It was silent. Private whimpered.
It was so cold outside- he could feel the damp snow on his skin through his feathers. He glanced wildly about, looking for any sign of life. A small fire, the orange glow of a city's light pollution. Heck, even some kind of noise would be nice. But the young penguin felt as he was inside a vaccum. It was pitch black, save for the ashy-looking snow and the white moonlight peeking bravely through the clouds. There was no sound at except for the blood pounding through Private's head. He had escaped!
He belly-slid towards the moon, caught up in his fantasy. The Lunacorns were right! If you worked hard enough, and you could achieve anything!
Private had definitely worked hard. He could still feel the distant sting of the wound on his flipper. The cold snow seemed to be numbing it. Anything was better than the terrible onslaught of pain he had felt when it was first inflicted upon him.
Anything was better than seeing the backlit glow of the penguin's eyes as he held the weapon high. His low, grovely laugh as Private shut his eyes and wished for someone to come save him.
Private stopped occasionally to catch his breath and gather his bearings. The night was still young, evidently. The sun hadn't even started to come up, and the moon was slowly being swallowed up by the cloudy sky.
Just keep going, a voice told him. Don't look back. Private listened. He was a good soldier. He would listen to his commander.
His mother called to him, her voice grievous and woeful.
A loud crash, and then nothing.
The zoo was on fire. Everything was burning. The silence was loud; the fire cackled with laughter, and the dull, lifeless words of those who were now dead seized his throat and choked him.
He was thrown across the snow, his body creating an imperfect groove on the fresh powder.
It was snowing now, ashy-looking snow. Everything was the same color.
The clouds had gone away, leaving only the moon and her stars in the lonely night sky. He could barely hear his own heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
"Don't look back! I'll be okay!"
"Why won't you come with me, Skipper?"
"Because we're dead," they answered together.
Mother and son screamed in harmony, both longing for what they had lost. Comander and Private stared into each other's eyes, overcome with silent terror.
He was so sorry for leaving Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico behind. His brothers. Why had he left them?
Were they alright?
Where was his mother? Skipper said he would tell him. If Skipper was dead, he couldn't tell Private what happened to his mother!
"No!" The huge, open space mocked him. "No...no...no!"
The echoes of his pain.
It was a dream. His brothers were alive. So was his mother.
Private's eyes slowly opened and he let the tears flow. He was tired of hiding it. He was tired of the pain.
If they wanted the information, they could have it!
His mother was still alive. Skipper could be dead.
It was silent, save for the mockeries of his anguish.
No, no, no, no, no...
Private allowed himself the slightest of smiles. What had he been thinking? He would never put his brothers in danger.
He was a good soldier.
"I will never tell them anything!"
The echoes of his scream were fainter this time. The silence was loud.
His smile dissapated as he heard a low chuckle that he immediately identified. He drew himself up and into his "fighting position."
Skipper would've been dissapointed.
His form was sloppy, and he had a pronounced slouch. His limbs quivered, and yet he held the pose. He forced himself to say something. For Skipper and Kowalski and Rico and Mum. For the people I have to protect.
"Fancy meeting you here, Amarillo Kid."
"Never say never, Mr. Tux."
Kowalski was up on the iceberg with Rico as the humans barged into the Central Park Zoo. As Skipper climbed up to join them, he let a chuckle excape his beak.
"Tonight, men."
Kowalski had glanced at him, busy attempting to catch a piece of popcorn someone had thrown into the exhibit. "I beg your pardon, Skipper?"
Rico, having noticed the low-toned conversation, waddled over from where he had been about to dive into the penguin pool. "Wha?"
Skipper laughed, genuinely this time.
"Men, I think I have a way that we can find Private."
Kowalski sat opposite his leader. That conversation had occured hours ago. The newly-made trio had just finished eating herring sushi, courtesy of Rico. The analyst watched nervously as Skipper stabbed a red pushpin into a map.
"They are supposed to be dead, sir."
"Yes, yes. I know."
Kowalski cocked an eyebrow. "Are we really doing this?"
"I talked to Colonel White. Told him about how one of our soldiers is MIA."
Kowalski let out a short gasp and stared wide-eyed. "Y-y-you..." he tried, beak agape. Rico was in a similar state, instead asking Skipper incredulously, "'Kernal Whi?"
"Yeah, I got yelled at. A lot." Skipper frowned. "But he's agreed to help us."
"So we haven't been dishonorably discharged?"
Skipper squinted his eyes. "Not yet, we haven't."
"Phew." "Oooh yeah!"
