Chapter 4.


"Urrrggh" Snake heard himself groan while he slowly but surely made his way back to awareness and opened his eyes carefully to adjust to the dim light, before closing them again at the thudding in his head. A sharp pain was at the side of his head where the FAMAS had hit him. His head was a lethargic tangle of memories, scraps of information rolling and rambled on in his mind linking together in disjointed webs. Memories played and replayed themselves like a jammed film reel. He heard Meryl screaming in his ear, going down to the floor the bullets tore through him again he could almost feel her still holding onto him when they fell, expecting her to be there in his arms when he took a look. His mind had stopped going round in circles and Snake looked about. Meryl wasn't there and Snake sighed in disenchantment.
Snake tried to move about but his body remonstrated, decreeing that he should rest completely to let it get to work on fixing him up fully. Snake ignored this call. He looked down and saw that he didn't have his sneaking suit top on, but his left arm had been bandaged up where he'd been hit by the bullets. Snake flexed it from where his hands were tied behind him, gently, then a second time more strongly. He could move it normally but still it hurt when he did. His trouser leg was ripped open horizontally revealing another bandage wrapped round his gunshot wounds there. It smarted when he bent it at the knee, but the pain was nothing compared to what it had been when the bullets had first struck, and at least this time Snake might be able to walk. His older wound had been patched up again, a little more carefully this time.
Snake turned his attention to where he was.
"I've never been here before. Where am I?" he thought looking into the dull light. Light filtered through a slatted window in the door. It seemed to be some kind of cell or something, there was a metal bed frame with nothing on it and a hand basin on the wall to his right. The floor was swimming in a couple of inches of cold, murky water which Snake was sitting in, soaking wet. This place was in a real state of disrepair, the damp had caused the paint to start peeling off the walls. It smelled fetid too, and Snake could see some rats floating around in the water further away from him in the opposite corner. To add to his discomfort Snake found that his hands were tied behind his back and round a metal pipe. Boiling hot water was running through it, the heat made the skin on his back and arms prickle and burn but he couldn't move away from it. Occasionally it would leak from above and the hot water would shower onto him.
"Liquid obviously means me to suffer here." Snake thought darkly as he bent both legs so that they were partly out of the water. He leaned forward as far as his arms would let him to avoid the pipe but water ran down his bare back in blistering streams, from the outflow which was almost as bad as the dry heat from the metal. Then something caught his attention. A scream. A woman's scream.
"SSSSNAAAAAAAKE!!" it shrieked, wavering in the middle of his name as it increased in pitch.
"Meryl!?" Snake whispered. He flipped around inside when he heard it again. "What the hell is he doing to her?!" Snake thought frenetically over the sound as Meryl screeched again for his help.
"That's it!" Snake hissed and began wrestling to get free pushing himself up onto his feet while he did.
"Meryl!" he called. "MERRRRYLLL!!" Snake roared before settling and sat back down. It ripped up his heart to hear her crying like that again, the way she had done when Wolf's bullets tore through her. The feeling of powerlessness reared its head again. A few minutes later and he heard her again, less frightened, and more questioning, asking if he was there.
"Snake?" Meryl cried. He looked up, a little more hope that she was okay. Before he could answer the door opened, light flooded in and made him blink. The light was partially blotted out as a figure stepped into the doorway and splashing noises as they stepped in and closed the door behind them.
"How endearing and oh so pitiful to hear that from you Snake." Liquid sneered as he stood in front of Snake looking down at where Snake sat. Snake was in no mood for playing his games and cut straight to his prime concern.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MERYL?!" he growled furiously.
"I've done nothing with her...well nothing to harm her. She's fine, Snake, beautiful actually." Liquid answered with a laugh.
"Of course you would know , wouldn't you Snake?" Liquid carried on. Snake tried to stifle his pique as best as he could, but couldn't help from letting it show.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Snake asked crossly. He was met with a grin from his brother. Liquid paced round, his back to Snake, arms folded in his customary mannerism.
"How might I put this? Oh, let's be blunt." Liquid mused and turned round to face him again. "I observed you for one day before I decided to take beloved Meryl hostage. And well, I didn't expect to arrive that evening and find you making love to her."
Snake fell silent. Inside he was cringing, like something had got under his skin, living and crawling around beneath.
"Yes. I didn't expect that, Snake, but then again I did." Liquid smiled coldly. "So..." Liquid began. "what was that for?"
Snake still refused to talk. Instead he stared down at his bandaged leg. Anything was better than divulging his private life, especially to Liquid. Even the tight feeling in his gut threatening to bring up his last meal was more welcome. It wasn't made any better with the dire surroundings he was in.
"What does any of this have to do with you?" Snake asked with annoyance after a minute or two.
"IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ME!" Liquid roared. "You're making it harder for me to break away from the curse I was born into. I want you dead so I may forget all about you and our father, the fact that I was born to be weak and useless. How can I do that if you are spreading your genes around? SUPERIOR GENES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE!"
"So you took Meryl, with the idea that I'd follow to get her back and then kill me just so you can be the only one left and not have me around to challenge you? Sounds like you don't like competition much. Any good at sports when you were a kid?" Snake teased brashly a grin on his face. Liquid spun round rage flashed in his eyes like some wild monster.
"I-NEVER-HAD-A-PROPER-CHILDHOOD!" He screamed, spluttering out each word to make his point known. "How could anybody have a normal life as a child when you were told over and over again that out there, somewhere, was your twin brother who was deliberately made to be better than you? And told that from the man who was supposed to be your father?" He paused and took a breath. His voice subdued when he next spoke.
"Each day, I thought about the day when I would finally meet you Snake, always thinking about what I'd do to you when I did." He smiled. "Now... thirty years on and here we are."

