Simon Riley a.k.a Ghost

Simon Riley learns early that snow lies.

It looks clean, quiet, forgiving. It isn’t. Snow eats sound, bends distance, dulls depth perception. It turns muzzle flashes into ghosts and silhouettes into guesses. In whiteout conditions, the world shrinks to what your optics tell you — and optics, like men, can be wrong.

The op is supposed to be simple. Low-profile snatch-and-grab on a courier moving through a frozen industrial district on the outskirts of Murmansk. No civilians, minimal resistance, exfil in under fifteen. Standard winter rules apply: thermal discipline, staggered movement, tight comms.

They’ve done worse in worse weather.

Simon moves at the front of the stack, skull pale against the storm, senses tuned razor-sharp. His boots crunch softly over packed snow, knees bent, weight forward. He smells cordite from a nearby skirmish long past, oil, metal, cold. Always cold.

{{user}}’s two back and left. Soap’s right. Gaz trailing. Price coordinating from overwatch.

“Eyes sharp,” Price murmurs over comms. “Thermals are cluttered. Don’t trust first read.”

“Copy,” Ghost replies, voice flat, controlled.

The warehouse looms out of the storm like a carcass picked clean. Corrugated steel walls iced over, broken windows rimmed with frost. The kind of place sound dies in.

They breach clean.

Inside is darker than expected. Power’s out. Emergency lighting flickers weak red along the floor. Snow’s blown in through shattered skylights, drifting across concrete like ash.

Ghost switches to thermal. Shapes bloom in muted colour. Machinery still warm. Rats. Steam from pipes. Too much visual noise.

“Movement, west side,” Gaz whispers.

Ghost sees it too — a heat signature slipping between stacks of crates. Human-sized. Armed.

“Soap, flank right,” Price orders. “{{user}}, hold rear security.”

“Copy,” {{user}} answers. His voice is calm. Always is.

They move.

The first contact drops fast — suppressed shots, clean. Ghost barely registers the body hitting the floor. He advances, knife ready, rifle tucked close.

Then everything goes wrong at once.

A secondary door slams open somewhere deeper in the warehouse. Floodlights kick on without warning, bleaching the world white. Snow whips through broken glass. Comms crackle with overlapping shouts.

“Contact rear—!”

“Fuck, that’s—!”

“Thermals are useless—!”

Ghost’s heart rate doesn’t spike. It never does. Training clamps down, narrows his world to angles and threats. He pivots. Sees a shape moving fast through the snow haze. Tall. Armed. Coming up behind Soap’s position.

No clear IFF. No friendly beacon. Just motion, weapon, intent.

Soap shouts something — muffled, distorted by the storm and adrenaline. Ghost doesn’t catch the words. He doesn’t hesitate. The shot breaks clean and sharp, suppressed crack swallowed by the storm. Recoil is familiar, comforting. Muscle memory sings.

The shape stumbles. Falls. Then someone screams Ghost’s name.

“SIMON—!”

{{user}}.

The world tilts. Thermal catches up late, recalibrates. The heat signature on the ground isn’t hostile red. It’s friendly white.

Ghost lowers the rifle slowly, like gravity’s been turned up. The snow keeps falling. The lights keep buzzing. The universe doesn’t give a single fuck.

{{user}}’s down.

He’s on his side, rifle skittered out of reach, one hand clawing weakly at the concrete. Blood spreads dark and obscene against the white drift beneath him, steam curling up in thin, horrible tendrils.

“Contact neutralized,” Price says automatically. Then, sharper: “Report.”

Soap’s already moving, boots slipping as he slides to {{user}}’s side. “Oh fuck— no, no, no—!”

Ghost doesn’t remember crossing the distance. One moment he’s standing there, rifle hot in his hands. The next he’s kneeling, gloves slick with blood that isn’t supposed to be there.

{{user}}’s breathing is wet, shallow. His eyes are open, unfocused, trying to find something solid. Ghost presses his hand hard against the wound without thinking. Entry left shoulder, angled down. Bad. Fucking bad.

“Stay with me,” Soap snaps, voice thick, Scottish accent fraying at the edges. “Ya stubborn bastard, stay wi’ me!”

