"How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country."
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
For a few seconds, smoke was all I could see. Air struggled to reach my lungs, even though it felt dry and cumbersome to my singing skin. My flesh felt like immolation, and once I looked down, I had the pleasure of discovering that it had indeed been the source of the smoke. I was burning. This is what burning felt like.
The battlefield became a blur, and the rest was repetition. Void flashed the world in sanctimonious mortification. I was purified; they were purified. Absolved. Officiated, put to rest. When my sword caught on some unfortunate bastard's helmet strap, I couldn't help but to feel like Archilochus, condeming the Thracian soldier's grasp of my abandoned, proverbial shield. All I had left to count on rested in my nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems. An arm swung at me, but without the proper reach, so I grappled, rotated, and pulled as I swept under the enemy, using his arm like a sailor hauling masts to heave his skull into impact on the deck. It sucked for him that his helmet wasn't there, because he was still breathing after that. I only know that because I saw his diaphragm expanding; the only breathing I could hear was my own. And it was only thing I could hear.
Soon enough, I swung semi-corpses around me like a drunken puppeteer, struggling to stand by leaning my weight on the force of my enemies' attacks. Death? No, I couldn't die yet. The fireteam was down, having stuck too closely together in the fray of the attack launched on the ship. That meant the sonar method must have been successful, it wasn't some Mujahid ploy. Alas, they weren't the only ones on the ship. I was nearing around 70 takedowns at the moment and each of my ribs wanted to remind me of that. Would I fret? Of course not. Pain was... tender. Cliches aside, it felt like the light at the end of a tunnel. Or so the world looked to be, before a noise brought me back to attention.
My earpiece buzzed, "Wild Fox, this is the Mr. Mujahid. We received your coordinate and we hope Allah shines on you as brightly as your fabled blade does to the profit of the Jihad. We hope to arrive at a mutual understanding: the safety our own forces must be guaranteed, and as such we can plan no definite means for your survival other than the providence of information. This ship will sink in T-Minus..." I didn't pay attention, I was lost in the shock I felt in each step taken towards the starboard. Silence cradled me past numerous guards, all searching and securing the perimeter with the accuracy of a pirates in siege. Too many holes and peg leg gaits. I darted from each obstruction to the next, kicking off the top of the last to enter a foray of MotionArt.
Developed primarily in the 1920's, parkour had little review in the military of the world, but the French Army was known to adopt some of it into training. As a result, several African combatants found themselves up to the task of modifying it for the use of one in battle gear. My sneaking suit; however, made each motion all the more optimal, allowing me to save energy and perform it even while my body neared a state of catatonic shock. Pain cheered on each step. I lept up a pipe to run three horizontal steps off the command bridge wall. The last wall step had been prepared with the motion of the first, so I had enough energy to propel myself over a 5-story gap into a roll landing on a barge container only two stories down. The roll had enough finesse to get me safely up and running out of it, but not enough to do so painlessly. My body ached passively, despite all of the stimulation, and my technique accordingly faltered. Time was running out.
I looked three stories down to the deck and find two more soldiers directly beneath me. Calmer, more experienced. Heavy machine guns, not a single clip yet replaced. I looked back to myself. My skin was red, only just stopped smoldering (my sweat had increased due to the intake of pentazemin, and it allowed my singed flesh to hydrate and proximate homeostasis. I was becoming useless, and the ship was sinking. I needed a way out. I crawled on the top of the cargo, grasping a musty, damp blue tarp. It was thick and smelled like the brine of the sea. As my fingers slid across its moist surface, they picked up the subtle texture of seaweed. A firmer grasp caught the edge of a hefty barnacle. This would do. I curled, grasping the barnacles, and began to smother myself. Soon, pain told me to stop. After I had so carefully sifted my environs, I planned an exfiltration route as our accompanying guerrilla forces triangulated the ship's location, promising me no amends to safety. Charming of them. Finally, I had finished lethargically tethering the mantle before rolling off my back into a pitfall below, extending my legs and arms through the briny tarp.
"Boris, what's that noi-" one of the soldiers looked up, yelling in Polish, "Topielec! Topeil-" My cushioned weight broke his sentence, and his cowering skeleton broke my fall. Th other guy tried leaping out the way, but the tarp had acted like a primitive parachute against the heavy sea winds earlier, as I intended it to. It decelerated my fall and extended its reach, collapsing over the dodgy guard. Barnacle mass took his consciousness out for me. Exhausted and serendipitous, I immediately rose, simply for the sake of keeping my body moving. I had to secure my own consciousness. I couldn't keep drifting out at this point. I would die.
I had other units on the ship, of course. They took care of the command bridge 45 minutes ago, to prepare for about now, when the ship strikes a torpedo in frenzied navigation control. So I was completely alone when two auxiliary fireteams followed the sound of the collapse, closing in on my position from about 30 yards away.
On the other side of the ship, the sea erupted. There it was. Perhaps the Mujahid's information wasn't designed to kill me at all. To keep things safe, I stuck to starboard side. Earlier he said Port, but I needed to take a precaution in case they were wary of me attacking them. Alarms flared in the sky, soldiers screamed, babies cried, who cares. Ships sink every day. Explosions are only a distraction from the mission. To let them control you is irrational. Frank. Frank, stop it. Pull yourself out of there. Frank! Motherfucker. Good. *heave* Good man.
Like a murderous deus ex machina, The ship began to capsize. The soldiers meant nothing anymore. The world, as far as I had known it, became dark, blue, amorphous oblivion. I felt my tank staring at me in the distance. I remember not knowing where it came from. Bleak, consuming. Deprivation. Chaos. I flew off the cargo loading bay with a small amount of the personnel, causing them to detect me. I dove. I struck. I ricocheted between their spines as we plummeted under what was once our horizon. The world was upturned. Sirens drove their maddening melodies though grenade-rung ears. And for once, I could hear more than my own breathing:
Once I fell completely towards the waters below, they all tried to steady their weapons, crying, "демон! демон!"
And I couldn't help but feel like Snake.
Metal Gear Ocean
The Rhyme of the Mariners