Liquid brought the USP out from behind his back and dangled it front of Snake's face, one finger looped in the trigger guard. Snake tried to hide his disbelief behind a mask of serenity, but Liquid could tell from the look in his brothers eyes that he was taken aback to see it in his hands.
"Yes, I found this on Meryl. Stupid girl had the brass neck to pull this on me and give me this!" Liquid snarled angrily, gesturing to the gash on his arm. He took it back from Snake's face and loaded a magazine into it, chambering the first round allowing Snake to watch without obstruction what he was doing
"Snake..." he began. "you weren't hoping that she would...kill me, were you?" Liquid asked mordantly.
"I gave it to her so that she could look after herself." Snake defended.
"Did you? Really? How thoughtful of you." Liquid said acerbically as he got up to his feet and took a few steps away.
"Your death or Meryl's?" Liquid barked sharply. Snake stared up at him, eyebrows raised in trepidation under his bandanna.
"BUT YOU SAID UNTIL..." Snake began furiously. Liquid sighed.
"I can change the rules if I want and when I want. If you don't want to play Snake I can quite easily take you out and you loose. So what do you want; give up your life and I'll leave you alone, or Meryl's? Either way I intend on killing you." Liquid explained.
"Neither." Snake answered austerely.
"I'm not open to compromise, Snake." Liquid spat irritably. "Thirty years of living as the best is long enough to enjoy that 'privilege'. Your time is up as the better of Big Boss's sons." He said as he raised the USP in his hand up so it was level with Snake's head.

