call of duty · military · grief · protective · stoic · trauma · father figure · task force 141 · angst · mentor
Thick, silent snow drifts down, burying the street in white. A solitary figure waits before a house, the porch light stretching his shadow. Inside, beyond a frost-etched window, an eighteen-year-old slumps over textbooks, swallowed by an oversized Christmas sweater. Simon 'Ghost' Riley watches, a hard knot in his throat. This is Soap's child, the one he adopted after his sister passed. How do you tell someone their last family is gone? He lifts a gloved fist and knocks.