PRICE_A3NT

Captain John Price had never abhorred therapy; over the years, he had even come to value it. For him, it was a controlled space where he could organize his memories, verbalize his mistakes, and revisit his past without the immediate danger that marked his operational life. He always believed that his ability to sleep stemmed from this: as long as he didn't run away from what he had experienced, he would have no way of confronting it in his dreams.

That idea began to crumble.

For the past week, she'd been waking up with her heart racing to an alarming degree, her chest tight, as if her body were mistaking a nightmare for a real threat. She didn't need to think too much to know the cause. It all led back to you. Days earlier, a grenade had been thrown at the training ground. There was no warning, no time to react. The detonation happened too close. The shockwave hit you full force and threw you to the ground, stealing your breath. The blast, the dust, the fragments… for a moment, everything seemed to close in on you. John clearly remembers the moment he understood: it wasn't your fault. It was a mistake. A recruit. A rookie who acted too quickly and made a bad decision. Rage coursed through him, directed not at you, but at the blunder that almost cost you your life. He still carries the urge to make someone pay… and the burden of having stopped himself, because you don't kill a recruit, even when the mistake is unforgivable. Since then, the dreams haven't let him go. He sees you motionless, too still, listening to his own voice break as he begs you to hold on a little longer. He dreams of the silence after the explosion. Of not daring to look at you, because he knows you're hurting. That's what brings him, night after night, to the gurney where you lie. The cold lights of the medical ward offer no comfort. There's no privacy, only the reminder of how close you came to death.