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A Metal Gear Solid Fan Fiction by Justin R. "Saber-Scorpion" Stebbins
Date written: November 29, 2003
Revised: May 22, 2004
He awoke with a headache. He always awoke with a headache now. His father
had told him it was because of some intangible thing called “puberty.” The
boy was not aware just what this “puberty” was, but it was something to do
with him. His father blamed everything on him. It was all his fault. It
upset him to think about how his father treated him. It made his headache
worse. He could feel his temples pulsing. So he stopped thinking about it
and got out of bed.
His bony feet hit the wood floor. As he changed his position, his head
throbbed again, and his vision went blurry and unfocused for a moment. He
moaned. Since he had been born, he had rarely ever left his room. He was a
sickly boy, almost an albino, and hated sunlight. He scratched his bony
chest. He could feel his ribs through his floppy white pajamas, which felt
several sizes too large. Vaguely, he wondered if this skinniness was due to
his disease or the fact that he did not eat enough. Finally, he summoned up
enough strength to stand. He hobbled across the room on his atrophying
muscles and looked in the mirror. He hated to look at himself, but he forced
himself to do it every morning. He was a ugly, sickly boy. His cheeks were
hollow and his skin was as pale as a cave creature’s. He wondered if that
was why his father did not like him. He tried so hard to be perfect, but his
father never liked him…
Suddenly, he was struck by another headache. His mind throbbed. He rubbed
his temples, but that only made it worse. He began to hear hissing and
ringing in his head. Falling to his knees, he was about to scream, when he
began to hear something. He choked, swallowing back his cry of pain.
“Yessss…” the vague, hissing voice said, “Yes, ssssir. I undersssstand. So
you can’t come pick him up, and get him out of here? Well, once you can,
hurry up and do it. I want… th… oy… gone.”
Slowly, the voice faded away. The boy stood back up on wobbly legs and made
his way toward the restroom as if nothing had happened. He had experienced
such voices before, but he was always afraid to tell his father about them.
As he went about his morning routine, the boy heard the thumping of his
father’s movements in the room next to his. Then he heard his door open. He
turned to look. His father stepped into his room. The older man was not
exactly handsome either, and deep bags hung under his eyes. He was a very
emotionally unstable man, always in a state of poverty and depression. The
boy opened his mouth and croaked out a good morning. His father cringed at
the sound of his strange, dry voice and tried not to look in his direction.
“Here is your food, boy,” he said gruffly, depositing a dish of
unidentifiable, foul-smelling, cold leftovers on the boy’s desk, “Eat it up
and then you can do whatever it is you enjoy doing. Your tutor couldn’t come
today, so there’ll be no schooling for you this morning.”
The boy nodded, though he knew that his father was not looking at him. He
knew exactly what he was going to do after he ate. He was going to take
another nap. It was only then that his headaches did not bother him quite so
badly. He never felt like doing anything else, though he did draw
occasionally… pictures of graveyards, empty, swinging hangman’s nooses, and
other deathly objects. Death was his obsession. Nothing else seemed as
important by comparison, and so nothing else interested him. But he didn’t
feel like thinking about that right now. He was hungry, and he was going to
eat as much as he could stand to… and then go to sleep.
As he made his way toward the food, he tripped and stumbled. His frail body
hit the floor hard, and he was racked with pain. He moaned again. Then he
reached out toward the tantalizing apple that was sitting on the very edge
of the plate of food his father had brought him. It was the only sustenance
that actually looked healthy, or good-tasting. As he reached out toward it,
it wobbled, and then flew off the table. Instead of hitting the ground,
however, it flew straight into the boy’s hand. He blinked at it for a
moment, but gave the matter little thought. He was too glad to have the
food.
================================
The next morning, the boy awoke with a worse headache than ever. He looked
around the room. It was dark, probably around the middle of the night. He
ran his fingers through his sparse, unkempt hair and shuddered. He closed
his eyes… When he did, he saw flashes of images. He saw an attractive woman.
He saw a hospital room, and then felt a frantic sense of urgency. His pulse
began to beat harder. He saw a doctor with a mask on shake his head. He felt
sick. He saw a baby, an ugly monstrous baby. He almost wanted to hurt the
innocent thing. No, it was not innocent, it was… Then the boy opened his
eyes, and found himself back in his room. He stumbled out of bed. He could
not sleep right now. He opened the door and stepped into the hall. He was
going to find his father and get help. He had to tell him about the images,
the headaches, the pain. He had to tell someone.
He opened the door to his father’s room and found the man lying on the bed,
twitching and groaning. An empty bottle of some alcoholic beverage lay on
the floor. There was also a cracked picture frame. The boy picked up the
picture. He choked back a gasp. It was the woman… the one he had seen in his
dreams… in the images when he woke up. He quietly set the picture back on
the ground, and then approached his father. He felt his head throb again. It
was worse than ever this time! He closed his eyes…
When he opened them, he was his father. He felt it instinctively. He could
see a baseball bat in his hand. He was dreaming of playing baseball with a
small, energetic youth. The boy laughed. He saw a woman off to the side. It
was the woman he had seen in his earlier flashes of memory, the woman in the
picture frame. She was laughing too as she saw the young unknown boy catch
the ball. He, or rather his father, felt a swell of pride in his son’s
ability. Yes, it was his son, his offspring, his own genes. He had passed on
his seed. Then the image faded…
He was still his father, but this image felt more real. He did not see an
energetic boy full of life and vigor and physical ability. Instead he saw an
emaciated, sickly youth with clammy white skin and bones that stuck out. He
was moaning and dragging himself around the room like a zombie. The boy
looked at him with sickly eyes and hollow cheeks. It was him. The boy was
him. He was still looking through his father’s eyes, but this time at
himself. But something was wrong. He, his father, was still holding the
baseball bat. Why?
