A Hero Stands Alone
The final shot rang out loud and hollow, like a church bell; the sound bouncing off of the cavern walls. It radiated from the tip of his rifle along with a tiny puff of smoke. The weapon sighed its relief in the same instance he did. He exhaled slowly, and then drew another long breath. He kept his sights trained on the same spot, expecting movement. When none came, he released that too, feeling the adrenaline in his system start to fade and the aftershock start to kick in. It never lasted long though.
He used his elbows to prop himself into a crouch position, slinging the rifle over his shoulder, being careful not to touch the barrel, rapidly cooling with the Alaskan winds. His suit now covered in white, the delicate flakes beginning to melt from his internal body heat. He loaded the last clip into the semi-auto; the weight of the extra ammunition seemed overly heavy as he made his way to the spot where the last scream was heard; the burdens of a soldier's duty weighing him down. He had taken a life to save the many, just another ghost resting on his shoulders as the invisible gazes of his haunted past followed him across the snowfield.
He battled his way through the screen of white to confirm the kill. Her last yell one of pain, surprise and anger. His boots sunk slightly into the fresh snow, his tracks behind him already covered, like some distant memory from long ago. He became aware of the sudden calm, the eerie aftermath that battle usually brought amplifying his every sound. He listened for her breathing, her heartbeat above the icy winds. Eventually a dull, wet coughing sound alerted his senses, his ears pricking to the direction of the sound.
He searched for her amongst the small gathering of trees on the highest point of the rock, his hand always an inch above his SOCOM, should she be playing possum. Soon, he recognised a fan of blonde hair, her white snowsuit peppered with red. He noticed her rifle lay several feet from her grasp. He walked calmly towards her with his hands by his side. The only sound in the empty wind was her rasping breaths as she struggled to speak. He figured it respectful to hear what she had to say.
"I am lung-shot. Y-You cannot save me"
The few bullet wounds on her chest sparkled with fresh blood, like rubies placed in her bosom, the liquid flowing freely like wine. Her beautiful face was wracked with pain and effort; her upper lip curled upwards into a stinging snarl. She was dying, no doubt about it.
"I... I've waited for this moment"
Her face relaxed a little, coming down from the stress of battle and accepting her fate. She rasped a few short breaths in order to continue speaking, seemingly content with staring into the night sky. It was as if she was not speaking to him, but to some higher force, or maybe even herself. Her eyes fluttered as snowflakes melted on her eyelashes.
"I am a sniper. Waiting is my job. Never moving a muscle, concentrating..."
She lost her breath and coughed a stream of red onto her snowsuit. Snake had to crouch to hear her voice now, a rough whisper against the winds. They seemed to calm a little, as if God himself was listening to her last words. Snake wanted to hear them.
"I am a Kurd. I have always dreamed of a peaceful place like this."
"A Kurd? So that's why you're called Wolf?"
The snowfield was a hauntingly beautiful place. Peaceful, quiet, still; a hidden sanctuary for lost souls. It was a wonderful place for one's final memory.
"I was born on a battlefield... raised on a battlefield. Gunfire, sirens and screams, they were my lullabies."
So she shares the same haunted past as me, so much death and destruction inflicted upon us from such a young age because of war...
Snake wondered as he gazed patiently at her if she had killed as many as he. Perhaps more.
"We were hunted like dogs, day after day. Driven from our ragged shelters. That was my life"
She certainly had it as rough as he did. We never asked for any of this...
"I'd wake up each morning and find a few more of my or friends dead beside me. I'd stare at the morning sun, and pray to make it through the day."
She tilted her watery eyes towards the pale crescent moon high above them. Almost as if she could feel the sun burning down upon her, bringing her promises of another day to come. He had no doubt she would make up to another day, just not in this world. It was true – the worst part of war is surviving it; the real victims the people who have to live with the memory of it. The deceased were the lucky ones.
"The governments of the world turned a blind eye to our misery. But then, he appeared. My hero. Saladin. He took me away from all that."
"Saladin? You mean Big Boss."
Snake knew of Big Bosses connections with each member of foxhound, he had served in many parts of the world and met many people dogged by war, people just looking to blame someone for their injustice. Usually the governments of their own countries. He expected Big Boss would have taken a shine to her because of that, not because she was beautiful either, but because she was a raw talent fuelled by revenge.
"I became a sniper. Hidden, watching everything through a rifle's scope. Now I could see war. Not from the inside, but from the outside."
Her voice became raspier and increasingly quiet. She was spending the last of her energy on him. Why? He didn't really know. But he listened harder as she caught her breath - the spreading liquid on her chest now running down her side, making slow tracks along her clothes. The wind had died down considerably to allow her words to be heard by the man who killed her.
"I joined this group of revolutionaries to take my revenge upon the world. But I have shamed myself and my people. I am no longer the wolf I was born to be. In the name of revenge, I sold my body and my soul. Now I am nothing more than a dog."
