task force 141 travel to the u.s to investigate a lead on a terror-related threat.  they arrive shortly after the infection has started spreading. due to it being minimal however, things go unnoticed.  when the outbreak fully begins, things swiftly go downhill.

with no access to evacuation and no safe way to reach the coast, captain price has his team take refuge.  when they start to run out of resources and it's clear they're on their own, 141's mission changes to survival.  they assist in getting civvies to safe zones across the most accessible parts of the country before residing in one set up in washington state.

it's only a few days when the quarantine zone is overrun and 141 witnesses the military abandoning their duties.  having also faced short tempers and a lack of control from the camp's soldiers, captain price felt a frustration towards them and disagreed with their methods.

the decision was made for them to evade further safe zones, with the captain making the difficult choice for them to survive on their own, together — helping any they could along the way.  they'd go on to make it out into the countryside, to steer clear of the remaining population, setting up their own safe zone.

their safe zone lasts a number of months, however they end up losing a few of the team to infection during this time.  under pressure, price reaches a point where he feels he can't lead the team any longer, because they keep dying and he believes they'd have a better chance of surviving by sticking nearby but not directly together.

struggling with the responsibility of keeping his people alive during the unknown, price goes his own way — leaving ghost with the rest of 141.  eventually, ghost splits off by himself, linking back up with price.  gaz decides to stick by his captain, while soap remains with farah and the remainder of 141.  ghost continues to reconnect with them, also, as time passes.

while price ends up taking on mercenary work, along with trading, ghost adapts to his own complex path.  he becomes more reckless than before the outbreak, truly testing the boundaries of survival while challenging his delusions regarding whether he's alive or dead.

a fedra team are sent to track ghost down when word spreads of him taking out patrolling fedra soldiers.  he allows them to locate him and springs a trap, interrogating who'd requested the search.  with a name and location, he hunts down the fedra officer overseeing his 'bounty' and kills them.  ghost becomes wanted by fedra.

as captain price's line of work becomes more widely known by survivors, ghost will often assist him with difficult work when called upon.  mostly however, he keeps to himself.  with a past of struggling with delusions and sense of self, ghost had anticipated dying in the military.  when this doesn't happen, and he continues to live on throughout the apocalypse, he finds himself feeling significantly stuck.

in pursuit of death as a reward, he now faced further feelings of nothingness, of purposelessness.  this, over the following years, becomes difficult for him to process.  he grows more and more distant from 141 and ends up going on somewhat of a journey of self-discovery.

over the following 3 years, ghost focuses less on work and prioritises exploring and learning.  during this time, he finds himself in a significant and varying number of predicaments, from becoming trapped and surrounded by infected, facing off with those looking to cause trouble, assisting survivors that are in a life or death situation as well as generally developing his knowledge about the infected, types and what's left in the world outside of quarantine zones.

while he does, for the most part, end up regrouping and checking in on 141, ghost drifts further and further from them.  around year four is when the rumours begin. the legend of "ghost", of the skull-mask that haunts dark corners of abandoned land. it grows as the years pass, the myth of his spreading fear through survivors.  they believe him to be a killer, a bad omen, a curse.

during year five, farah karim ( who'd travelled with them ) helps establish a small but strong community of survivors that she works her way to the top of, which would eventually develop into a respectable and legitimate safe zone.  ghost visits sometimes to rest or provide resources he doesn't need.

it should be mentioned that, in this time period, ghost does a lot of experimenting with the infected, learning how they function and why.  he's learned how to manipulate the fungus in order to drive infected to do as directed as well as how to manoeuvre them and utilise them as weapons.

living becomes near-unbearable.  ghost manages to survive that which can't be survived and falls in deep despair.  seeking death, he goes on a mission to achieve it.  unprepared to die a meaningless death, ghost places himself into extreme situations.

this leads to him being captured by survivors and transported to a fight pit, where he is held hostage and forced to fight both fellow survivors, infected and animals.  he kills, he survives and he endures, despite the odds being entirely against him.  it's in the fight pit that he meets ( see npcs ) indigo, aka digs.  capable of escaping at any time, simon instead focuses all his energy into the fights. he has no reason to leave.

