OK PEOPLE PLEASE! REVIEW! I need help to get this story moving quickly and to get it looking good. Otherwise IT'S LIKE I'M DRIVING THE WORLD'S SLOWEST TRAIN WRECK EVER! So review PLEASE! Anything you love or hate tell me please.

So I looked at the "death" scene over and over (It's awful, don't do it) to try and locate where the bullet went through on Ghost. It looks like there should be two when he rolls into the pit. But since we only heard Shepherd fire once, I recon what looks like another gunshot is just blood spread over his clothes (like it is on his mask).

Had a bit of writer's block this week and am trying to find out how the story is going to turn out. If all goes to plan two main characters WILL die! MUAHAHAHAHA! Any ideas or input would be fantastic! Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 3: Balaclava

I stared at Ghost's masked face in shock. My heart raced as I dug my shaking fingers frantically into his neck, trying to find some faint sign, any sign, of life. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I felt it. A faint pulse brushed lightly under my fingertips.

I laughed into the frigid air, giddiness rushing through me like a drug, making my head spin. I stared at the sky, a silly grin spread over my face as I sighed in relief. I turned back to Ghost who lay beside me, alive. But my grin vanished as soon as I laid my eyes on his chest. Blood was soaking his warm, white clothes crimson, gradually spreading, escaping his body.

I yanked out my combat knife and sliced at my jacket. 4 rolls of the warm material fell off. Carefully I unclipped his vest and began to roll up his clothes, exposing his chest to the cold air. Powerful abdominal muscles decorated his belly, each showing up in sharp relief against his skin. One large crescent shaped scar shone in the fading sunlight. It was raised slightly, a reminder of his terrible past. I cringed internally at the memories he had shared with me about how he had obtained it. Burns crept up his arms and over his torso. But it was nothing too serious. His mask was lightly singed too. We had escaped from the fire with very little to show for it. I was eternally grateful for Shepherd's stupidity and that the clothes we wore were relatively fireproof.

Carefully I peeled the material away from the wound. It had an exit wound which just missed his spine. Blood oozed out slowly causing my stomach convulse, sending a wave of agony through my tummy. I needed to work quickly.

I rolled up two of the strips of material and pushed one roughly over the bleeding hole in the front of his chest, suppressing the bleeding considerably. I took the other two strips and knotted them together at the end, making a crude bandage. I kept pressure on the rolled cloth as I tried to wrap the bandage over his chest and the rolled fabric. I rolled him over and placed the other piece of rolled fabric on the exit, wrapping the bandage the whole way round his chest. I tied the bandage tightly to hold the suppressors in place and proceeded to roll his shirt back down. The vests we wore were tight fitting to make them suitable for stealth missions. With the added material, the vest would have no trouble in pressurizing the wounds. I rolled Ghost onto his back, head lolling slightly, and began to clip the vest back up. It sure was a tight fit. I could hardly get the clips to meet. I wasn't too worried about compressing his chest to the point of suffocation. I knew it would take a helluva lot of pressure to choke someone to death with a vest. Corsets women wore were tighter than this.

I stared at his masked face. Blood was smeared over his balaclava giving it a gruesome look. I knew I had to take off the mask so he could get as much air as he needed because of the vest, which hindered his breathing. But it seemed wrong to unmask him. I had seen his face many times before. His reasons for keeping his face hidden were known only to Captain MacTavish and me. I sighed heavily as I reached out slowly with my hand, gently removing his orange sunglasses. They dropped to the soil with a dull thump. Hooking a finger under the base of the balaclava I removed the mask.

Ghost was usually a good-looking bloke, but right now he looked like a bedraggled hobo. His jawbones were covered by several days growth of whiskers. His dark hair, which extended just past the base of his skull, was matted with sweat. Dark lines of sleep deprivation and stress gave him a haggard look.

As I watched him I felt exhaustion crawl up my spine, draining me of the little energy I had. Fatigue swallowed me up, wrestling me to the ground. I felt the adrenalin leak from my body and the familiar pain in my belly returned. I had been so damned focused on Ghost I had almost forgotten my own injury. Although you may think it's dumb that you could forget you're hurt as badly as I was, you must never underestimate the power of adrenalin.

My blistered fingers fumbled with the clips on my own vest, hearing a slight click as it came undone. I winced as I rolled up my clothes and felt the cold bite into my skin. I glanced down at the wound. It was probably worse than Ghost's if not for the location of the shot. Blood rushed over my skin leaving it warm. I groaned and focused my attention at the sky, swallowing back another wave of nausea. The mortar shell that had blown up next to me, however, seemed to have left no serious injury at all. A few light grazes and cuts. I had heard of being shell shocked before but I had never expected it to be that debilitating. Once again I pulled out my combat knife, slicing off three more pieces of material. I rolled one up and jammed it into the wound. The bleeding was staunched immediately. The pain however, rushed through me in waves setting my entire body on fire. I grit my teeth and fought the impulse to scream, closing my eyes so tightly that my facial muscles cramped. Tears of pain began to form behind my closed eyelids as I tried to even out my irregular breathing patterns.