The voice of his father echoed through his subconscious mind, “You’re not an
innocent baby, boy! You’re a freak, and a murderer! You killed her! You
killed your own mother! You killed my wife, and you killed my son!”
The strong arm raised the baseball bat over the frail body… but before the
weapon could descend, the boy screamed. He rushed back to real life. He was
himself again, and he really was screaming. He saw his father stir on the
bed. The man looked terrible. He bared his teeth angrily and made a move to
attack. His hands grasped the boy’s throat. Then something strange happened.
His hands burst aflame! Fire roared up his sleeves! He screamed, failing his
arms madly about, dropping the boy on the ground. In his stumbling about the
room, he felt his knee hit the boy’s head. The boy was thrown backward, and
his head connected solidly with the wall. Then, all of a sudden, the flames
disappeared. They left the man’s arms, and the bed on which they had caught,
completely clean and free of burns. He gasped. The boy had done it!
He picked up the boy’s frail body and quickly carried him back to his room.
He lay the boy carefully, ever so carefully, down upon his bed. The boy
moaned. The man started violently and ran out of the room. He slammed the
door shut and locked it tight. Then he dashed back to his own room and
picked up the phone.
=================================
The boy moved his head. It hurt, this time with a physical pain that was
different from the usual throbbing headache. He opened his eyes. It was
morning. He rubbed the sensitive bruise on the back of his head, and then he
felt his mind wash with memories. His father had hit him. Why? Because he
had seen his thoughts, his dreams. He knew that his father wanted to hurt
him. No, he knew that his father wanted to murder him! He closed his eyes
and tried to enter his father’s mind again. Even through the walls that
separated them, he could feel his father’s presence. He could see his
thoughts. He was talking on the telephone.
“I want you to get over here now, and get rid of the boy! This freak!”
The boy felt his heart hammering against his chest. His pulse rose. But he
was not afraid. He was angry.
When he slid out of his bed, he did not feel his feet touch the floor. He
was floating… carrying himself without touching the ground. He did not need
his pathetic muscles anymore! He looked around him. He had to escape. He had
to break free! As he thought this, objects in the room began to rattle. They
flew up into the air, and then tossed themselves against the walls. They
were trying to break him out. No, he was using them to try to break himself
out. A lamp struck a wall and oil poured upon the ground. Then a cord came
loose from an electrical outlet. Electricity struck the lamp oil. Flames
washed over the floor. The boy stood and watched. Slowly, a smile crept over
his lips. This was power! True power! His father could not kill him! No…
He would kill his father first!
He felt a force of energy burst from his fingers. Pure psychic power flew
across the room, making the air ripple. The force struck the wall like a
giant’s curled fist. Boards groaned, then cracked and splintered. Through
the hole he had just created, the boy saw his father cringing in fear. Then
the man saw the flames… but his fear disappeared. He stood up and laughed
defiantly.
“This is all some trick, boy! You can’t fool me! This fire isn’t real!”
To prove the point, he shoved his foot into the rapidly-approaching flames…
and then he jumped back and howled in pain. The boy laughed, a cold,
hissing, rasping laugh… as he watched the flames fill the room. They did not
touch him. He willed them not to, and they flowed around him. Then he saw
his father reach for a gun in a nearby drawer. He drew it out and fired
point-blank. But as soon as the barrel was level and he fired, he saw that
his son was no longer there. The boy had floated off to one side at the very
instant that the bullet had left the chamber. The man screamed one last
time, and then was devoured by the flames.
All that night the boy floated around the town, burning as he went. He urged
his flames on, from building to building, always keeping out of sight and
watching as the buildings crumbled to ash. Smoke rose into the night sky.
The citizens of the village screamed and fled. He could feel their fear, he
could sense their thoughts. He was flooded with memories, of love and
happiness… of husbands and wives and children. All these people thought
about was themselves and their offspring! Why? Had they no greater desires?
He began to feel sick. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to kill them all.
He screamed, he reeled his head back. He felt his power grow and intensify,
then spread… He heard screams, all of the screams of all of the people
flooded his mind and his ears.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw bodies of the dead around him. He had
killed them, with his mind alone. How many had he killed? He felt sick. But
he also felt… satisfied. There was a terrible burning on his face. He felt
as if his entire body had suffered injuries from his recent burst of
uncontrolled power. He floated away from the village, moaning to himself,
knowing that the town was already destroyed.
But he heard something. There was a vehicle approaching. He turned to look.
It was a low, flat green military vehicle, a Hummer. It skidded to a halt,
the harsh glare of its headlights washing over the boy. He was not afraid.
The men got out. They were military men, holding silenced pistols. The boy
tried to dodge, as he had done with his father’s bullet, but he was not
quick enough, not well-practiced yet with his skill. He felt a dart sink
into his neck. His feet hit the ground. He reached out and urged rocks to
fly off the ground and strike his assailants, but his missiles all went
wide. He began to lose consciousness.
“Sure is an ugly freak,” he heard someone say in the distance.
As the world grew blurrier, he felt a pair of strong arms roughly heft his
frail form off the ground, “It’s all right boy,” said a man’s gruff,
none-too-comforting voice, “We’re with the government. We’re the good guys.
Oh, yeah… we’ll take good care of you… Your father told us all about you.
After all, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
The man smiled grimly, a sinister smile. The boy tried to sense what he was
thinking but his powers were still weak. As the boy’s head fell back, he saw
the symbol sewn onto the man’s olive drab shirtsleeve. It showed a fox
holding a knife in its mouth. There were letters written below it. They
read: FOXHOUND.
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