This is the first thing I have written in a very long time, just a one-shot story based around an interesting thought I kept having the whole time I played MGS2; What does someone like Solid Snake do when they're off the clock? I hope you enjoy this fairly bittersweet short story.
Night of Liberty
A shadow in a city of millions, isolated from his fellow man by knowledge and experiences they couldn't dream of, he watched the bridge being caressed by the familiar touch of New York rain. Rain. Over the years it would slowly wear that bridge, removing its strength, crushing its frail purpose in the fullness of time. It was a gentle reminder that ultimately nature controls us all, well, so he had once believed, and indeed feared. All was right with the world, and yet after tomorrow…
It had been two years since his 'death'. He smiled at the thought of deceiving the world rather than being the victim of deception for once. He turned slowly away from the bridge and began to walk along the riverside, gravitating to the darkened shop fronts and turning away from the gaze of headlights as instinct guided his path through the vast city.
As he walked he wondered if 'they' took any satisfaction from their deceits, or was it so commonplace to them that it would be akin to him feeling joy at taking breath. He felt a moment of rage build in his mind from thinking about those bastards, but as a young woman passed him talking to her child it turned to crushing grief. The smiles on their faces burned at his consciousness. They were happy, and yet they lived in a false world where they have no destiny other than that given to them by some pretentious force pulling their strings. That child's fate was not his own, and yet if things went well tomorrow and in the coming days he may have unwittingly met his liberator tonight.
Then the dark thought crept from its hole and slithered over his mind. Did he have any more right than 'them' to reform society? He felt bitter at his internal betrayal on the eve of such an undertaking, but at the same time he couldn't deny that feeling. It had plagued his darker moments since he finally found his cause. He had something to fight for now, something he believed in, his own destiny, but in doing so he invariably changed the destinies of those around him.
He had these thoughts on that night two years ago. As he walked through the dark halls of the tanker towards his goal his mind was filled with the screams of the Russian soldiers he encountered on his way to the hold. His leg was aching from the impact of a bullet that almost breached the Kevlar plate, but it was nothing compared to the pain of extinguishing more lives. There was his chosen destiny at work, cutting like a knife through those young men, their only sin casting loyalty to another 'Ubermench' trying to forge the world to his will.
'Ubermench'… That wasn't one of his words. That was what he had come to call his "inner-Otacon" talking. He recalled the few times he had talked to him about these fears, and listened to him talk for hours about Nietzsche's ideas about the strong wills, or 'supermen' as he called them, bending the world to their ideals and debating the duality of a free destiny invariably destroying other's wills. Ideals fighting like rabid animals to gain supremacy over society, and in that sense only the strong survive. These conversations were often more like lectures, which Snake would tolerate silently before shooting Otacon down with uncaring sarcasm, but they did help him regain his resolve in his darker moments.
In the years since Shadow Moses he had found Otacon to have developed a strong zeal to undo the sins of his family by righting the world. Sometimes Snake wondered if he was merely a tool for Otacon's will…
He observed his mind's path and found himself amused at the new found complexity of thought he was having these days. It was a long way from the drunken stupor of his time in Alaska. He went there to hide from the world after he saw the darkest places and minds it had to offer, but ironically he felt far more hidden here in the cities now. He certainly felt as isolated. He looked at the faces around him and experienced a mix of longing for their simple lives and an urge to enlighten them to the stark reality he knew. He found it hard to feel the same. They felt like his charges, which he must protect at all cost – that had to be his place in the world.
His mind snaps from it's musings as he approaches his destination. Tomorrow was the big day, but he had something to do first. Octacon would kill him if he knew. He was in a very excitable state over tomorrow's operation and would probably blow a fuse if he knew what Snake was doing tonight, but he had kept him from this too long.
He crossed the street and approached the bright door. As it slides open he experiences a moment of panic at the familiar hum of a security camera. He chastised himself for being so locked in his mental state. When this was all over would he still jump when he heard the damn things? Adapting to a 'normal' life would be… interesting.
He watched the figure at the counter staring at an antique black and white TV that crackled and hissed with a beautifully chaotic rhyme that assaults one's very soul. How the man can take any pleasure from this escaped him. He tapped the figure on the shoulder and felt a pang of guilt when the poor guy nearly shed his skin in shock. He would have to learn to stop walking silently too.
The man still didn't relax as Snake met eyes with him for a few seconds. It was a dark foreboding night, and he was aware he wasn't the friendliest sight in the world, but this man had the lines of fear almost ingrained in his face. So as not to distress him, Snake gently pointed to the shelf behind the man and offered a note with the other. The man noticeably relaxed and moved to the shelves with a slightly shambling motion, looking over his shoulder at Snake every few seconds. As he stretched up to get the package Snake noticed the mark on his back as his shirt rode up. No mistaking it, a man learns not to turn his back easily when he's been shot in it.
He took the package and walked back out into the cold night. He moved into an alleyway opposite and began to unwrap it. His eyes fell back to the door and his thoughts to the man behind the counter. Snake had been shot a few times, but he was a soldier and that was in the field of war. That man had been shot because he tried to live a successful life and some thug decided to reap his meagre wealth, almost at cost of the man's life. It was things like that which almost drove him back to Alaska. Why should he help a world filled with petty vindictive people like that? But you have to fight for the good ones, and just deal with the bad when the time comes. Tomorrow could make a big difference.
As he opened the small box Snake looked down and realised all his planning
had still been overcome by his anticipation and he had forgot the most important
part. He put the pack in his pocket and crossed back over to the convenience
store to get a lighter.