Author's Note: This is based off of the so-called bad ending of MGS. It is Snake's Personal feelings on the battle of Shadow Moses. Its short because any longer and it would have gotten too repetitive. Contact me if ya want to know why I feel the bad ending is good. Anyways, enough debate, enjoy the read!
The snowmobile shred across the glacier, the ice reflected meditatively as David slowly guided it over the plain. Shadow Moses, a double meaning. A savior and truth hidden behind the darkness. He had found things there he had never thought possible. Love, if only for the briefest instant. Everything up until then had been war. The only real emotion he showed was survival and killer instinct. Death was his constant companion, his steps lain with the corpses of his enemies. Mantis, in a way, had been right. He only felt truly alive in the moment.
But he was wrong. It didn't always have to remain that way. He could live beyond the moment, and see life for what it really was. The mobile sputtered and leaped over the ice, searching for the waiting helicopter. Death and blood, Metal Gear and Liquid, all seemed far away when compared to the endless see of ice. There was only one thing that didn't seem far away. And would she ever get far away again? No. She wouldn't. He would never lose her twice. She was his life found in the sea of blood. He remembered, a long while past, how Hal had asked him, Can love bloom on a battlefield? A beautiful flower among a garden of ugliness. If he had asked that when he was in Zanzibar, he would have had a good laugh. Among the petty squabbles could love arise? It was almost a joke. But today, there were no laughs to be had.
War is ugly…there is nothing glamorous about it…
Her words rang in his ears, like she was whispering them. He could almost believe she was right there next to him. Though each word was sweet, the sting of guilt tore through him. It was the worst pain he had ever felt, physically nothing could compare to it. He submitted to the darkness, and it claimed her. His face hardened, and Emmerich might have said something. He couldn't hear it though. His thoughts were elsewhere, in another place.She had taught him something no one else had. How to care about another human being. All his life, he had only watched his own back. His friends had been 'Combat Buddies', separated by different sides of war. He could only touch others with death, never a potent form of communication. She had sparked something inside of him that he thought he had killed so long ago in his battles with Jaeger. Her reasons for becoming a soldier…her views…she wasn't dead inside. She was alive. Truly alive.
I'll have some fun with her before she dies…
Poor girl…she cried out for you snake. Too bad you couldn't save her.
Their evil had taken her from him. He wasn't able to protect her from the darkness. Meryl had been so cruelly stolen from him, through his own weakness. He should have been stronger. If he could have…she might still be here. Then maybe his restless soul could find peace. But now there was more guilt, and also more life. She would always be with him, in spirit, he could feel her watching over him. They would never be separate again.
If he had learned anything from his days as a warrior, the body was a shell, weak and insignificant. It was only a house for the soul. Meryl was still here watching.
A second bump from the snowmobile as it sped past a small dune of ice. The extended silence had finally gotten to Emmerich, and he began to speak.
"Snake…" The words were said quietly, as if knowing the pain coursing through snake's veins, "You going to be okay?"
David sat silent, his eyes focused on the horizon ahead of him. It appeared as if the extended quiet would go on for longer, but he finally spoke. "In time."
Emmerich nodded, and returned to reflection. He respected Snake's solemn meditation. After what he had been through, what person didn't need time alone? He could live with silence. There were a few things he needed to think about.
Snake turned his eyes back to the plain of ice. The final battle had been triumphant, but not without a price. Only in the movies did the hero get the girl. This was reality. The heroes and villains were all too human, and so was their evil.
Liquid had been evil unparalleled. His ruthlessness and viciousness didn't stem from his own ends. They stemmed from one place. Fate. He believed he was fated to pass on the legacy of his genes, the genes of big boss. His legacy needed to be continued and it was his duty to fulfill that. His evil had been wrong though. His narrow view and refusal to feel had been the end of him. He had invited the onset of FoxDie: Asymmetry. He couldn't change his life, he couldn't change his view. He was built for only one purpose, and he followed it down into hell. That was the key to evading FoxDie. In learning to love, he betrayed his genes by caring for someone else. Meryl had done more than provide him with love. She had saved his life. He owed her so much, and he was grateful for it.
Chose life…then live!
Naomi's words were planted in his head. No longer would his only companion be death. He had held his company for far too long. Death was no way to live. David sighed briefly, and squinted on the horizon. The whirlwind of snow meant only one thing. The helicopter was setting itself down.
Emmerich called out, interrupting David from his thoughts, "There it is, the chopper!" The transport settled itself down on the firm ice. Its black skin glistened in the radiant sunlight. It was a bird of freedom, to take him away from all of this death. And deliver him into a new life. He steadied the snowmobile, and eased up on the throttle, making it come to a halt slowly on the slick ground. He had to make sure that it didn't slide into the chopper.
Snake got off of the snowmobile, and walked steadily on the glacier to the cockpit of the bird. He knocked on the glass to the pilot. The pilot turned from his headset and looked to David. His radio was blabbing some inconsistent fuzz in the background. He nodded his head in acknowledgement and climbed out of the transport, creating boot indents on the pure white Alaskan snow.
"What's the plan?" David said curtly, not in the mood on staying on the accursed island any longer.
"Well, the plan is to fly you out to the Kuiu Island, pretty remote in and of itself. There you'll find a boat. Should be able to work your way to the main land by yourselves."
"What's our condition?" David squinted his eyes a little, as the day was dwindling down into night.
"You? Well, you're dead sir." The pilot smirked and made his way back to the cockpit. David and Hal climbed into the back of the chopper, leaving the snowmobile lonely on the glacier.
The whirring blades of the transport started up again, and David looked out over the horizon. The cascading colours of blue, orange and fiery red. A beautiful sunset. The sudden jar of the chopper's takeoff loosed something from David's hands. A clank of metal hit the floor and David scrambled to pick up the item.
Emmerich looked over to David, "What's that?"
"A memento." He said it carefully, marking its importance as no ordinary object.
David didn't bother to listen to Emmerich's response; he only looked down to the item in his shaking hands.
Snake…Never Forget Me!
The Dog Tags lay listless in his palms, their face shining up back at him. The name on them painfully apparent. Meryl Silverberg. The etchings were already filled with his tears, forever to remain there.
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Ocelot looked up from the Communications Tower to see Snake lift off. So he was alive. His strength, was his greatest weakness. He had taken Meryl from him, the greatest Prize in this battle. After all, he was the grand manipulator. No one had discovered his True Identity and had lived to tell the tale. He would go on, and so would Snake. They would meet again, and this time he would send Snake to meet his lover.
The best is yet to come.