A/N: Yay, I updated! Sorry to those of you who thought I was dead. I feel bad. Anyway, I apologize earnestly for my sucky poetry skills. It was never my forte.
Last End: Prophecy
The world is sinking; the world is falling;
The world is fading and the hour's calling;
Upon us it comes as swift as a knife
And death shall be sweeter than strife.
The brown-haired man shuddered quietly, something he never dared do in front of his fellows. They respected him as a brave, courageous, and heroic man, and indeed he was. Yet how could he be considered heroic if he was frightened of a simple passage in a story?
Straightening his horn-rimmed glasses, the espionage agent sighed.
He was not a man stacked with lies; he honored himself with the truth, even if the truth was too hard to bear, even for him. If one lies to oneself, what does one gain?
Nothing. And Snake knew this. And he could not lie to himself any longer.
As much as he and all the other innocents longed to believe it, the excerpt was not a simple stanza of rhyming words. Oh, good heavens, what child's book would include such a dark secret? Especially a dark secret only he and a few, seldom others could interpret.
It was a prophecy.
Well, granted, it was easy enough to understand; but do not underestimate the Master's knowledge. It had to do with dates, the number of syllables and letters and lines in the story, which line number coordinated with which letter to form a new sentence then taking that sentence to create a new one out of the page number and then adding by the date, but that was unimportant. What was pressing was that the dates lined up – uncannily, in fact – with the present age.
Pushing up his glasses, Snake rubbed the tip of his nose. His boots slapped gently on the cold stone floor as he stepped over to the treasured wooden table in the center of the library. A "hmm" escaped his mouth as he glanced around, suspicious. It was a thing of his; the Master always seemed slightly paranoid.
He didn't notice me watching him.
The world is sinking.
That line was, actually, the hardest to follow. Mustering his extremely high intellect, Snake recalled what he had learned of prophecy journals written at the time this one had been penned. Writings and scrolls had been extremely precise; a time when metaphors had been virtually non-existent.
The world is sinking.
The chocolate-stubble spy gave up with a sigh, having done quite a lot of thinking in a short space of time. His mind was a whirlwind as he flipped through, just to double check, the things he had learned in his time. Nope. No recent news had come of anything sinking.
The world is falling.
The same was going for this line; nothing their messengers had informed them of consisted of something falling. Perhaps they meant great nations, leaders, kingdoms? Something someone had said about the Chozo seemed to travel to the front of his mind, but he knew they were secure. Had Zebes fallen? No…it couldn't be. He (and they) would have heard of it by then.
Snake whipped around, the strip of dark green cloth tied around the top of his head soaring through the air.
No one was there.
Trying to steady his abrupt instincts, the middle-aged man pressed his hard fingertips to his weary temples. No one could go on like this. Had anyone been through what he had; always alone, never to be touched by anyone, mistrusted, misunderstood, unguided and alone, only to kill those closest to him…
He attempted to ignore it, focusing his keen brown eyes on the parched, ancient paper in front of him, but it was difficult to concentrate on the spidery strokes of faded ink.
The world is fading and the hour's calling.
Could that be translated to anything appearing nowadays? Solid Snake could not comprehend it; worriedly he checked the date at the top of the parchment again, but unless he had erred in his mathematical equations to solve the time the book was referring to, his first conclusion was correct. But how could it be? Nothing, literally or figuratively or metaphorically or whatever could be translated to the present times; and yet the master of disguise had double-checked his triple-checked work. There was no way he could be wrong.
A bit anxiously, he decided once again to ignore the line, and proceeded to the next troubling statements:
Upon us it shall come as swift as a knife
And death shall be sweeter than strife.
And unfortunately, this was clearer than the most terrorizing of the lines. Something would catch them unawares, and they would be longing for death to be put out of their misery. What could it be?
Puzzled, and more fearful than he'd like to admit, Solid leaned back into the arms of the wooden chair, pondering and shying from everything he'd digested. They knocked around in his intelligent skull, toying relentlessly with him, teasing him with their hidden meanings. What could it be…?
Suddenly another thought leapt to the forefront of his mind, capturing his attention rather rapidly.
The world is sinking; the world is falling;
The world is fading and the hour's calling.
Upon us it shall come as swift as a knife
And death shall be sweeter than strife.
Perhaps Link knew what the prophecy spoke of!
As Master Snake bounded out of his chair, he acknowledged that, granted, Link probably wouldn't know as much as he himself knew, so he shouldn't be too excited or expecting. But Link was bound to know something; after all, he had been the one whom had secretly slunk out of the safe grounds and into the arms of the enemy, only to return two weeks later with a fatal wound.
As the realization came bouncing to his mind, Snake slowed. Fatal.
Yes, Link's wound was fatal, and everyone but Zelda could see it.
Master Solid Snake shrugged and continued onward to the hospital ward, to Link's deathbed.
But there was some hope, and no one but Zelda could see it.
A/n: So, we finally see some LEGIT character personality. That was my intention, anyway, to be a bit starkly different from my past few, vague, way 3-person chapters. Though I did include one creepy sentence here, if anyone noticed it :3. Don't worry, if any of you actually liked that view; It'll be returning, because I've grown rather fond of it. Figure out what you can from that, and also about Snake's personality here. Oh and I did a lot of research on his games, as well as a few more characters that shall be entering, but it was REALLY hard to follow Snake's storyline, so I apologize (for this and in advance) for any mistakes.
REVIEW! Thanks soooooo much too: JSparks! Why are you always the first I say thanks to? Oh yes, I enjoyed that very much!:D To Lovingyourillusion, I'm glad you enjoyed my creeper character's point of view, because I had a lot of fun writing it! I'm sorry about my redundancy and please slap me if I've done it again(: To ChaoticXXHearts, why, thank you! Actually, you just gave me quite an interesting idea. I already had a really big twist on this whole story, to be revealed soon, but I think you may have driven that somewhere else...we'll see what comes to me randomly at 1:35 in the morning. Thanks! and to Anyone: Awww, you are wayyyy too nice! I'm glad you like the character portayals and my work. Thank you so much! :D :D
And to all: I'm super thrilled you all like the OOC-ness of Zelda's sudden rage, because I was a bit worried it was TOO OOC. And as for Link being the "hero"...well, I can't give anything away, but in my own mind...ack! I can't say. Tell me why you think he's the hero. As mentioned above, he's on his deathbed with a fatal wound. ...Or is he?
Sorry for such long Author's Notes. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Please Review, and suggestions are welcomed, if you wish.
~ClumsyHeart17
P.S. - I find that listening to "Last End" from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is a great way to get the feel I was trying to capture in this fic.