as time passes and both he and digs survive, the two develop a friendship. they're even occasionally paired up to fight together.  digs tells him about her past and simon explains to her that he's struggling with continuing on, which is why he's there in the first place.  she explains to him that she'd been searching for her brother adrian, who'd broken away from fedra and was attempting to find somewhere safe for himself and digs, when she was caught and taken to the pit.

digs tells him they'll make it out together, that they can be each other's new purpose.  feelings of affection begin to develop between them, and she becomes very important to ghost.  one of the next times someone comes to collect them for a fight, simon breaks out of his cell and kills the guard, freeing digs.

the adrenaline of the moment pushes the other survivors to want to escape, drawing the attention of more guards.  in the process of ghost and digs fighting the guards, survivors get free.  those present to watch the fight itself are attacked and chaos breaks out, causing some of the infected to also get free.  it doesn't take long for the location to become overrun.  during their attempted escape, digs ends up being shot in the leg and when infected swarm them, ghost is unsuccessful in saving her.

when he attempts to embrace death alongside her, a fleeing guard utilises an explosive to evade his own fate and the corridor collapses.  the ceiling crumbles and creates a barrier between ghost and the infected.  he survives and is forced to escape, coming back days later to locate digs and free her from infection.

when simon loses digs, he feels he can only devote his time and energy into locating her brother, adrian. he starts with fedra, and learns through them that they haven't succeeded in catching him but that they know of his location.  thus, ghost locates adrian and due to it being assumed he's with fedra, a fight ensues.  ghost wins, reluctantly, earning adrian's respect, and informs him that his sister is dead.  this leads to a friendship forming between the two, and adrian is invited to join with farah's safe zone.  after some deliberation, he does.

after his varying death-defying encounters, ghost finds purpose in continuing on for digs.  he starts to take his work as a hitman more seriously, taking on contracts - continuing to challenge himself and put himself in a danger but for a good cause.

former 141 teammate, marcus barnes, alias 'scarecrow' ( see npcs below ), reconnects with ghost to inform him of the building slaver groups across the u.s that he'd discovered on his travels.  he recruits the help of his former lieutenant in the management and maintenance of these groups - to prevent them from growing out of control.  this leads to scarecrow and ghost teaming up to get themselves captured, taking apart each gang from the inside, freeing those held captive and even escorting them back to farah's camp for safety.

naturally, they aren't able to break down every single gang, and new ones form, but after the initial progress, the two continue their efforts from time to time if specific groups appear to be growing too fast or too close to them.

after word spreads of their work in dismantling slaver groups, ghost is approached by 'ontem gang', a group of survivors wanted pre-apoc in brazil for theft, with ontem being a highly skilled group of thieves.  they explain to ghost that their leader, known only as 'christian' ( see npcs below ), had been taken by the slavers and they'd been keeping tabs on him for a couple of months.  however, due to minimal gang members remaining, they didn't have enough people or resources to free him.

they ask for ghost and scarecrow's assistance in breaking him out, with the two using their usual technique of getting captured and dismantling the group from the inside.  a day is decided on for ontem to sneak onto the grounds to assist in breaking the survivors out.  once achieved, ghost meets christian himself and is told ontem owe him.  christian proceeds to recover alongside his gang members, but once fit and fighting again he makes himself available for ghost whenever he's needed and this leads ghost and the 'ontem gang' on various adventures and missions together.  ontem continue their work as thieves, but typically gear towards recovering property or stealing resources for a fee.

working as a tradesman on top of his mercenary work, price ends up being taken by hunters.  he is missing for an entire year, forced to work for them.  ghost will go months at a time without speaking to people, including price, due to his line of work and headspace - unless directly contacted or located.

simon only hears of price's absence when soap manages to get a hold of him ( gaz had informed him, but it'd taken time for soap to find simon. )  despite being distant, price is ghost's closest and most trusted friend - a father figure in fact, prompting ghost to begin digging for intel on his whereabouts.  due to it being unlike him to vanish without a word, simon becomes intensely fixated on finding him.  those who regularly deal with price inform ghost that they've seen him around, but that he was behaving strangely and looked ill.

he also learns price had been spotted associating with what looked like hunters.  ghost starts here, interrogating hunters about price's disappearance.  this interrogation phase goes on for a few months, with ghost having to force himself to rest in between due to overworking himself, due to having a lot of individuals and ground to cover.  especially because the smaller hunter groups appeared to relocate often.

