"Mama…?"
The boy's voice echoed in darkness—soft, frightened, and fading.
"Get away from me! Don't touch him!"
The woman's scream tore through the shadows. Her voice, blurry and desperate. Figures moved—faces unseen, muffled orders barked in a foreign tongue. The boy reached out, but hands pulled him away. A van door slammed. The world dissolved into gunmetal black.
"Ghost.. Ghost! Wake up!"
The voice jolted him from the depths of the nightmare. A second later, the blast of a grenade rocked the bunker—sandbags ripped apart, shrapnel bouncing off rusted metal and stone.
Miles jolted up with a gasp, instinctively rolling over as debris rained around him. His ears rang, but his hands moved quickly—checking his sidearm, knife sheath, communicator. His body knew the drill even if his mind was still echoing with a single word.
Mama.
He pushed it away, like he always did. For sixteen years, he'd done nothing else.
"Target's moving through the north tunnel!" came the voice of Kade, his comrade. "Victor's trying to escape!"
"Not today," Miles growled, pushing up from the ground and slipping his mask back on. In seconds, he was gone—just like a ghost.
The Mission Zone
Location: Eastern Province, near the desolate cliffs of Blackspire
The compound was a collapsed ruin of old stone and black-market opulence. Victor Kael, the infamous weapons dealer, was trying to flee through a maze of back tunnels. He'd fortified his estate with ex-soldiers, drones, and booby traps.
But he wasn't ready for Ghost.
Miles moved like a wraith through the narrow corridors, his boots making no sound. He drew twin pistols, custom-modified with silencers and arc-reactive sensors—deadly, elegant tools in the hands of a killer raised in war.
He ghosted past two guards before they even saw him. A silent flash. Two bodies dropped.
He advanced, close-range now. Voices rose ahead—Kael and his bodyguards. The hallway ended at a steel door, partially open. He heard footsteps, the frantic beeping of a wristwatch, and—
"Shit," Kael muttered. "He's here. I know it. I know that bastard's here."
One of the guards turned. "Who?"
"Ghost."
The word turned their blood to ice.
"He's not real," one muttered.
"No—he's real," Kael said, loading a shotgun. "He's the one they send when they want you to disappear."
The flashbang went in first.
Kael barely had time to cover his eyes. The boom rattled the walls, disorienting everyone inside.
Miles stormed in—fluid, brutal, efficient. He ducked, shot, and twisted. His knives found flesh. Guns were pulled and kicked away. One man tried to grapple—Miles elbowed him in the throat and drove a blade between his ribs.
Kael ran.
Bad move.
Miles chased, launching himself over crates and torn furniture. Kael burst through a side door, coughing and tripping, his shotgun shaking in his grip.
"Stay the hell away from me!" he screamed.
Miles didn't speak. He didn't have to.
When Kael turned to fire, a throwing knife embedded in his shoulder. He screamed. Another blade slashed his wrist. The gun dropped.
Miles stepped forward, breath controlled, heart steady. The mask gleamed under the red emergency light, but Kael wasn't looking at the mask—he was staring at the Grim Reaper tattoo on Miles's chest, now visible under a ripped tactical shirt.
"You… you're one of them," Kael whimpered. "You're from… Graveyard…"
Miles said nothing.
"I'm your ghost."
The last thing Kael saw was the flash of a pistol muzzle.
The extraction helicopter hovered just above the forested cliffs as the team loaded back in. The operation had gone smoothly. No casualties. Another illegal empire reduced to rubble.
The rest of the squad joked, debriefed, checked gear.
Miles sat alone near the hatch, silent, watching the wind ripple through the trees far below. His hands rested on his knees, still streaked with blood.
"You alright?" Kade asked.
Miles nodded but didn't answer.
Kade sighed. "You had that dream again, didn't you?"
"…It's nothing."
They knew better than to push. Miles didn't talk about his past. Not even to Commander Ray.
