More yummy MGS. With a heaping lot of angst. Oooh, you all are going to KILL me for this one! -.-
Thanks for your kind reviews badkidoh, Andi Mack, lily moonlight, FernClaw, SolidSakesShadow, MutantLover09, Solid Snake's Soldier, Sons of Ocelot
9. Haunts
Gently, Nastasha landed the helicopter on the ground, glancing back at Snake and grinning. "Mmm. Pretty good flying, right?"
"I'm impressed," he admitted modestly, opening the door and allowing Aero to jump out and run towards the front entrance. "You've got some skills, Nastasha. You should've been flying airplanes and being in the Air Force a few years back. Where were you then?"
She gave a dry laugh and watched the soldier jump out of it with his gun in one hand and his other hand gripping the railing to get out of the helicopter. "I was busy in Ukraine helping other civilians. Then I came here to give you a hand on your mission, Snake. I didn't have time for the Air Force. I had other things to do, like help you stop the rogue FOXHOUND agents in 2005."
He said nothing for a couple of moments before finally just nodding and smiling at the woman. "Yeah," was all he could manage.
The woman took a cigarette out of her pack on the seat next to her and lit one up, touching it to her lips. She glanced at the man staring at the pack enviously and sighed, throwing him the entire pack of cigs. "You are impossible, but maybe that is what attracts me to you in a friendly manner." Nastasha waved her hand. "Anyways, Otacon told me to tell you that the virus should be up front. You know, right near the entrance to the facility."
Snake nodded and glanced at the huge door in front, swallowing and lighting up a cigarette. His Codec rang impatiently, and he gave an internal moan, answering and seeing Otacon's face appear on the screen. He looked worried. "Snake, you shouldn't be smoking at a time like this! You know those can be bad for you!"
"Gives me a little bit of relief here, Otacon," he replied flippantly, placing them in his side pocket and taking out his SOCOM. "Cut me some slack. We still don't know if this is a set-up or not." He moved towards the door, aware that the helicopter's engine had been killed and that he couldn't find Aero at his side. Shrugging this thought aside, Snake glanced around for anything that looked to be out of the ordinary.
Nothing.
"Crap…"
Snake looked around once more, shaking his head and coughing slightly. Looked as if his smoking days were starting to catch up with him. But right now, that was the least of his problems. He looked at his Codec once more and gave a short growl. "Otacon. You said it was at the front entrance to the base. I don't see it anywhere."
His friend's voice sounded worried as it came into his ears. "Well, you checked everywhere? I mean your eyesight hasn't really been…"
Snake clenched his fists. "This isn't the time to be discussing my trip to the eye doctor's office. I'm telling you- I searched the whole pace left and right, and I haven't found the cure. Anywhere. I even dug around in the snow, for crying out loud."
"And you're sure you can't find it?"
Snake was ready to hit the wall with his fist. "I just said no!"
Otacon seemed to lean back in his chair. "That's just weird. My informative told me it should be right out there. Maybe you have to go inside and find it."
The soldier leaned up against the metal wall, his ears ringing. He couldn't believe this. He had to go back inside the Shadow Moses facility itself and find the FoxDie cure? That was like leaving hell for a while and coming back to visit for a few hours. Snake finally just slammed the side of the building with a gloved hand and glared at the large building. "Great. I didn't need to hear those words…"
He took a deep breath and looked at the large gaping door in front of him. He was pretty sure that no one was inside to open the thing, but that didn't really matter. He looked at the keypad and sighed, placing his weapon back in the holster and looking back at the Codec screen. "You think you can open the door?"
As if on cue, there was a loud screeching sound. Slowly, the large metal door began to rise up, and Snake couldn't help but feel slightly worried for a moment. Too much of a coincidence in the spur of the moment. It was almost as if he had said some magic words to open the door… or someone was waiting for him. But who the hell was waiting for him on Shadow Moses?
What if he was walking into a trap?
Snake stood there for a couple more seconds before finally walking into the large structure and hearing the doors begin to shut behind him. He turned around and watched the gaping hole to the outside world close. 'Well, there goes my easy way out,' he thought as he walked inside a bit farther.
