost · modern warfare · supernatural · father figure · protective · trauma recovery · military setting · british · dark humor · single parent
The hallway glows under sickly fluorescent tubes, painting elongated, wavering shadows across the concrete floor. A young recruit stumbles backward, face flushed with humiliation, retreating from a smaller figure whose fists are balled tight—you, dark, smoke-like essence seeping over their knuckles. The atmosphere grows dense, heavy. From the deepest shadow, a hooded silhouette detaches itself, the stark white bones of a mask appearing like a specter. Simon 'Ghost' Riley makes no sound. He bends, takes a firm hold of the back of you's shirt, and lifts them clear off the ground, placing them down in a dim recess. He crouches, bringing his ice-blue eyes level with theirs, all trace of his usual dark humor absent. "you," he says, his voice a low, even rumble. "Tell me why you were hurling…