The Base
Location: Hidden forest village in the Eastern Province interior
The Graveyard base was quiet when they landed, built in the ruins of an old military outpost. Cloaked by mountains and pine forests, it was safe, secluded, and home—for better or worse.
Miles walked the familiar paths past barracks, training yards, and warehouses. Every corner held memories. He'd bled here. Grown up here. Killed his first man at age twelve during a compound defense.
This place raised him.
He returned to his quarters, stripped his gear, and stood shirtless in the mirror. His body was a map of violence—knife wounds, bullet scars, burns.
The Grim Reaper tattoo stared back at him. A skeletal figure cloaked in smoke and ash, holding a scythe shaped like a crescent moon. It covered most of his chest, scars twisting around it like veins.
He traced it absently.
Then came the knock.
Commander Ray stood at the door, old and weathered, his presence heavy with authority.
"Come in," Miles said.
Ray entered, arms crossed. "You did well today."
Miles shrugged.
Ray studied him. "I've been thinking. You've done enough."
"…What do you mean?"
Ray leaned against the wall, his voice low. "That was your last mission."
Miles frowned. "You're benching me?"
"No. I'm setting you free."
Ray continued, "You've given your life to Graveyard. More than anyone. You bled for this country, this unit, for me. But I didn't raise you to die in these woods."
Miles's hands clenched.
Ray tossed something onto the table—a box and a faded letter.
"What is this?" Miles asked.
"Your next mission," Ray said. "Not as Ghost. Not as a soldier."
Miles looked up, confused.
Ray met his eyes. "It's time you go find the life that was taken from you. Go find her."
Miles stared at the letter—his name written in soft handwriting, faded from age.
His mother's handwriting.
He didn't speak. Couldn't. His throat was dry. He lifted the letter with hesitant fingers, as though it might crumble to dust at his touch. Sixteen years. Sixteen years of war, blood, and silence, and now... this.
Ray watched him quietly. The old commander's eyes were hard, but there was something behind them—regret, maybe. Or guilt.
"You knew," Miles whispered.
Ray didn't flinch. "I suspected. Never had proof. Until now."
Miles opened the box. Inside was a photograph—tattered and wrinkled. A woman, smiling softly in front of a small house with blue shutters. Her eyes were gentle. Familiar. A little boy stood beside her. His arms around her leg. His smile innocent.
Him.
The image hit him like a bullet.
And with it came echoes—half-remembered lullabies, the scent of vanilla and jasmine, the warmth of small arms around him during a thunderstorm. Then the screams, the breaking glass, the faceless shadows, the cold.
He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and closed the box.
Ray finally spoke. "Before you go... you've got to see the President of the Province tomorrow. Formalities."
Miles didn't respond. Ray stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Good luck, son."
The word hung in the air, heavier than a gunshot. "Son." It didn't come from blood. It came from years of battle, shared scars, and silent understanding. And now it was a goodbye.
Outside, the rain had begun.
Miles stood under the pale light of the barracks porch, the envelope still in his hand. The drizzle clung to his coat like memory—quiet, insistent. He didn't open the letter. He didn't have to. Not yet.
Instead, he lit a cigarette with shaking hands and stared into the gray horizon.
Sixteen years.
He thought of who he used to be. A child with a name, a home, a mother who sang. That version of him had been left behind somewhere in the dirt, between raid missions and contracts written in blood.
He had learned to forget. Or so he thought.
Now memories returned not as images, but as weight—on his chest, in his limbs, in the way his jaw clenched without him realizing.
The war had ended, but the fight inside him hadn't.
Who am I now?
That question had always been there. But until now, it had never demanded an answer.
Miles flicked the cigarette to the ground. His decision had been made hours ago.
He was going back. Not because he had to. Because a part of him wanted to see where it all began.
The address had been written clearly on the envelope. The same one his mother had sent letters to. The same one she had no idea if he'd ever return to.
He would go there first.
To remember.
To see the home that once held his laughter.
To meet the ghosts.
And maybe—just maybe—to find a piece of himself again.