The Ghost Amongst The Dead

Prologue

Ethan Hunt stirred, his body aching with a dull, unfamiliar fatigue. A grogginess clung to his senses like a lingering anesthetic. Blinking against the haze clouding his vision, he gradually found clarity—first in light, then in form, and finally, in recognition. He was seated behind the wheel of a car. Not just any car—his. The IMF-modified BMW M3 was intact, parked and silent. But something was wrong. He couldn't recall ever falling asleep here. In fact, the last thing he remembered was waiting in one of his secure safehouses, preparing for a mission that should have eventually came by now.

This alone was enough to put him on edge.

He glanced around. Outside the windows, tombstones dotted the landscape, their worn surfaces casting long shadows in the fading daylight. A cemetery. The place was quiet, unsettlingly so. He would never park in a location like this—not for a mission, not even in haste. Which meant only one thing: someone had moved him. But who? No one in the IMF, not even his enemies, would dump him in a graveyard. There was no tactical gain, no message to be sent. It defied any form of rational sense.

He opened the car door and stepped out, boots pressing into damp, uneven grass. The air was cool and still. Looking up, he saw the blue sky slightly tinged with amber and gray—sunset wasn't far off.

Instinctively, Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out his IMF smartphone, sleek and black, already active. He accessed the satellite uplink, hoping to get his bearings, maybe even a clue. The interface loaded normally—until it didn't. He frowned.

The list of available satellites didn't show the usual fleet. Instead, every accessible uplink belonged to decades-old systems, Cold War-era names he recognized only from debriefs and historical briefings. Corona. Hexagon. Rhyolite. Obsolete, decommissioned—yet active, here and now.

His eyes narrowed. With no better option, he linked to the nearest viable satellite.

The image resolved quickly: Evans City Cemetery, rural Pennsylvania. Accurate to the trees and gravestones around him. But what froze him wasn't the location. It was the timestamp—1977.

He stared at the data, trying to figure out if it was faulty. But the readout held steady. No drift. No anomaly. According to the satellite—and his phone—he wasn't just in Pennsylvania. He was in the past.

"This has to be a glitch," he muttered aloud, voice low and even. But doubt was already gnawing at the back of his mind. His phone, IMF issue, was designed to pierce black sites and spoof hardened networks. A glitch like this wasn't just unlikely—it was impossible.

Still, the answer wouldn't be in the satellite feed. It would be in the world itself.

Pocketing the phone, Ethan set his jaw. He needed to move. To find people. Roads. Evidence. Something—anything—that would confirm the impossible, or finally disprove it. If this really was 1977, he had a lot more to worry about than just who had moved him.

Then, out of nowhere, a blood-curdling scream suddenly tore through the silence, slicing clean into Ethan's nerves. It was unmistakably a woman — terrified and desperate. His instincts kicked in immediately. He took off in a sprint, zeroing in on the direction of the cry without hesitation.

He found her moments later: a barefooted redhead with short hair sprinting across the graveyard, panic written across her face. She wasn't just running — she was fleeing for her life. Chasing her was a man in tattered black formalwear, his stride uneven, uncoordinated. But it wasn't the clothes that stopped Ethan cold — it was the man's face. Sunken eyes, greyed skin, slack jaw... rotting. His shoulder bore a twisted piece of wire — a shard of some cemetery flower arrangement.

"Help me! Please, help me!" The woman screamed, stumbling into Ethan's path. He caught her reflexively, steadying her.

"Are you hurt?" He asked quickly, scanning her for wounds.

"No, but my brother—he's hurt! That man, he came out of nowhere and attacked us!" She hysterically grabbed the collar of his white shirt and sobbed.

Ethan shifted, putting himself between her and the approaching figure. The stranger was only twenty feet out and closing in fast.

"Sir!" Ethan barked, raising his voice, adopting a commanding posture. "I'm gonna need you to stop right there! I'm warning you."

No response. The figure didn't slow. It didn't speak but groaned and growled like an animal. And it just kept coming towards them with a threatening manner.

Ethan planted his feet and, without wasting another second, drove a brutal front kick square into the man's lower jaw. The impact sent him sprawling backwards with a sickening crack which should have ended the fight here and there. But the man — or whatever he was — slowly began to rise.

Ethan's eyes narrowed. The kick had shattered the attacker's jaw, leaving it hanging grotesquely from one side of his face. Bone jutted through flesh, and blood dripped down his neck. Still, the man didn't care about his injuries and only advanced forward with more ferocity.

"Final warning, sir." Ethan said, his hand slowly going for his gun. "Come any closer, and I'll be forced to use lethal force."

A guttural snarl was the only response he heard. Then the rotting man lunged again.

In a blink, Ethan drew his Sig Sauer P365 and fired, shooting the man straight in the chest. The gunfire echoed across the cemetery, making the woman behind him flinch. But the attacker didn't fall. He staggered, paused for a moment and then charges forward.

"What the hell?" Ethan muttered in shock and just as the man got too close for comfort, he quickly steadied his aim and performed a textbook Mozambique Drill — two to the chest, one to the head.

With that, the rotting man collapsed instantly, its body twitching once before going still for good.

"Is he... dead?" The woman asked in a trembling voice.

"He'd better be," Ethan muttered, lowering his weapon. "I broke his jaw and shot him four times. That should've dropped anyone."

"Okay," The woman breathed, her voice unsteady as she tried to collect herself. She shook her head, as if clearing the lingering panic, then pointed in the direction she had come from, "My brother... he's back there. He's hurt. Please, we have to help him."

"Lead the way." Ethan nodded with determination in his eyes.