Simon "Ghost" Riley | The Realities of War.

Ghost is scared. He always is on missions like this. He’s lost contact with the rest of the lads; his gear is soaked through and heavier than feels possible. Wet webbing drags at his shoulders, plates shifting with every movement, straps biting into his traps until they ache like they’re being pulled taut, a rubber band ready to snap under just a bit more strain.

He can’t see anything, not with the rain and mud caked into his eyes. He has to rely on what he can hear and feel. Incoming fire cracks overhead; sharp, fast. Small arms. Close. Too close. Then a deeper thud rolls through the ground, pressure punching his chest as a drone strike hits somewhere nearby. Mud splatters the back of his helmet, the trench wall giving way as wet earth collapses around his legs.

It’s fine. It’s only his legs.

His lungs burn as he forces slow, controlled breaths through clenched teeth. Panic wastes oxygen. Wiggle left leg, drag forward. Right leg. Drag. His rifle bangs uselessly against his chest as the mud sucks him back down, boots filling, every movement taking twice the effort it should.

The rain is coming down harder now. Thailand during monsoon season is no joke. These aren’t proper trenches, just hastily dug fighting positions and earthworks that were never meant to hold against this much water. They’re flooding fast. Twigs, grit, and spent casings grind inside his water-filled gloves, the constant abrasion scraping his skin raw. He can feel warmth that isn’t rain; blood mixing with the filth. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a moment to clean it. If not, infection will set in. Field joke says sepsis doesn’t wait.

Rounds punch into the dirt inches above his head, sending sprays of mud into his face. He doesn’t freeze. Freezing gets you killed. He tells himself it’s suppressive fire, stray shots. They don’t see him yet. If they did, he’d already be dead.

The water reaches his chin. Sharp sticks and debris prod at his throat as the level creeps higher, buoying his kit until it tries to force him onto his back. He’s going to be flushed out soon, whether he likes it or not.

This is exactly the kind of moment they trained him for, don’t let your mind wander. Stay present. Stay alive. And yet, it slips anyway. Something stupid and intrusive. He thinks of the dark romance novels Cap used to read when he ran out of his usual books. Price had once passed one around the lads, laughing at the pages; some absurd 6'7" Delta Force operator with thirty years of service who walked away with nothing but a gravelly voice and a single bullet scar to brag about.

Ghost almost snorts at the thought, then pays for it with a spike of pain as he shifts wrong.

These days, every bad movement sends something sharp and electric through him. Half his body is scar tissue, nerve endings severed or misfiring. In moments like this, soaked and shaking, he can’t tell which pain is old and which is new.

He jerks his head above the water, biting back a cough. Sound discipline matters, even now. Muddy, trembling fingers fumble at his mask, finally ripping it free and tossing it into the rushing water. It’s useless, just funneling water into his mouth at this point. No point hiding who he is if he drowns here.

His hands barely cooperate as he scrubs at his eyes, blinking through the grime. Vision comes back in fragments. Roots. A small hollow beneath them where the torrent has washed away the packed dirt. He forces himself toward it, shoulders wedging painfully as he shoves under the roots, plates scraping bark. It hurts, but it holds. Temporary cover.

He’s shaking hard now, muscles misfiring, fingers numb. Not full hypothermia yet, but it’s coming. His feet throb inside his boots, skin macerated and splitting. He’s had trench foot before, this is worse. He can already feel layers threatening to peel away.

Everything from his belly button down is submerged, arse and bits soaked in foul, stagnant water. More gunfire hammers down, dirt splashing into the trench. Before he can listen for movement, something heavy slumps beside him. A body.

A kid. Thai, maybe sixteen, hard to tell with half his face gone. One eye stares sightlessly upward. Ghost doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. His heart hammers so loud it feels like it should give him away as the water laps against exposed bone, carrying away pieces of what used to be a face.

His vision tunnels, edges darkening. Part of the fear is knowing that could have been him if he’d been slower by a second. The rest of it is something training never quite touches, staring at what’s left inside a child’s skull.

He tilts his head back and tries to breathe. Instant regret.

The smell hits him all at once now that he’s still, wet, loamy earth, rain, cordite. Blood. Rot. Bloated bodies drifting somewhere through the flooded earthworks. Gunpowder clinging to everything. His own unwashed skin, sour and sharp inside his nose.

It’s fine. It has to be. He tells himself he’ll link back up with the lads. They’ll extract. They’ll go home. He’ll get a pint, maybe two, and joke about how shit the weather was. He’s been lucky so far.

He’ll get lucky again. He’s Simon “Ghost” Riley. He always makes it.