After what seemed forever, the pain began to ebb away into a gentle throb. I carefully began to tie the remaining two pieces of material together making another crude bandage. I wrapped the material around my front and tightly. I pushed down what remained of my warm clothes, which wasn't much, and clipped up my vest. The pain didn't return as strongly as it had the first time but the vest did the job. I couldn't feel the blood creeping over my skin anymore.

I exhaled carefully as I laid my head down on the hard ground, staring up at the tops of the large pine trees. What were we going to do now? We were fugitives being hunted down by those who had once been our allies. My thoughts turned to Shepherd. Why would he have done that? What could have possibly possessed him to turn his gun on his own Task Force? It made no sense. And what about MacTavish? And Captain Price? Were they ok? Were they alive? I was sure that they could get out of Afghanistan without getting hurt. They were the best. But then again, Ghost had also been one of the best. And here he was, lying unconscious next to me in a forest with a gunshot through his chest, fighting for his life.

I sighed and rubbed my head, wincing as the injury flared up again. I honestly didn't want to think about anything right now. I was well aware of how much I wanted to sleep. My eyelids refused to stay open. But I knew I couldn't fall asleep. Fear of returning Russians kept me alert. But how could I possibly even hope to protect Ghost if they came down here and found us. I could hardly scratch my head let alone fire a high-powered weapon.

I could attempt to contact the rest of the 141. If they were still alive…

NO. They had to be alive, I thought firmly to myself. They couldn't all be dead.

I reached down to my vest again, opening up one of the larger pockets at the bottom. The sound of tearing Velcro echoed through the woods. My fingers closed over a cold plastic object and I yanked. It was our back up radio, used incase our primary radio communication bottomed out. I had only used it once before when I had a lucky miss with a bullet. Unfortunately my radio transmitter hadn't been so lucky. Most of my team believed I was dead until I managed to contact them on the secondary radio. That had been when I was christened with my nickname, Roach. Virtually un-killable. How true that seemed right now.

I flicked the rubber switch to on, creating a loud, familiar crackling static, causing me to immediately turn down the volume. I twisted the small dial at the top. The radio hummed quietly in my hand as I sped through the radio frequencies, getting closer to the channel that was being used by Captain MacTavish and Captain Price. Soon I'd find out if they had survived Shepherd's betrayal. My heart skipped a beat at the idea. Please let me hear one of their voices, I thought desperately.

"-this is a one way trip mate". Captain Price's voice rang through the radio. My heart skipped a beat. Instinctively my muscles tightened. Pain once again raced though my body. I grit my teeth and clamped my eyes shut. I needed to let him know I was alive.

"Then good luck my friend" replied a familiar Russian voice. It was Nikolai. He had pretty much acted as the 141's pilot, helping us get in and out of tricky situations where no other air support was given. He gave a final sigh over the radio before it fell silent. The pain in my abdomen subsided and I raised the radio to my mouth.

"This is Roach. Does anyone copy?"

The radio quietly hummed with static in my hand as I waited for a response. None came.

"This is Roach. Does anyone copy?" I said desperately into the radio. I released the transmission button. Again, the radio hummed. Frustration boiled in my stomach. Someone must have heard me! I could hear them a second ago.

"This is Roach. If anyone reads me come in!" I yelled into the radio, distress ringing in my voice. FOR GODS SAKE

"THIS IS ROACH! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME ANSWER ME!" I screamed into the radio, anger at the hopelessness of the situation rushing through me. Once again the radio's static was the only reply I got.

I shouted in fury, the sound echoing through the woods as the circumstances of the situation crashed against my conscious. I knew I should stay calm and quiet, but despair clawed up my chest. I was stuck in the middle of Russian territory without any means of communication and no way of moving to get help. My best friend was getting closer and closer to dying by the second and on top of that Shadow Company was hunting my team down.

I stared at the sky again, fighting the tears of defeat that formed in my eyes. We were going to die right here and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. The radio buzzed with static in my hand. I sighed and moved to turn the radio off.

OHHHH Suspenseful. Will Roach be able to make contact with the 141? Will Ghost survive being shot in the chest? This chapter was originally supposed to be WAY longer than it is. But then 2 pages turned into 3. Then 4. Then 5. Quick issue I noticed in the pervious chapter. I will change the time of day it is set in cause time zones make no sense right now (cause Price and Soap get Shepherd towards the end of the day in Afghanistan which would be mid afternoon at the Russian-Georgian border where Ghost and Roach are). ANYWAY! PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW! Will try update soon. I'm thinking about having Ghost come back to consciousness soon. Can't have him sleep for most of the story can we.

IMPORTANT: Roach is NOT GAY. Just making sure that is completely clear. Sorry if descriptions of Ghost sounded a bit bad. All I'm trying to get across is that Ghost is a pretty good-looking guy, not that Roach has any romantic feelings for him.