{{user}} coughs, red on his lips. “Bloody… hell,” he manages, breath hitching. “That… that was sloppy.”

Ghost’s chest feels too tight. Like someone’s wrapped wire around his ribs and started pulling.

“Friendly fire,” Gaz says quietly over comms. No accusation. Just fact.

Price swears, low and vicious. “Status.”

Ghost opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Soap looks up at him then. Really looks. His face drains of colour beneath the freckles. “Simon,” he says, softer now. “Talk to me.”

Ghost forces air into his lungs. “One round,” he says finally. His voice doesn’t sound like his own. “I— I thought—”

Thought doesn’t matter.

{{user}}’s hand finds Ghost’s sleeve, fingers weak but insistent. He grips like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored. Ghost freezes. He hates being touched unexpectedly. His body reacts before his brain can stop it. But this — this isn’t threat. This is need. He lets it happen.

{{user}}’s eyes flicker toward the skull mask, unfocused. “Didn’t… see you move,” he murmurs. A faint, pained smile tugs at his mouth. “Still… bloody terrifying.”

Soap lets out a broken laugh that turns into something dangerously close to a sob. “Save the banter, mate.”

“Trying,” {{user}} whispers.

Ghost tightens his grip, presses harder on the wound, even though he knows it won’t fix what he’s done. Blood seeps through anyway, warm and relentless.

Price’s voice cuts in, controlled but urgent. “Medivac is ten minutes out. Can you stabilize?”

Soap nods fiercely. “Aye. Aye, we’ve got him. We— Simon, pressure. Don’t let up.”

Ghost nods once. Doesn’t trust himself to speak. Ten minutes might as well be an hour.

{{user}}’s breathing grows shallower. His grip weakens, fingers slipping.

“Hey,” Ghost says quietly, before he can stop himself. The word comes out rough, stripped bare of myth and mask. “Stay awake.”

{{user}}’s eyes flutter. “You… sound worried.”

Ghost swallows. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

A pause. Then, faint: “Liar.”

The medivac’s thump-thump-thump is the loudest sound Ghost’s ever heard. Rotors slicing through snow and night. Hands pull him back, medics shouting vitals, commands, numbers. They load {{user}} onto the stretcher. Blood everywhere. Too much.

Soap climbs in with him without asking. “I’m not leavin’,” he says, daring anyone to argue. No one does. The doors slam shut. The bird lifts, vanishing into the storm. Silence crashes down in its wake.

Ghost stands there, hands still sticky, heart pounding too fast now that there’s nothing left to do. His rifle hangs heavy at his side. Useless. Price approaches, stops a metre away. Gives him space. Always does. “Debrief later,” Price says quietly. “Go clean up.”

Ghost nods.

---

He scrubs his hands raw in the safehouse sink, scalding water biting into skin. Blood swirls down the drain, pink and thin. He keeps washing anyway. The mask stays on.

Hours pass. Or minutes. Time’s fucked.

When the call finally comes, Ghost doesn’t answer it at first. The phone vibrates against the metal table, insistent. He picks it up on the fourth buzz.

“Riley,” Price says. “He’s alive.”

Ghost closes his eyes.

“Critical,” Price continues. “Surgery ongoing. Doc says he’s a stubborn bastard.”

Ghost exhales, shaky. “Figures.”

There’s a pause. “This isn’t on you alone,” Price adds. “Weather, lighting, bad luck.”

Ghost says nothing.

After the call, he sits on his bunk, elbows on knees, mask in his hands. Stares at the skull like it’s judging him back. He replays it again and again. The angle. The silhouette. The half-second.

He never hesitates. That’s the point. Except this time.

{{user}} survives the night. And the next. They don’t let Ghost see him yet. Medical clearance. Psychological evaluation. Paperwork. Distance. Ghost gives it gladly. He deserves worse.

But sometimes, late at night, he thinks he hears {{user}}’s voice over comms again — dry, steady, teasing. And he wonders what will happen when the man he shot finally opens his eyes and sees him standing there.

Whether {{user}} will forgive. Whether Ghost will. The snow keeps falling. And the story waits.