The fracture did not calm after the Dominion retreated.
It *listened*.
Ghost felt it in the silence—the way the red sky dimmed but did not heal, the way the ground beneath his boots pulsed faintly, like a slowed heartbeat. Whatever he had awakened when he broke the Archon, it had not gone back to sleep.
Rook crouched near the basin's edge, one knee down, visor flickering as fractured data scrolled across it.
"They pulled back fast," Rook said. "Too fast. Dominion doesn't retreat unless it's buying time."
Ghost checked his rifle. The barrel still smoked faintly, but the weapon hummed with a strange resonance now, like it remembered the shot that killed the Archon.
"How much time?" Ghost asked.
Rook hesitated.
"Not much."
The answer sat heavy between them.
Ghost scanned the horizon. The red fog had thinned, revealing distant shapes—ruined structures half-sunk into black stone, like cities fossilized mid-collapse. Towers leaned at impossible angles, their silhouettes wrong, stretched as if reality itself had tried to flee them.
"Where are we?" Ghost asked.
Rook stood, joints clicking. "You already know."
Ghost frowned. "No. I don't."
Rook looked at him then—really looked at him.
"This is a fracture-layer built on memory," Rook said quietly. "Not yours alone. *Ours.*"
The ground trembled again, subtle but undeniable.
Ghost's jaw tightened. "You're saying this place—"
"—is built from unresolved outcomes," Rook finished. "Moments that never closed properly. Deaths that didn't land where they were supposed to."
Ghost's grip tightened on his rifle.
"The fire," he said.
Rook didn't answer.
They moved.
The ruins loomed closer as they crossed broken ground, the air growing heavier with each step. Sounds echoed where none should—boots on concrete, distant shouts, radio chatter distorted and stretched.
Then Ghost heard his name.
Not shouted.
*Spoken.*
"Simon…"
He stopped dead.
Rook turned sharply. "Don't."
Ghost ignored him.
The voice came again—closer now.
"Simon, check your sector."
Ghost's breath caught.
That voice didn't belong here.
That voice belonged to—
A figure stepped out from behind a collapsed wall.
Worn tactical gear.
Faded unit patch.
Helmet tucked under one arm.
Face intact.
Unburned.
Unchanged.
"—Hesh," Ghost whispered.
Lieutenant Hesh Carter smiled faintly, just like he used to when things went sideways but weren't lost yet.
"You're late," Hesh said. "We've been holding perimeter."
Ghost's vision blurred.
He knew this wasn't real.
He *knew*.
And still his feet moved.
Rook grabbed his arm, hard. "Ghost. Look at the edges."
Ghost forced himself to look past Hesh—past the illusion.
The world around the figure warped subtly, like heat haze. The ground beneath his boots didn't cast a shadow. The air around him didn't move.
Hesh tilted his head.
"You seeing it now?" he asked gently.
Ghost yanked his arm free from Rook's grip.
"You're dead," Ghost said flatly.
Hesh shrugged. "So are you. Just took longer."
The ruins around them stirred.
More figures emerged.
Familiar ones.
His old unit.
Men who died screaming in smoke and fire now stood whole, watching him with eyes that were too still.
Rook stepped back, blade lowering slightly.
"Echoes," he muttered. "But not passive ones."
Hesh stepped closer.
"You left us," Hesh said. No anger. Just fact. "You heard the calls. You knew we were still inside."
Ghost's chest tightened painfully.
"I tried to go back."
"You tried," another voice echoed—Sergeant Mills, standing atop a broken slab. "That's what you tell yourself."
The ground pulsed.
The fracture *fed* on the exchange.
Ghost forced his breathing steady. "You're not them."
Hesh smiled sadly. "We're what's left."
Suddenly the ruins shifted.
Walls snapped inward.
Pathways sealed.
The sky darkened to a deeper crimson.
The echoes drew weapons—not rifles, but fractured versions of them, warped and glowing faintly red.
Rook cursed. "They're stabilizing into combat forms."
Ghost raised his rifle. "Then they're targets."
Hesh's expression hardened.
"So be it."
They attacked.
The echoes moved like soldiers—tight formations, overlapping fields of fire. Ghost dropped into motion instantly, instincts screaming, shots cracking through the air. His rounds tore through one echo's chest—
—and it *kept moving*.
Rook slashed through another, blade passing clean through its neck, only for the body to stitch itself back together mid-fall.
"Not physical," Rook shouted. "You're fighting the *memory*, not the body!"
Ghost ducked behind cover as red fire scorched the stone above him.
"Suggestions?"
Rook snarled. "Stop reacting like a survivor."
Ghost glanced at him. "Meaning?"
"Stop trying to save them," Rook said. "End them."
The words hit harder than any round.
Ghost popped up from cover, firing deliberately now—not at center mass, not at limbs—but at the space *around* the echoes. Each shot landed with intent, rejecting the shape they tried to hold.
One echo screamed as its form unraveled, dissolving into red mist.
Hesh staggered.
"Simon—wait—"
Ghost stepped forward, rifle steady.
"I carry you," Ghost said through clenched teeth. "Every day."
He fired.
Hesh froze—then shattered, dissolving into light and ash.
The remaining echoes screamed—not in rage, but in *release*.
One by one, they unraveled, the ruins around them collapsing inward as the fracture lost its anchors.
Silence fell again.
This time, it felt earned.
Ghost lowered his weapon slowly.
Rook exhaled shakily. "You just did what the Dominion can't."
Ghost didn't look at him. "What's that?"
"You closed a wound instead of weaponizing it."
The sky above them shifted, red fading slightly, cracks sealing like scars.
But far away—*very* far away—something noticed.
Ghost felt it.
A presence vast and cold, adjusting its attention.
Dominion wasn't done.
This was just the recalibration phase.
Rook sheathed his blade. "We need to move. Before the Watchers decide you're worth intervening personally."
Ghost turned toward the darkened horizon.
"Let them watch."
The fracture answered with a distant, low thunder.
And somewhere beyond the red sky, the Dominion marked Simon Riley for total erasure.