Author's Note: Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, happy (late) Halloween! As I already said, I originally posted this on my Metal Gear Amino (of the same name, if you're curious), but I thought it would do good here too. The major inspiration for this story came from the sci-fi short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison.
Anyway, enjoy.
Fifty long years. JD had won.
Out of all the dusty monitors surrounding him, only one was lit and working, the others reflecting the pearly light. The ground became a jungle of cables, thick rubber coiling around every rotting structure like a cobra ensnaring its prey. Placed right in front of the functioning monitor is the derelict throne, a simple office chair (though no longer able to swivel). In that throne sat the dubious king, Hal Emmerich.
If it weren't for the clicking of the computer keys, the silence might have pushed him to snap. Even with his glasses on, his vision was growing blurrier every day. He figured it was the lack of sunlight, vitamin A, and excessive screen time.
Hunched over, he endlessly danced with the AI, searching for a weak spot to pierce, a vulnerability to take it down once and for all, only for him to adapt and render the human's efforts pointless, laughing in his face all the way. It was a constant stalemate, a battle of endurance and tenacity more than anything.
Or maybe it was just plain stupidity.
Haaaaaaal…
He recoiled. That meant JD wanted to play.
"W-What do you want?"
You do realize that you're talking to nobody, right?
Those mind games. He'd heard everything that JD had to say, every cruel trick he played on him. But still, the sound of his crackling and cold mechanical voice chilled him to the bone.
You've survived this long; maybe you deserve something special.
Hal shuddered.
But I need time. I can't have you interfering.
He saw a spark before everything went black.
Hal clutched his bloodied pipe. His fingers were aching and stiff; he must have been holding it for days. The rest was cold as ice. He curled inward to his stained jacket, now too big for his near skeletal frame. Metallic-smelling ichor dried into a crust on his hands and sleeves.
His limbs trembled; now that he was commanded to be conscious, JD wouldn't let him rest. He'd make sure that most of his time was spent huddled in a corner from the horrors it produced, his psyche shaved down and carved like marble into a sadistic sculpture of their own making. His stomach twisted, and bile stung the back of his throat. The rations ran out a long time ago. Not that the AI would be so kind as to provide sustenance other than maggot infested meat or worms for him to find.
Streaks of pale moonlight suddenly flooded in through the boarded up windows of the Nomad. JD's promised taunt had arrived.
Hal pushed his greasy glasses up his face and flopped onto his abdomen. Pipe still in hand, he crawled toward the source of the light and hid under the window. He reached up and tapped it with his weapon; no response but the dull thud of wood against metal. Another tap, just to be sure. The same sound, but a bark followed.
He strained his ears. Another bark, deep and guttural. And it was getting closer.
He had to see what it was. On shaky knees, Hal rose up from his spot (a bit dizzy from fear and malnutrition) and peered out the slits between the boards. He saw nothing but glittering white.
A bark sounded off right next to him. Hal yelped from surprise when a Siberian husky eagerly tackled him to the ground.
His ribs ached from the impact. "W-What?" he coughed, rubbing his bruised chest. The canine looked innocent enough, covered in thick white fur and black markings with a white handkerchief tied around its neck. It wagged its tail and panted, eagerly staring at the human before it.
He wants to play with you, Hal. Can't you take a hint?
JD. What torment did he have planned now?
Hal reluctantly reached his hand out and placed it on the dog's head. Feeling no resistance, he dragged his hand down its back. The husky mewled in contentment. It placed a heavy paw on the man's chest, almost knocking him over again. He found himself giggling.
"You seem pretty happy to see me, huh…" He ruffled the dog's fur. It was as soft as it appeared to be. He scratched behind its ears, and it yawned.
Hal continued petting the dog until his hand made contact with the pristine white cloth. "What's this?"
He tugged at the knot around its neck. It squeaked and dashed away as soon as his fingers made contact. "What's wrong? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
In a serious and robotic manner, the dog remained silent and padded over to the boarded up window. It sat down in front of it, staring holes into Hal with cold blue eyes.
"Why are you standing…" His thought trailed off. A red flash of light as bright as the sun filtered in from the window. The light trained itself on the dog, who stayed as a sentinel.