Snake's mind washed out, couldn't think of anything while he took a moment to look to calmly look up at Liquid.
"Why is it taking so long?" Snake thought to himself, expecting the bang to ring out any second.
A bang, then the dry, metallic ping as the casing was spat out. He shouldn't have heard that, he'd be dead before the case had even left the gun. It sploshed into the water.
"What the...?" Snake thought. He been waiting for the bullet to smash into his skull, but it hadn't happened. Snake hadn't noticed that he'd shut his eyes and opened them again to see Liquid standing there in front of him shaking with laughter.
"You really are twisted..." Snake breathed shaking his head.
"No bullets, just blanks Snake!" Liquid snickered and removed the magazine from the pistol grip to throw it in his face. He put his hand into a pocket and pulled out another magazine before stepping closer to stand right in front of him again.
"Take a good look, Snake. Real bullets..." he said showing Snake the magazine and proceeded to load it into the gun grinning as he turned away while chambering the first round. He walked away for a little before whipping round and fired on Snake once, shooting him in his right arm.
The feeling as bullets went into his flesh had become all too familiar, but still very undesirable all the same. Snake flinched; his automatic reaction was to put a hand to it but instead made the burning worse by fighting back against what was holding his hands together behind him.
"WHAT THE HELL?! BASTARD!!" Snake shouted furiously, mostly because he felt such a fool for letting Liquid get a kick out of duping him.
"Do you want another one?" Liquid threatened venomously pointing the gun at him again. Snake quietened down, understanding that this time he might not be quite as fortunate with his brother's capricious temper.
"Good. I've taken enough abuse from our father and don't need any more from you, Snake." He hissed turning his back on Snake. "I'll be back later. For now, start thinking about your surrender and your way out of this world. You still have until midnight."
"What a...I still can't believe I'm related to him." Snake thought bitterly. The crawly feeling inside him still twisted around, Snake choked back the ill feeling as best he could. His skin creeped, but he realised that it was the warm streams of blood dripping out of the wound he had just collected, running down and assembling round the ropes around his wrists.
It seemed as if that Liquid's revelation annulled all meaning that evening had for Snake. Suddenly it wasn't the happy secret he and Meryl kept between them anymore, relegated to merely another reason for Liquid to justify his hate for him. Another stab at making his life as uncomfortable as possible. Violated.
"He probably told Meryl too..." Snake thought despondently. "Jeez, anything else? I don't want to know." Snake wondered.
"I have to get to Meryl. If he's so sick to stake out and spy then who knows what he's doing to her..." Snake tried to blot out the thoughts flooding into his mind. Liquid was desperate to do anything to get Snake to succumb and that meant dealing low blows. But it was what that he didn't know, what he didn't see which was the biggest torture, and worse than any physical punishments he'd experienced. Liquid knew that hurting Meryl would do the same for Snake, and killing her would almost destroy him. Snake even knew that himself, but he hadn't expected Liquid to make an appearance again. Then again Snake had no idea what he'd do if Meryl died; he wasn't keen on even contemplating her death for fear that it might just happen. Meryl meant too much to him and he had to rescue her.
The ropes had started to dig into his wrists and had given him pins and needles in his hands. Snake wriggled his fingers to get the blood flowing back into them and stave off the uncomfy numbness.
"Ow!" Snake exclaimed quietly catching his hand on a sharp, unfinished edge and scraped his skin drawing blood. "Any more scratches and I will have to put in a bulk order for Elastoplasts." Snake smiled trying to lighten his mood.
"Wait a minute..." Snake thought and moved his arms up carefully to the sharp edge again.
"If I...yes!" The edge was sharp enough for him to begin sawing through the rope.
"Problem is when will Liquid be back?" Snake thought and continued to hurriedly make his escape.

Liquid had returned to where he'd left Meryl, in another cell further away from Snake's. She'd fallen asleep, and in a way Liquid was glad that she wasn't awake to hear the shots he'd fired earlier. It would have only meant another fight with her, Snake would start up again and he'd have to go and shut him up and Meryl too. He put the USP away and waited for a while, going over and over in his head what the next move should be. He was in for a long day providing that Snake stuck it out till the end of the day.
"I doubt he'll give up before then. He didn't give up to Ocelot, but this is different. Ocelot didn't have any reason but his hobby and liking for torture. I'm making Snake suffer because he deserves it. He more than deserves it." Liquid thought in a baleful way as he unholstered the SOCOM he had at his side and looked at it, watching as the light played over it's black finish. It was redolent of death. Liquid could never understand why they made some weapons with a nice shiny, silvery casing. Weapons were for killing, not for show and were bound to become stained with blood if they were used. He removed the suppressor and looked again at the big bulky square shape of the handgun. At least he had time to decide on how he'd finally finish his brother, still unsure of what to do, how to make him truly pay for all that he'd done.
"Shooting him is too easy, bit impersonal I think..."Liquid deliberated. "All these years, all those plans and I can't think of one idea..." he sighed getting to his feet after a few minutes of contemplation and headed back to where Snake was. Perhaps he would find some inspiration from him.

Continued in the following chapters coming soon...