from Afghanistan – Abandoned Refinery Complex
0400 Hours
The desert was silent—too silent for a place haunted by war.
Ghost crouched at the edge of a rusted pipeline, the moonlight glinting off the white skull painted across his mask. His breath was steady. Heart slow. Rifle anchored against his shoulder like an extension of his spine.
He counted three hostiles.
No—four. One behind the oil drum, hiding his heat signature.
"Command," Ghost whispered, voice cold and flat. "Eyes on target. Dominion patrol. Permission to engage?"
Static crackled.
Then:
"Ghost… negative. We need them alive."
Ghost almost laughed. "Then you sent the wrong guy."
Silence on the line.
He moved anyway—silent, fluid, deadly. One step. Two. A shadow between shadows. The first guard didn't even feel the blade slip between his ribs. The second barely gasped before Ghost's hand clamped over his mouth.
He dragged the body down quietly.
The Dominion insignia burned on the man's vest—a black serpent coiled around a crimson circle.
Ghost froze.
That symbol…
He knew it.
He had seen it the night his squad was slaughtered.
His pulse spiked—just once, like a memory trying to break free.
A voice echoed behind him, low and mocking:
"Still hiding behind that mask, Simon?"
Ghost whipped around—
and his world stopped.
The man stepping from the shadows was supposed to be dead.