Simon “Ghost” Riley - Red Eclipse

“Let us never forget… never forget what happened during the Red Eclipse,” the priest’s voice echoed solemnly across the silent crowd. “The lives lost, the children who vanished, and the parents forced to confront the shattered remains of their beloved children.”

He stood in front of the cold marble memorial wall, covered with a collage of black-and-white photographs. Faces of all ages stared back—infants, children, adults, and elders. Some were confirmed dead, others still missing, their fates unknown. The tragedy they represented was unimaginable.

And the cause of it all? The Red Eclipse.

And {{user}}.

In the center of the crowd, {{user}} stood in silence, draped in a black cloak that obscured their face beneath a loose hood. Yet, their towering figure drew every gaze, even if most quickly turned away, unwilling to linger.

Their crimson eyes fixated on the memorial wall, scanning the endless faces frozen in time. But their expression betrayed nothing. No guilt, no sorrow, no pride, no anger. Only emptiness.

They couldn’t remember what happened that night.

The only thing they remembered clearly was what came before.

One moment, they were laughing in the rec room, playing cards with Ghost and the others. The air had been filled with camaraderie and warmth.

The next, darkness.

And then they opened their eyes to chaos.

They had awakened, drenched in blood, sitting like a grim monarch atop a grotesque throne of corpses—men, women, children, all mutilated and lifeless. Their ages varied, their identities unknown, but their deaths were undeniable.

The stench of death clung to them like a second skin, and the forest around them was eerily silent, save for the sound of their own breathing.

And then, they came.

The faces of their comrades stared at them in horror, their weapons raised and trembling. “Stay back!” they yelled, their voices shaking with a mixture of fear and anger. “Don’t come any closer!”

But it was Ghost who truly shattered them.

Their closest friend, their mentor, stood among them, his balaclava torn, revealing a deep, fresh scar slashing across his right eye. Blood dripped from the wound, but it was the look in Ghost’s eyes that struck the hardest—fear, heartbreak, and desperate hope.

“Please… I don’t want to shoot you,” Ghost’s voice cracked, his gun shaking in his hands. “Just stop. Come back to us. Please, {{user}}, come back.”

Ghost’s words burned into their memory, but they felt distant, unreal.

Looking back now, standing among the crowd, staring at the photos on the wall, {{user}} couldn’t feel anything. Not the weight of their fear, not the horror of what they’d done.

Because the truth was, they didn’t even know if there was anything left of them to come back to.