" Forgotten "

Day 1 - 11:28:08

CSgt Gareth 'Gaz' Riley (KIA)

22nd SAS Regiment

Soviet Internment Facility, Siberia

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…I will fear no evil

Colour Sergeant Gareth Riley no longer felt anything anymore…no self pity for his tortured existence.

No hope for freedom longer remained in his head, hours spent lying broken on the cold floor of his cell after torture sessions had killed those thoughts.

No pain for his wounds and broken body, as he had grown used to this hell he was cast in.

They had even taken away his anger, his rage which had for the longest time been the only barrier between the angels of death that constantly circled him.

The only thing that still flowed freely from his body was his blood…of that there was no shortage.

His last memories of the outside world were among his worst.

Lying broken and battered on a bridge his friends dying around him, as he struggled to get to his feet.

Hearing the shots but not really believing them as the yank marine Griggs fired his last shot before getting killed by Imran Zakhaev's thugs.

Then watching the footsteps approach him…looking up into the face of evil itself as Zakhaev turned his pistol on him and blew the backside of his head out onto the cracked asphalt below.

Obviously he had not done a good enough job as Gaz had lived, though he wished he would have died there on that godforsaken bridge.

He was blind in his left eye and scar tissue covered the left side of his face and head, the bullet had also knocked a small chunk out of his left frontal lobe before passing out of the left backside of his head.

Meaning Gaz had struggle with the dexterity of his right hand and arm, and his food, though he rarely got any tasted a many different array of flavors than they really were.

Not always a bad thing considering the shit they served, it was nice to taste Mac N Cheese instead of boiled cabbage soup with bugs in it.

The Loyalist's patched him up with outdated medical equipment and forced some retired Neurologist to try to fix his brain damage, but to no avail.

It was no bother, for the hours he had sat in his cell while not unconscious, trying keep up movement of his right arm, and hand gaining still diminished yet greater dexterity.

But as the untrustworthy bastards the Loyalist's were, they sold him to some Russian organization located in Serbia, and here he was.

Gaz lifted his head as the sound of footsteps passed by the iron door of his cell.

They paused speaking in Russian then continued a few feet over to the cell next to his.

The door screeched open and the frantic shuffle of feet as they struggled to detain the convict in the other cell.

"Nein Nein!" screams from the prisoner echoed as he was dragged away.

Gaz slumped down again and returned to his thoughts.

As far as he could tell he was in some old world war two science facility that the Russians used to torture and experiment on captured Nazi soldiers and other unfortunate victims to fall foot in this hell.

But besides the vicious instruments of pain, and the beatings he received, his tormenters asking questions he didn't know the answer too and everything else that went on in this place seemed pointless.

It had been a day three hours and twenty seven minutes since his last session.

In all this hell he had still retained the ability of time, his greatest ally and foe, for every day he was reminded of his everlasting detainment.

It had been four years since last walked a free man.

Now he spent time wishing for death that would never come…at least not soon enough.

Gaz tried to get comfortable on the freezing floor that numbed his bones, he would be lying if he said they didn't break him.

Multiple times, he begged for them to stop, bled, screamed, and cried as they cut, beat, and burned the flesh on his bones.

Pride…what pride, they beat the shit outta him till he pissed himself and was left writhing on the floor of his cell, tears long since dried up.

As his vision wavered and the tell tale signs of sleep sprung forward Gaz wondered if Price and Soap survived…and if anyone even remembered Gareth Riley.

He let blissful sleep take him away from his own personnel hell…and into another.

Gaz steps out of the taxi wearing his royal army uniform. Now complete with a special air service beret and patch.

Trying to straighten out his uniform as he walks up the steps…about to open the door when he notices his fathers truck parked halfway up into the yard.

Screams echo from inside the house, his mothers…then a deeper voice, his dads.

He opens the door to see his father choking out his brother in the kitchen while his mom lay bleeding on the floor.

Running to stop him he grabs his father and throws him to the ground.

Everything is quiet except for his brother gasping for air and his mother whimpering.