She coughed once more, sending a fresh spray of crimson into the snow. Her face was now pale with blood loss and she began to violently shiver from the subzero temperatures. It was clear she didn't have long left. It occurred to Snake that it will most likely take several more minutes for her to die, and they will be spent in great agony. He wondered if it would be a more humane idea to finish her with a bullet, kill her instantly and without any more pain. After all, he was still a human being, and it did not please him to see people suffer. She sighed from sadness and regret, perhaps now seeing how selfish she had been with her life; taking on terrorism to feed her revenge on the world that failed her.
Snake decided to find the words to put her at peace. After all, he had a similar upbringing to her and shared the same burdens of killing; blindly obeying orders, and thinking nothing of it. There were many times in his life he had looked into a mirror and seen the faces of the many people he had killed, and sometimes even pleased by it. The release of hatred and disgust with the people of this world, their ugly faces taking on the same form as he pulled the trigger. He knew what it was like to be haunted by revenge, and was burdened with the guilt and shame of murdering people for the sake of his country from his own misguided emotions.
"Wolves are not animals, they're not like dogs. In Yupik, the word for word is 'Kegluneq' and the Aleuts revere them as honourable cousins. They call mercenaries like us 'Dogs of War'. It's true, we're all for sale at some price or another. But you're different... untamed... solitary. You're no dog. You're a wolf."
"Who are you?"
She was staring at him-not quite at him, through him, as though she couldn't see him but knew he was there by the sound of his voice. Her dark eyes had a glassy look, as if she was fading away from this world.
"Are you Saladin?"
He had to ask her, before she couldn't speak any longer. He still had a job to do.
"Wolf... you spared Meryl's life..."
"You're woman is still in this world"
"She, she was never my real target... I-I don't kill for sport"
So she does have a conscience at least... and like him, she refused to kill innocent people.
A small pang of guilt made itself known, he had murdered a person not unlike himself for the same reasons she had – because he was told to – and had the same broken ideals. She had no right enforcing them, and neither did he.
"Rest easy, you'll die as the proud wolf you are"
A quick shudder - involuntary. Perhaps from the harsh cold, or possibly from the blood loss. A wince of pain flashes across her feline features, gone in a second.
"I finally understand. I wasn't waiting to kill people... I was waiting for someone to kill me."
Her words rang like church bells inside his head. All he knew was the battlefield. As long as he can remember, he has killed and slaughtered under orders from some regimental body or another. He had wasted his life murdering and slaughtering those who had wronged his country somehow, or stood in the way of justice – but who was to say he was the good guy? Perhaps one day his country will see him as a villain rather than a hero and decide he was expendable. Just another old grunt worn and wasted for the United States. Perhaps one day – sooner than he may expect – some young talent still wet behind the ears will come and end his misery.
What pathetic life he had led was no excuse for his government to save his evil soul. Once upon a time he revered the challenge, felt like he was born to fight for the side of good. But he knew better now, there is no right, no wrong, no good, no evil... only the highest bidder or the strongest power. He had fought so extensively he no longer recognised moral grey areas. He had no standards of his own. He merely obeyed orders given to him. He never believed in God, didn't even entertain the idea, but what was he supposed to say when he finally met his maker? Sorry, I was just following orders. It was my job. Snake hoped when his time came, he would be blessed with a peaceful death like Wolf.
"A man like you, you're a hero"
I am no hero. Never was. Never will be. There's no such thing anyway.
Her voice was weakening now, her words more short gasps and diminutive phrases, broken sentences falling from her lips.
"Please... set me free"
Her plea for freedom from this world would soon be answered. One last lullaby to put her to sleep and end her suffering. He stood solemnly, drawing his heavy SOCOM from its holster. Silently, without tears or mourning, the barrel of his gun drew towards her beautiful face. Her once pouting lips now blue and shrivelled. She has suffered enough. He cocked back the hammer slowly, but hesitated at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Heavy breathing alerted his senses, he fought the urge to aim his gun at the unseen enemy. Had the guards managed to track him all the way out here?
"Why? Why..."
He allowed his arms to relax by his side as Otacon blinked into vision. He still couldn't get used to the idea of Stealth camouflage; it seemed like a quick fix, almost like cheating.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to do things the normal way. Technology never was my friend.
It became apparent why he had shown up in the middle of a blizzard like this by the tears streaming down his face.
"I loved you..."
He fell to his knees, his pale blue eyes fixed on her blood speckled form. A random sob escaped his mouth as he sniffed quietly, his anguish echoed by the emptiness of this peaceful place.
Wolf's eyes glazed over him for a moment, but she said nothing. Instead her gaze drifted down to a long dark object, slightly covered by a fresh blanket of fine snow. It was as if time was racing ahead of them, trying to make the memory of her disappear into history as quickly as possible. Snake wondered how many other secrets lay buried by time underneath the icy skin of this ominous place.
A gloved hand reached out to it, collapsing back to the ground with effort.
"What is it?"