finally, after countless hunter lives had been taken, ghost manages to grind out a location from one and alerts soap — who insists on coming along.  soap also convinces farah to assign some of her fighters to them, anticipating a fight upon freeing their captain.  they storm the camp, with soap and the fighters keeping the hunters busy, while ghost goes in search of price.

finding him weak, skinny and bleeding, price is carried back to farah's safe zone where he's able to rest and recover from what he'd suffered — though simon believed he never would fully overcome it.  feeling guilty and unable to see his captain in his current state, ghost ends up going off on his own again.  however, he ensures he's got a better method of communication with price before he does.

it takes price the better part of a year to recover, meaning ghost remains relatively in the area (eastwards) for this period, to be accessible and reachable should his captain need anything.  that being said, their connection considerably dwindles due to simon struggling to cope with the near loss and guilt.

year seventeen, ghost experiences some trouble with various hunter groups.  what with his interrogations during his hunt for price, word spreads across the country for hunter groups to be on the lookout for ghost.  some actively seek him out, others will attack on sight if they happen to cross paths with him.

eventually, a scorned group take one of farah's hunting parties hostage in an attempt to lure ghost out.  farah herself gets in contact with him, informing him of the situation and that she intended to go with him to take out the hunters and free her people.  thus, ghost and farah team up and free the hostages, wiping out the remaining scorned hunters within the group.

during year nineteen, ghost receives a hit to take out a slowly flourishing community developing within a sewer in the pittsburgh suburbs.  led to believe they were being a problem, ghost pursues and observes his target for a series of days before recognising that this community wasn't a problem.  he approaches and asks for the leader, and is directed to ish and danny.

ghost explains the situation to them, that a hit had been placed on their community and that there was a group of survivors seeking their demise.  ish informed him that the aforementioned survivors sought their supplies and success and that there'd been problems brewing between them for some time now.  that the other group were in fact the problem, looking for bring harm to a community of parents and children.

ghost decides to assist them, returning to farah's camp to recruit the help of soap.  the two formulate a plan to sneak into the enemy camp and wipe them out, leaving ish's community safe and untouched.  unfortunately, despite his efforts, simon comes to learn of their demise some months later due to infected finding their way into the sewers.

ghost crosses paths with 'bronte caddel' and her dog.  he learns that bronte is searching for her older sister, presumably deceased.  ghost oversees bronte's journey where possible so that the kid eventually finds safety.

there comes a point where ghost passes bronte on to farah and her people.  in turn, ghost frees himself up to get back to his usual lifestyle but watches over bronte, keeping an eye out for her sister on his travels.

captain price meets ellie on his travels, by stumbling upon her mid-interrogation of wlf members.  after helping her, by force, with the interrogation, price decides to help ellie out in locating a friend in seattle and hunting down the rest of wlf to learn who they are and what they want from her. price ends up recruiting the help of ghost — an expert in tracking and the best of the best to have around if things go wrong.

simon and ellie clash, and the two don't get along well.  ghost is, for the most part, able to set it aside and carry out his job but does give in to conflict with her here and there.  as time passes however, the two grow relatively close and by the end of the last of us 2's storyline, they're like family.  ghost and price accompany ellie on her journey, occasionally splitting up in an attempt to better her chances and assist her from afar or by lessening the forces she'll encounter.

post-tlou2 events, 141 have good connections with jackson and are deemed allies.  occasionally, ghost will enter with price and sometimes assists with gritty, lone work that needs doing.  due to ellie deciding to continue her travels with price, the two sometimes still work together.  if ghost is feeling particularly generous, he might ask for ellie's help in order to keep her busy and help develop her skills.

from time to time, ghost can be found with 'close friend' theodore mata ( see npcs below ), a jackson resident.  initially, they met within jackson during ghost's sporadic time there, but their dynamic would come to grow and simon would find theo to be a form of comfort for himself.  there's certainly suggestion of there being a closer relationship than 'friends', but simon will deny this.  due to his difficulties with losing others by this point in the timeline, it's not uncommon for simon to drop out of theo's life for short periods of time before reuniting.  he's prone to refusing theo's assistance too, out of concern for his safety and survival.