Metal Gear Solid V - The Punished Phantom

Dhekelia, Cyprus

Churchill National Hospital

0600 Hours

Reds and oranges danced around the corners of Venom's eyelids. Echoes of gunfire and screams for help faintly resonated in his tired skull. The once-thought dead soldier groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, quickly shutting them as his senses were assaulted by bright lights. Venom repeatedly blinked until the hazy blur of greens and whites morphed into the sterile hospital room he was now facing. He winced as he craned his neck to the left, watching nurses stroll in and out of the room. One worker walked over to the side of Venom, as she began sliding an IV down his arm. She grabbed a small clipboard and quickly jotted down a few observations, until she noticed Venom uncomfortably shifting around her bed.

The clipboard fell to the floor, as a sharp bang pierced his ears. However, Venom was distracted by the nurse, who's hand was clasped around her mouth. Her skin grew pale, and she scurried out of the room, knocking over a radio on her way out. However, content with the source of the noise gone, Venom shut his eyes and drifted back off into sleep.

More faded blurs greeted Venom when he awoke again, only this time did he see a thin, bearded doctor mumuttering to the nurse he saw earlier in a foreign language. However, all eyes were on him once they noticed him waking up. "Hello? Can you hear me?" The Doctor said in a booming voice. Venom nodded as he tried moving his arm to cover his ears, only to find his muscles did not wish to obey. "Can you understand me? Good! Look up please." He commanded. Venom willingly followed all of his orders, as The Doctor found that at the very least, his basic motor skills and his ability to understand the English language was still intact. "Fantastic. You cannot believe how good it is to have you back in the land of the living. Now, I do have some rather...uunpleasant news to inform you of. You were involved in a helicopter crash in 1975...The year is now 1984. You have been in a coma for 9 years." The Doctor calmly spoke, as he began prepping a syringe.

Suddenly, the memories began flooding into his brain.

Paz. Chico. Kaz. Morpho. Camp Omega. Nine Years.

Venom began writhing and thrashing and his bed. "Damn it!" The Doctor cursed as he rushed over to the bed. He began rapidly speaking to the nurse in a tongue he didn't understand, while the nurse began to hold him down. He felt his skin be pierced by the needle, as The Doctor emptied its contents into his blood stream. Venom tossed and turned for a few more seconds only for the colors to once more grow blurry and hazy.

He proceeded then to pass out.

A day later, he awoke once more. The colors had begun growing clearer and more vibrant, as he began to look at the hospitals staff more clearly. However, his revelry was interrupted when The Doctor rapped his knuckles on his bed.

"Good to see your awake. I need to discuss something important with you. In that helicopter crash I briefly discussed with you yesterday, you sustained some very severe injuries. Your face required multiple stitches due to gashes and cuts, your leg was broken, and we found 108 foreign agents within your body. We removed all but 18, which remain around your left lung and heart. One large piece of shrapnel has embedded itself within your cerebral cortex, rendering it unable to remove. Also...You lost your left arm. We had to amputate."

Venom dimly registered the faint beeps monitoring his heartbeat go faster and faster as he slowly looked down to try and see his arm, only to see a bandaged stump. Similar to what occurred the day before, he began to go in shock upon hearing this. "Shit! Calm down! Calm down...Calm down. We still have more to tell you!" The Doctor exasperatedly told Snake. "Now, on to my next point. People from across the world are out to kill you. You were specifically placed in this hospital for this reason, to hide from those people who want to see you dead. Now that you've come to, we have to prepare for you for these people to prevent your death..."

Snake had stopped paying attention to The Doctor as he watched a female figure he had never seen before slip in through the doorway. She calmly walked up to the nurse and began to strangle her. She killed the nurse quickly and efficiently, as she silently began to succumb to the sweet release of death.

Venom once more began to thrash around, prompting The Doctor to grimace and once again pull out the sedatives. However, his attention was caught by the sound of the nurse's corpse hitting the ground. He spun around and walked past the thin curtain separating Snake from the rest of the patients, only to end up with a knife jammed in his neck. The Doctor collapsed to the floor, as he began clawing at his neck, desperately trying to find a way to get the knife out from inside his jugular vein.

The Assassin walked to the edge and turned away from Venom for a few brief moments, as she quietly murmured into a walkie-talkie. However, while her back was turned, a man with bandages covering his face stormed out from behind one of the curtains and tackled her. They both collapsed into a heap on the floor, as the man slashed her with a broken bottle. She howled in anger and knocked him off, causing the man to slide into a large desk tray. "Fuck! Why won't you just DIE!" He cursed, as he began chucking any objects nearby at her head. The Assassin yanked him by the scruff of his neck, and began throttling the man. He grasped for air, as he reached out for a small boxes of matches nearby. However, she kicked it out of his reach, causing it to slide right next to Venom's bed.

Venom tried to grab the matches, but only managed to fall on the floor. The man scratched and bit The Assassin's arms, but that only strengthed her desire to see him dead. Snake finally grasped the matches, and barely got a small flame going. While the man began to pass out, Venom weakly raised the match up go The Assassin's hair, setting it aflame. She howled in flame, beginning to stumble around the room in agony. Not skipping a beat, the man took a few gasps to get oxygen in his system once more, only to grab a bottle of some unknown liquid and toss it at The Assassin. The flames burned brighter, and her screams grew louder. She tossed herself out the window, as her cries of pain grew distant.

"W-Who...Who are you? What h-happened to the woman?" Venom quietly asked the man.

"Uh...Call me Ishmael. As for the woman, I gave her a light and she took the short way down. Now, up and at 'em soldier. We got to get moving."