"My gun...give it to me"
The words had barely parted from her lips when Otacon sprinted the short distance, wiping his nose on his lab coat as he did so. He lay the Russian Dragunov carefully in her arms, and she cradled it close to her as if it were a security blanket, or a stuffed toy from her childhood.
"She's a part of me"
The smile on her face said more about her life as the personification of her sniper rifle did. Snake could only imagine the lonely existence she must have led to have her best and only companion be an instrument of death. Snake knew this existence all too well; he never called anybody friend really, at least not under what one would normally consider a person to be a 'friend'. However Snake never grew attatched to his weapons, they were just that, machines, something humans used and threw away. He didn't collect them or give them names, and he certainly didn't feel his SOCOM was "a part of him". He did however feel a certain fondness towards certain models he had owned and grew dependant on during missions... after all they had saved his life on numerous occasions.
Perhaps I do understand where she's coming from, more than a little bit...
"Everyone's here now. Okay hero...set me free."
Snake gave a nervous glance toward Otacon, who immediately turned his back and covered his ears. He drew his weapon as more loud sobs escaped him. He felt sympathy for the guy, he was just a tech after all; he'd been through a hell of a lot since coming here. Seeing someone die on front of his eyes, much less a woman he claimed to love was obviously too much to bare.
He pulled back the hammer, took steady aim, and fired, a single loud blast from the guns barrel masking the scientists goodbyes. The shot seemed to go on forever, the echo lasting a lifetime. Even when it finally stopped, Snake heard it in his mind, replayed again and again like a record stuck on a groove in the track.
"Snake..."
Otacon has turned around again, staring at the fresh corpse of a beautiful woman. More tears ran down his face, marking the dirt that lay upon his skin.
"You said love could bloom on the battlefield. But I couldn't save her"
Snake thought back to Meryl, of the quivering feeling he got in his stomach whenever he pictured her dying. It was his fault she was captured, and whether his feelings towards her were amorous or not, he would not allow this to happen to a female companion. She was a decent shot, and had a hell of an attitude. Snake was unsure whether it was respect or admiration he felt, maybe a bit of both, but he would be sooner damned to hell than let her die in this place.
He removed her handkerchief from his pocket and placed it gently over her still face.
"What are you doing?"
"Returning it to its owner – I don't have any more tears to shed"
Another large sob parted from him.
I don't have time for mourning, I have a girl to save and a mission to complete. I need to snap him out of this.
"I'm going to the underground base, were out of time"
"I know" He muttered in a sombre tone. He was trying to hold it all back, that much was obvious from the effort in his face.
"You have to protect yourself from now on – don't trust anyone"
"Yeah"
"If I can't stop Metal Gear this whole place will be bombed to hell, we might not meet again"
"Yeah" He composed himself a little and turned himself towards Snake for the first time. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, that nerdy squint he always did with it becoming somewhat of a character trait. It defined him in ways Snake could not describe, but sensed immediately whenever he pictured him working on a weapon of mass destruction with crooked glasses and a defiant squint.
"I'll hang on to my codec. I wanna keep helping"
"You can leave anytime. Get a head start, a head start on your new life"
Otacon said nothing in return, and with those words Snake turned around and began walking to the back of the snowfield, towards the blinking light of the level 7 storage shed that would take him underground to face Metal Gear. He hoped sincerely that the scientist would take his advice; find a place to hide out till all this blew over and he could escape this god forsaken island. Instead he pictured him with that defiant look in his eyes again, the sound of wavering self confidence in his voice.
"Snake! What was she fighting for! What are you fighting for! What am I fighting for!"
Snake stopped in his tracks, half turned toward him, and paused a second or two before giving his answer.
"If we make it through this I'll tell you"
With that unsure answer, he turned and resumed his walk to the back of the snowfield. He knew himself only that he had a mission to complete, and people to save. And for him that was enough. As for Otacon, he figured that meant something more, but that only time will tell.
"Okay, I'll be searching too!"
There was the faint sound of his stealth camouflage being activated, then a steady rhythm of feet crunching fresh snow as he stumbled in the opposite direction. He waited till the sound of his footsteps had faded, then stopped in his tracks. He glanced back at her one final time, feeling her presence as if she was stood behind him, watching him and waiting for him to come back to her. The now stray wolves began slowly emerging from the trees, bidding farewell to their owner. Their howls of pain and anguish sent shivers down his spine, the animals almost human in their movements, like mourners at a wake.
He took one last look around him; the still beauty of this place burying itself in his memory as he took in its picturesque surroundings. It was as if this snowfield had its own aura, its own persona radiating out and singing to him a silent lullaby. He knew it would stay with him forever, as would the souls of the people he carried around with him day after day, regardless of where he went or what he did. She would be joining him no doubt, her gaze burrowing into the recesses of his mind. He began his steady pace once more to the back of the snowfield, onwards the only direction he must go, the gazes of many people following him from afar as he did so.
It was as he walked into the distance that Snake remembered he was never truly alone.