. I wanna be numb

I don't wanna feel this pain no more

Wanna lose touch

I just wanna go and lock the door

I don't wanna think

I don't wanna feel nothing

I wanna be numb

I just wanna be

Wanna be numb

- Pet Shop Boys "Numb"

Snake felt it coming like a train wreck that was headed straight for him. He dropped what he was doing and closed himself in the spare room. The scream came as he sank to his knees. His head hurt like an overfilled balloon ready to burst. It forced his eye pain into the red zone that doubled up his vision. Not that vision mattered. He wasn't seeing reality anyway.

Crumpled on the floor he couldn't tell if he was screaming but in his mind there was a scream. The first was always the high pitched fear and radio static. The sound was so loud in his mind that black wavered in threatening to plunge him into nightmares. Snake wanted it to stop. He'd give anything for it to stop but he'd lived with it long enough to know it never would.

The charred bodies, the bloodied arm blown to pieces, images rushed his mind too fast for him to process it. They built, overlapping, so many screams and deep inside Snake knew they were all his fault. If he only did what the government had wanted they would be alive now. He had to fight and so they died.

His world was crashing down on him, his past wasn't haunting him. Haunting required knowing it wasn't reality or the present. That line was gone for Plissken, past, present, it was all the same. Snake tried to get up whirling in dizziness as he tried to sort out what he was seeing and what his mind was saying he sound see. None of it made any sense.

Snake's blurred vision opened to something familiar. He was sure of where he was. It was the military psych ward. He'd spent enough time in that he knew it by smell. Snake felt cold metal beneath his hands despite the reality of plush, warm carpet. Looking up he saw a window in the room and crawled for it. It took time to pull himself to his feet before staring through to the other side.

"Such a beautiful family you have hot shot." The metallic ring hurt his ears through the poor speaker system.

It was his family in the next room. They weren't specific people, merely feelings. The woman was warmth he could feel and the compassion he needed to survive. He knew her touch even if he didn't know who she was, even without a name or face. The children were his need to believe in his dreams. They were one of his dreams that he felt like he had lost so long ago. He knew them too. Knew when he first held them, when they took their first steps, the first day of school, it was all there. Snake looked on trying to figure out how to get to them.

"Give up and stop fighting Plissken then we'll let them go."

"NO!" Snake screamed at the disembodied voice.

"Suit yourself."

Snake heard the electric arc a split second before their screams. Always electric. They fell and Snake panicked as he tried to smash out the glass. He had to get to them.

"All you have to do Plissken is die and their pain will stop. All you have to do is give up." The voice was soothing, lulling, looking for compliance.

"NO!" Snake just yelled it over and over beating on the window that held him prisoner. The screams mingled with his with his own until he slid down to his knees.

"There's still time to save them Plissken. All you have to do is die. Just die." The voice was demanding when it came again.

Snake couldn't scream anymore. His throat was raw and so he curled up covering his ears to blot out the electricity and cries. Snake rocked himself to try and ward off the pain but it wasn't enough and the shock hit him. His mind went out cold.

Blearily his eye opened staring up at the blank ceiling. He had vague pain somewhere but he couldn't place it. It took sitting up to see. Blood was smeared down the wall around ragged cracks in the drywall. His right hand wouldn't move. Swelling prevented it and Plissken didn't dare look at the damage. He could see the evidence to already know it was bad. He resigned to lying down on the carpet where he was.

Maybe his mind was right. If he died they would be spared and so would he. Snake knew that his mind was at an end. He couldn't take anymore death. Maybe his own could save him from more memories that would cloud his mind. Maybe a bullet to his head would stop it from happening to them but there was part of Plissken that couldn't do that no matter the cost it incurred to him. Maybe just maybe he could cut his losses before anymore added up.