He stopped.
Closing his eyes, Snake tried to blot out any extraneous noises that could have prevented him from doing his job. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't blot out one thing in his mind. One thing that haunted him.
A voice.
'I'm YOU!'
No. Not again…
'I'm you're shadow!'
Snake gripped his head. The voice… the voice from so long ago. The voice of the man that he thought he killed only a year ago. 'Why?' he thought, shaking his head. 'Why?'
The voice laughed.
And once more, there was silence.
Otacon looked at Snake, worry unfurling on his features once more. "Snake? You looked to be having some sort of seizure or a dream- only it was with your eyes open. What happened?"
"I'm stuck inside Shadow Moses with the door shut behind me, Aero's gone, I had another hallucination of voices, and I'm pretty damn sure I saw something that I wasn't supposed to see yesterday, Otacon," the man growled tiredly and let go of his head. "It's… something is wrong with me, and I'm fairly sure it's not from the PTSD."
He blinked. "Huh?"
Snake looked around for a moment before trying to take a deep breath and trying to keep his voice even. "All right. Two days ago, when I was in the kitchen about to feed Aero, I had this really weird encounter. It was a ghost- Liquid's ghost."
The otaku adjusted his glasses and cocked his head. He had confusion etched in his features, leaning back in his chair. "So, if I'm hearing this right, when you were making Aero's meal the other night- you saw Liquid's ghost." He typed in some things and frowned, shaking his head. "Well, I can assure you there's no sign of Liquid anywhere that I can see right now."
"Doesn't mean I didn't see him," he retorted quietly, moving inside to facility more and once again taking out his gun.
Something felt wrong about all of this. Or maybe it was just the fact that his faithful companion had gone missing without any trace as to where she could have gone.
She had the same feeling, despite being miles away from her former boyfriend. Bursting into the console room, Meryl had a look of petrified fear unfurling on her face. Mei Ling and Otacon looked up from their computers, and Mei Ling blinked. "Uh, nothing's burning, is it? Or are we going to die soon?"
Meryl shook her head. "It's about the huskies outside. Something's really wrong with them. It's like they're all just having heart attacks at sporadic times and everything!" She stared at the other woman in the room. "Can you just come outside and make sure I'm not imagining things and watching them whine incessantly?"
"I thought you were the dog-sitter," Mei Ling replied innocently, getting up from her chair and taking off her headset.
The redhead just shot the Asian a dirty look before motioning for her to shut the door when she walked outside. She knew that Snake cared for dogs, and from personal experience at his house, she also understood that he would be deeply concerned if he was actually witnessing something like this happening. She gestured to the huskies, watching Mei Ling's jaw slowly open in horror. "My god," was all she could whisper.
The creatures were on the ground, whimpering and crying to one another. Snake sheltered a grand total of fifteen huskies in his home, and right now, four of them were in the snow, their eyes closed. Mei Ling ran over to one of the huskies as best as she could and bent over to feel a pulse on one of them.
There was none.
She glanced at Meryl, who was now holding one in her lap and shaking her head in despair. "This one's gone," she muttered.
"I've got a dead one here, too," Mei Ling told her sorrowfully.
The girls shared a moment of mourning with one another, and Meryl stood up. She held the dead husky pup in her arms and bit her top lip gently. "It's almost as if they died of a heart attack," she whispered.
Mei Ling shook her head. "You're talking in the form of…?"
Meryl didn't say anything.
"That's impossible! That's physically impossible for a dog to catch a human virus and be affected by it!" The Asian's eyes shone with confusion. "Isn't it?"
Her friend couldn't offer a response. Yes, something was wrong, she could tell.
The only issue was this- how do you tell your ex-flame his husky pups are dying off by a new strand of disease? All at the same time?
More questions are now being raised instead of answered. What's wrong with the huskies? Where did Aero go? What's up with Snake's hallucinations? :grin: Oh, you'll find out soon enough, my friends. VERY soon enough.