A sickening feeling invaded Hal's insides. The light focused to a pinpoint, right on the back of the dog's head-
"Look out!" He dove in front of the canine. He wailed and bit back tears when a hot, shooting pain flew through his shoulder. A quick swipe of his palm left it stained with warm and sticky blood. A cackling laugh echoed all around him.
I knew you would take the fall for a poor, innocent dog!
JD. He tumbled to his hands and knees to spit out blood. The ground...the ground was pale now. Something cold was under his fingertips, and sparkled softly in the moonlight. The crystalline substance registered in his brain: snow.
His hands were already growing numb. He shoved them into his coat pockets and curled into his jacket further. A frigid gust blew in his face, and a chill raced through his body. He still saw the red light above, the northern star of this world.
As Hal paced forward, the beam dropped down. Another white hot pain seared his ankle. He cried out and fell down. Moaning in agony, he pushed himself up and continued.
You're persistent, aren't you? Too persistent. You're a nuisance who refuses to give up.
Hal lifted his injured ankle in front of him; his next step plunged it into a hill of snow. The area stung, and he struggled to pull it out.
I have something very special for you at the end of the snowfield.
You will regret this.
Dread overtook him, but he had no choice; he'd certainly die out here if he remained a sitting duck. Hal twisted his ailing ankle out of the snow and traipsed on. He ignored the invasive chill of the melted ice on his body (if anything, it served as an anesthetic to his wounds).
He had to keep going. He had to survive.
The light flickered out. A vortex of snow engulfed the scientist, snowflakes like daggers shredding his frail skin. He spat out more blood, and collapsed.
He could only muster the strength to turn himself upwards and face the sky. A gray and cloudy dome stretched out above, streaked by the billowing blizzard. His body left an imprint in the deep snow similar to an incomplete snow angel. An insulated bed molded to his physique, his eyes drifted shut….
"You cannot die just yet, Doctor."
A kick to his side snapped Hal out of his stupor. Standing over him was a familiar blonde woman, wearing a fine as white as the snow and holding a sniper rifle. Though his vision has grown bleary, her countenance was once of cruelty and malice.
"S-Sniper Wolf?" Hal choked out. He lifted himself to his elbows and backed away.
"I treated you with so much kindness, and this is how you repay me?" She tore off her robe. It flapped away in the wind, revealing her necrotized and festering abdominal wounds. Blood pooled under them, splotching her exposed skin deep maroon. Her veins spidered around her nude form, thin lines of blue cutting through red and white like branching rivers.
In his time at Shadow Moses, when Hal was most ensnared in her intimate marionette strings, he'd never dare even imagine her in such a vulnerable state. If his brain inevitably drifted to those cordoned off fantasies, they were shoved away elsewhere in his psyche. It felt wrong, a crossing of personal boundaries a grub like him had no business doing. Even with her revealing outfits, he saw her as too innocent for that.
The sight in front of him was mortifying. Her body had all of the attractiveness of a zombie, while her gait also took on that of the living dead.
"You let him do this to me." she growled. "You stood and watched as a mercenary took my life!"
Guilt crushed his limbs. He pathetically looked up at Sniper Wolf. "I...I-"
"You are a coward, Hal Emmerich!" she shouted over him. "I don't want to hear your excuses! You hide in the shadows of everyone else! You stand for nothing!"
"H-He had to!" Hal cried, burying his face in his hands. "He had to do it to save all of us!"
"Then I will return the favor." She stomped on his chest with her boot and pointed her gun directly at his head.
Give it up, Hal. You know she's right. It's the least you can do.
"Ah…!" Hal screwed his eyes shut against the blinding crimson. He deserved this, didn't he? He could give up this fight right now and know eternal peace. Finally get the rest he so desperately needed.
He'd been teased with that many times by JD.
No, death was too easy. Letting himself die would only prove his point. Hal thought of his former companion. Even when he was on the verge of mortality, he stepped up to the plate and charged into the fray head first. He never let anyone else decide fate for him. His future was his own making.
Hal had to do the same.
