Snake was groggy and everything hurt, the light was too bright, the bed was like sleeping on thorns and the whole left side of his ribcage was numb.
"So this is Hell." He mumbled to himself still unsure of where the Hell he was or what had happened. Slowly things return. First the burning pain and blindness whose throbbing he could still feel in his left eye, then Sophia crashing and later his own glider crashing near the base when he passed out.
"Hey, Hot Shot, you wake?"
Snake instantly recognizes Taylor's voice even through the pain. "Yeah, in a minute." Snake mumbles trying to pull through the haze of the drugs and pain killers. His eyes open. No, only one eye opens. Snake gingerly touches his face and feel the patch on his left eye for the first time.
"Taylor, what happened?" He asks weakly as he turns to look at his life long friend. Snake's open eye falls on the cane across his lap. "Taylor never carried a cane." His thoughts reel with the unbelievable circumstances.
Taylor sighs. "They say the muscle in your eye is dead." Taylor looks down at his mangled leg and the cast. "Its never gonna git better, Snake."
Snake's arm lowers as he attempts to cope with the knowledge that he was now partially blind. "How bad is it?"
Taylor looks at Snake in the hospital bed. Most of his body is wrapped in bandages of some sort or another. In truth Taylor could never remember Snake being as still as he is now, he was a man always on the move and now... Taylor's thoughts pause as he sighs.
"The patch is forever. The eye is still there but only in the dark is it gonna be a damned bit of good."
"Shit" Snake mumbles as he struggles to sit up. He grits his teeth in pain as he felt the burning in his side. Nurses rush in to force him to lay down. He heard mumbles about broken ribs and shrapnel wounds. "Well that certainly explains the excruciating pain," Snake muses as he lays heavily on the bed angry now with his inability to sit up.
"Wha ...What happened to us out there." Snake finally stutters out as the pain began to subside enough for him to unclench his jaw.
Taylor had been dreading this since he had found out. He knew Snake and he knew he was going to be furious but which would make him lose his mind that was another question. Taylor looks away for a long time staring at the people passing in the hall.
"Snake, they set us up." Taylor finally whispers.
"What!" Snake's voice was full of fear and anger.
"Yeah, we were propaganda... few good boys die and they can keep this bloody war going... and.. and they left Sophia there."
Snake just stares at him in disbelief. His mind turns to the last images he remembered clearly-- of Sophia being pulled from her glider by the Russians, the faint scream he could hear as they tore her uniform from her, and the next instant when he was hit and blinded. Snake felt his face crumple in anguish. All of this loss for nothing.
Snake snarls in anger and sat up ignoring all of the pain. "I'm getting the fuck out of here now."
Hatred began to burn in his soul, a need for vengeance to right the wrongs that had been done. He hated them, all of them.