His father looks up at him his eyes are bloodshot…drunk again..

"If it isn't my other worthless son" his father says slurring his words.

"Get out" Gaz motions to the door.

"Ill get out of my house when I damn well please" His father struggles to his feet and tries to throw a drunken punch at him.

Dodging it easily he ignores the urge to break his femur with a well placed kick and instead grabs him and throws him out the door.

His brother, breath restored starts kicking him on the ground.

"Easy Simon" Gaz grabs his brother and pulls him back inside leaving his father sputtering on the sidewalk.

Shutting the door he walks over and helps his mom up "You okay mum"

"Fine honey fine" She gets up trying to conceal a black eye.

"You go see your brothers Ill put the kettle on"

Walking up the stairs to his brothers room he opens the door to see it in its usual clean arrangement, with the only thing not neat his brother holding a t shirt to a bleeding nose.

"Hey Gareth" his brother stood up to greet him.

Three years younger than him his brother Simon Riley looked surprisingly similar to Gareth.

When they were younger he sounded surprisingly enough like Gareth and even intercepted the phone calls from his girlfriend, and usually managed to get five minutes in before Gareth caught him and had to beat the snot out of him.

"Hey Simon how you doing?" he sat down on his bed

"Well between getting in fights at school and dad coming home and beating the shit out of mom every other night…great how about you bro" Simon tossed the t shirt into a wastebasket.

"Where's Tommy" He asks

"Probably doing some drugs with the crack heads down the lot"

"When did this start?" Gaz asks

"When didn't it…you've been gone quiet a long time, living my dream to I see" Simon gestures to the special air service patch on his shoulder.

"You'll get your chance Simon" Gaz pats him on the back

"Yeah maybe I wont, I cant think of leaving mum here to get the shit kicked out of her by that animal" his brother wrings his hands.

"You have to think about yourself"

"Like you did…leaving us to fend for ourselves"

"Simon its not like that"

His brother hangs his head "sorry, I'm just a little stressed"

"I'm gonna go check on mum okay?" He goes for the door.

"Hey Gaz" his brother says using his old childhood nickname

"Yeah"

"Wake up"

Gaz turns "what did you say?"

"Just wake up"

Gaz opens his eyes to the cold dark of his cell, tears fell from his face as he struggled to wipe them away with his right arm.

Footsteps pass his cell and return the prisoner they took earlier to his cell, his sobs echo out into the compound.

And for the first time in his miserable existence Gareth 'Gaz' Riley, Colour Sergeant of the Special Air Service of the Royal Army realizes that he is truly "Forgotten".

Authors Note - I have been reading the stories from this website for a while, finding most quite interesting and the authors artfully talented, and have finally worked up the "nerve" I guess you might say to create a membership and put myself and my thoughts an idea's out there.

Being an avid game head, I can slightly embarrassingly say I have spent more than a few days inside following the fictional life's of others when I should have been doing something rather productive. So I figured COD was the perfect place to start my first work in progress.

Noticing the community obsession with McTavish, Price, Roach, and most notably Simon 'Ghost' Riley I planned on incorporating all of them into my first FanFic. However that sounded incredibly normal and bland compared to the incredibly creative works that populate the COD Story forum.

After Spending another beautiful sunny day inside wondering what to write and playing Modern Warfare One, I realized that most of the population had forgotten a great character…Gaz. Who as a rather large group of COD followers believed that Gaz was really Ghost. When actually he was just voiced by the same voice actor Craig Fairbrass.

So I have tried here to blend realism in with miracles as I try to tie Gaz in with Ghost's history due to their similarities. I have tweaked a bit of their histories to suit the purpose of the story. Hope that doesn't ruffle your feathers too much. It might have a slow beginning but please don't let that stop you from reading as I try to bring a "Ghost" back from the dead.

And if you have read this far…hello and greetings to all of you great authors, I hope to read more of your works soon. Hope I don't come off as to optimistic and jolly for the lot of you.

- Anticleides