"No, I can't…" He tried to rise up under the heel of Sniper Wolf; she didn't stop him. "This isn't real," he whimpered, pushing himself up to his feet and protectively wrapping his arms around his torso. "I've learned. I'm sorry, but this won't bring you back."
He creaked open his eyes. She was gone.
You won't even take that? I guess I'll have to bring things closer to home…
A Codec call. The ringing blared in his ears, and the call took itself.
"Hal, why did you let me die?" A sickeningly wispy voice demanded.
"What?" The voice was hauntingly familiar.
"Figured you'd play dumb…" They sniffled. "I guess I always knew you didn't care about me."
He decided to take a shot. "E.E.? What are you talking about?"
"Do you remember when we used to play House?" The snow under Hal's feet faded away, revealing gray, dead grass. "I was the wife, and you were my husband."
The memory gripped his throat. "I went to my job as a scientist," he breathed. He uttered a stiff laugh to ease the tension. "I do remember."
She huffed. "If you remember it so fondly, then why did you make me leave? Why did you let me die?"
"E.E.," Hal began, panic creeping into his words. "There was nothing I could've done to prevent what happened…"
"Bullshit you couldn't have done anything!" Another voice whined.
"D-Dad?" Hal stumbled, and his feet squished the ground below. The grass wilted, and his shoes grew damp. The sky above him transformed into a milky gray, much like after a storm.
"First you kill me, and then your sister! What kind of son are you?" He sounded on the verge of tears.
"I trusted you!" Emma cried. "You were my whole world, and you ripped my heart out!"
Was the water rising? Did a thick fog drop down? It didn't matter; their words attacked him like a swarm of hornets.
They were approaching.
In the distance, he saw a short and wiry silhouette alongside a taller phantom. The other's face held perfectly circular glasses that granted his eyes an eerie luminescence.
"Come to us Hal," the girl croaked. "We just want to see you again."
You agree with them, don't you?
Hesitantly, he inched closer to his family. Up close, he could see the sickly pale tones their skin took on. Their eyes were rimmed a ghastly black, and their clothes were stained with slashes and craters of deep red scattered about.
"You look horrible," Huey said, emphasizing every word with a hiss. "Now you know how this feels."
"How it feels to never wake up." Emma finished. "You feel it too."
"I don't," Hal retorted. "I have something to fight for."
Something to fight for?
Huey and Emma's expressions turned wicked, their mouths twisted into the smiles of hyenas. Hal felt a jolt in his spine. His heart rate picked up.
"Look behind you," they said in unison.
In laborious steps, he creaked his body in the other direction. In front of him, nothing. One look down, a glimpse of a blue bandanna was enough to make him turn to the side and retch.
At his feet was the body of Solid Snake.
The corpse itself was immaculate; no maiming or disfigurement to be found. His silver hair perfectly reflected the current color of the sky. However, words were scrawled on the ground in blood, with a trail coming out of his abdomen, as if they had used the soldier as a ballpoint pen.
The words read: It's all your fault, Hal. You drove them all to it. Huey, Emma, Wolf. You're pathetic.
Hal couldn't cease his trembling. He once again fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. "No…" he squeaked.
Wait a minute; this had to be one of JD's tricks. His former companion would jump up and torment him somehow.
He touched Snake's shoulder. It felt cold and foreign, like a piece of meat at a supermarket. He poked him again; no response. He even shook his arm. The other didn't rise from the dead, or even stir a little bit.
All feeling voided his body. "No…" he repeated. More jabs led nowhere. Grief and breathlessness snaked in.
"Face it," Huey spat. "You failed."
"JD, you win."
Hal Emmerich sat in a simple wooden chair. An IV wound around his arm and found itself stabbed directly into his axillary vein. He gazed directly ahead of him, through the glass pane separating him and the rest of the bleak world, the wetness of his eyes illuminated by the light above.
"Hal Emmerich, you have been accused of treason against the United States of America. How do you plead?"
"I plead guilty."
A robotic snicker. "That is the highest of crimes, Mr. Emmerich. You will be sentenced to death by lethal injection."
His countenance remained unwavering. A click of a machine, and a clear liquid flower into his heart, biting at the muscle.
"Snake, I'm sorry."