Slam! The sound of Skipper's fist on the HQ's small, metal table resonated through the room. "We need to focus on the problem at hand. You remember the note that Manfredi and Johnson wrote us?" asked Skipper. "He silently counted down in his head. Three, two, one-
"Ah! Of course!"
Rico jumped up in surprise from Kowalski's outburst. "'Walski, ya waddah scare me?"
"No, Rico, I'm sorry. But I've figured this out! Manfredi and Johnson are penguins. I find it highly improbable that the infamous duo would ever have time to learn how to read and write. So, I propose that they used the same method that we used to decipher the human text on their note!"
Kowalski paused for dramatic affect before continuing. "Rico, Skipper, if you recall, we went to the only two animals in the zoo who could translate human writing at the time- Phil and Mason!"
While Rico looked mildly surprised, Skipper rolled his eyes, tossing a file he had retrieved onto the metal table. "Colonel White is just a Colonel. Not much compared to the head of Central. But he's got some friends in high places, literally. Have you seen how tall those Emperor penguins are?"
Now who needs to focus on the problem at hand? Kowalski had to clench his fists to stop the retort from coming. "Skipper!" he instead screamed.
Kowalski hadn't meant to come off as impatient, but their teammate was missing. No, their brother was missing. Skipper going off on a tangent about how large other species of penguins were wouldn't help anything. He grunted, grabbed the file Skipper had laid on the table, and shook it open, letting the neatly paper-clipped documents glide down to the weathered metal.
"What is this?"
Kowalski dropped the document he had been inspecting in shock and slowly grabbed another one, expecting the worst. His heart plummeted. It was filled, top to bottom, with indecipherable code, just like the last one.
"No... Skipper, what is this? Central doesn't write their documents in human writing, right?"
The commander's face fell. "I thought you'd say something like that. See, Colonel White has a band of Emperor penguins that work for him. They're the President's cousins, or something. Long story short, the Colonel got his grubby little flippers on these classified documents, and now they're yours. But one problem-"
"-they're written in human script! We'd have to show this to Phil and Mason to get the info, and at this point, we can't trust them, can we?"
Skipper shook his head. "No, Kowalski. You wrote these documents, years ago. You came up with the code and everything. You'd seen firsthand Manfredi and Johnson's plans, and the way they thought."
Kowalski scoffed. "Like you and Rico didn't?"
"No, we did. But you were the smartest and the most able of us all. You gave them the means to translate the code, and you wrote all this."
Kowalski felt a horrible, impending realization beginning to dawn on him. "Skipper. Why don't I remember any of this," he asked, putting as much vehemency as he could into the sentence.
"They wiped all our memories afterwards, as a standard security protocol. But that right there is the problem. Nobody else in all of Central, except for the President, has access to the answer to the code.
"So I'll ask the only thing I can ask of you right now: Kowalski; options."
"We have only two of them this time around, Skipper. I either try to get myself to remember the code, or we go to Antarctica and find a way to get to the President."
Skipper watched as Kowalski's face fell. He was no doubt grappling with the enormity of both tasks.
"I know I'm the leader, but this time it's your call. What do we do?"
"I- I just don't know, Skipper." his voice cracked and he tilted his head to one side, not wanting his team to see the tears that now flowed freely down his face,
Skipper glanced down, feeling his vision blur. He didn't want to think about what would happen to Private if they stalled too long. What were his former teammates doing to Private now?
"It's your call, soldier. I honestly don't know what I would do in your position."
The normally fun-loving and jovial Rico was now pleading with the scientist.
"Private," he muttered in surprisingly comprehensible speech. "We need Private back."
Skipper stepped back, knocking over the chessboard in his haste to get away. I can't handle this. None of us can!
They were each on their own, in their own, seperate silences.
The silence is loud and inescapable.
You can't escape the silence.
Oh gersh! That was a fun one to write! I guess, as a response to Smile-I'mTheEndOfAllThatYouSee's review, that this would be an AU, one in which Manfredi and Johnson are evil. And also one where there's a sort of Central military power with Emperor penguins in it. Fffffun.
I'd like to thank Treemist for answering the trivia question correctly! Yay! James Patrick Stuart has honestly got to be the VA for Private that I prefer, though Christopher Knights did marvelously in the movie! Next trivia question-
How many unreleased episodes of POM are there, as of January 26, 2015?
I'm not sure if I did the philosophical stuff right in this chapter, and this one was a bit... heavy? I dunno. But next chapter will be a whole lot of fun. Be sure to review and let me know how you think I did! Feedback is great. Flames are significantly less great!
Have a great rest of the day!