DISCLAIMER:

No character introduced in The Legend of Snake is my own. Each and every personality introduced is a reinterpretation of the character templates provided in videogames released in the United States of America prior to January 14th, 2009. All of these characters remain publicly recognizable, despite liberties taken in adapting them to unique circumstances in an alternate universe.

Listing the origins of every character would be excessive, but characters and settings are the property of their original owners and stem from the products of the following companies: Activision Blizzard, Atari, Atlus, Bethesda Softworks, BioWare, Bungie Studios, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Konami, Level-5, LucasArts, Namco Bandai, Naughty Dog, Nintendo, Rockstar, SEGA, Sony Computer Entertainment, Square Enix, Take Two Interactive, Tecmo Koei, Ubisoft, and Valve Corporation.

The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: Prologue

January 14th, 2009

The sweet scent of nicotine entered my mouth and, for a moment, I savored the raw flavor of death. Smoking is a divine habit, its merit measured not in the obscure risks of cancer but in the raspy rapture accompanying every breath. I had no reason to worry for the sake of my blackened lungs. I was gifted with the knowledge that it would not be the cause of my inevitable demise.

Every man would eventually die. Yet few men truly lived. Most were content to accept the rules propagated by a system beyond their immediate control. Most men lived in fear, locked with their loved ones in the comfort of their homes, never risking for a mere moment the simple pleasures of mindless existence. Few men understood just how the system had dominated and manipulated them, how arcane regulations and oppressive interests had burned heaving holes through their hearts, and how the fortunate few had deceived their minds into a callow acceptance of false realities. Most men marched through life without eyes to witness the pain and suffering that threatened to engulf them. So long as they escaped to the pictures painted by a deceptive media, and so long as those in power were lifted to a pantheon of demigods, dissent would quickly be labeled unconscionable.

So the sheep did as they commanded. They were oblivious to the vice and corruption.

I somewhat envied them.

It was a frigid January evening, and I was fighting for yet another lost cause. Otacon always used to tell me that we were the vanguards of the human conscience, the last sliver of hope, the last possibility for change. He always spoke in such lofty language. To Otacon, the world was wounded by the digressions of a few warped individuals, men of tyranny like Link, who somehow managed to deceive a well-intentioned populace. I was not like Otacon. To me, the world was filled with Links, and Clouds, and Sephiroths. The Colonel was one of them. So was Naomi. I trusted them with my life. They left me to rot in an aging, decrepit body that would not last another five years. My hair was already turning gray, and my body was perpetually aching.

This was a mixed blessing. I was growing sick and tired of this world.

Yet I still fought. Sometimes, as in that precise moment in January, I found myself wondering why. I suspect it was because somewhere, in the vast stretches of Termina's unyielding sprawl, an honest family was struggling in the slums of Termina, just trying to make ends meet. Somewhere in the void of consciousness, a single man's eyes were open, and the city of vices had revealed its rotting, decrepit soul to him. Somewhere out there, a single mother was working two shifts, only to have seen most of her wages drained by a system that punished the impoverished and rewarded the wealthy. Somewhere out there, a young girl, pure and innocent and blissfully unaware of the ramifications of decaying civilization, just wanted to grow a pretty garden.

I had never been a hero. Those cherished few, those last remnants of sanity in a world gone mad, the men and women who would never wield a gun or steal from the homeless or even smoke a cigarette. They were the heroes. History would not record them as such, but they were the beacons of freedom. They were the people I'd fight for. They were the ones I'd die for.

History had always foolishly attempted to define 'heroes' in the mold of Link. And Cloud. And Sephiroth. Men of power. I wanted nothing to do with them. They were heroes because they were born with strong bodies, strong minds, and a conviction that the world existed to serve their needs. Link wielded power as if it was his birthright. Cloud was no different, back when the Avalanche Revolution of 2003 promised to 'change things.' It was easy to promise a revolt, and easy to incite raw violence. It was more difficult to actually act on one's promises, as greed and arrogance worked its way into a man's veins. Link undermined the security and the independence of his populace, and he threatened the continued prosperity of the world he ruled, yet he would be the one that history remembered. If nothing else, when the people had been beaten to a comatose pulp long enough, they would feel a requirement to redefine their oppressors as men worthy enough to have oppressed them.

Link would never be forgotten, I thought, as a puff of smoke escaped my lungs and dissipated into the air.

Not even after I killed him.