Call of duty one shots

The first thing I remember is the cold. Not a biting, Arctic cold, but the kind that seeps into your bones, the kind that clings like a second skin. Then, the disorientation. One moment I was… well, I'm not exactly sure what I was. The next, I was staring at my hands – small, almost delicate hands, not the calloused, scarred things I was used to.

Used to? See, that's the weird part. I remember the weight of a rifle, the feel of the trigger, the crunch of gravel under combat boots. I remember missions, battles, the rush of adrenaline, the deafening roar of gunfire. I remember Ghost. But now, looking down at myself, I saw… a girl.

A girl with long, dark hair that cascaded down her back, eyes that were a startling, almost unnerving shade of grey, and a body that felt foreign, fragile, and incredibly, overwhelmingly soft. I was wearing some kind of… oversized t-shirt and shorts? Where was my balaclava? My tac vest?

Panic, thick and suffocating, threatened to engulf me. I scrambled to my feet, nearly tripping over my own unfamiliar appendages. Looking around, I was in a small, cluttered room – a teenager's bedroom, judging by the band posters and scattered clothes. A calendar on the wall confirmed it: October. I had a month. A month to figure this out, to understand how a hardened soldier became… this.

The initial few days were a blur of confusion and frustration. My muscle memory kept kicking in, making me move with a rigid, almost military precision that obviously didn't fit the context. Walking down the street felt like navigating a minefield. Smiling? Apparently, it's important. I attempted a few times, resulting in what I think could be described as a rictus of unease. Learning to "relax" my shoulders became a daily battle. I cringed at every little thing i did such as getting into the right sitting position or not walking in straight lines. It was all so foreign.

The girl whose room I'd apparently taken over, I soon discovered was called Sarah. She was… normal. A chatterbox, obsessed with pop music and social media. She had a group of friends who were equally baffling. They greeted me with wide smiles and overly enthusiastic "hellos," while at the same time looking at me with confusion. I could read doubt all over their faces.

My first attempt at a 'normal' conversation nearly ended in disaster. "Status report on the local ice cream establishment," I'd said to one of her friends, who stared at me blankly before awkwardly trying to change the topic. Another time, while at the local mall, my old habits almost got me arrested as I tried to 'secure the perimeter' by checking for hidden threats. Sarah had to pull me away and apologise repeatedly, the terror evident in her eyes.

I tried to mirror her, observing everything she did, trying to mimic the casualness with which she navigated her world. I watched her laugh with her friends, her body flowing with easy movements. I tried it myself, and it felt awkward, fake.

I began to understand the small things – the way people interacted, the unspoken rules, the importance of "feelings." I had spent so long suppressing my own that acknowledging them now was like trying to decipher a foreign language. I felt them as a physical discomfort; the soft undercurrent of sadness when Sarah confided in me about her bad day, the weird, almost bubbly sensation when she laughed at something I said.

I tried to find answers, searching the internet for anything that could explain this transformation. "Transdimensional transference," I typed into my browser, "ghosts becoming humans," "unexpected gender swaps". Nothing. I felt utterly lost. The internet, my old reliable resource for intel, was useless.

The month was a constant negotiation, a dance between the hardened soldier I had been and the confused girl I now was. I learned to use a phone, a skill that had been entirely alien to me. I learned to manage the long hair that constantly got in my eyes, and to understand the strange, fluctuating rhythms of my own body. I learned the delicate art of 'just hanging out,' and to fake a smile until it actually felt real.

I still dreamt of the battlefield sometimes. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, face slick with sweat, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. The memories were so visceral, so real, and the fact I was now so different, was terrifying.

The calendar on my wall, a constant reminder, slowly started to shed pages. The questions remained unanswered, but the panic was slowly subsiding, replaced by a strange mix of bewilderment and… maybe even a little acceptance. I was Ghost, or I had been. Now, I was something else, something new. And I had a month to figure out what that was. I still needed to learn the new battlefield, and this time there were no guns, just feelings and awkward teenage things. Maybe, just maybe, I'd survive this too.