I've been playing the new Metal Gear Solid game, and begun to absolutely love it. So much, in fact, that I've written a little bit of fan fiction on it, about the game's main adversaries, the Beauty and the Beast Unit. Don't worry if you don't know much about the metal gear solid games, as they're completely unconnected to the main story.
I'll be writing this as four short stories, and possibly an epilogue. Be warned, they're all going to be pretty horrific, but I can only say that Hideo Kojima made them up, not me.
Enjoy.
Beautiful Beasts
Raven
The ravens were watching her again, eyes shining with greed and hunger. She watched them back from her pen, wary and suspicious. One of them, it's black feathers glistening in the sun, hopped forwards. It cawed in anticipation, almost seeming to revel in her fear as she flinched away.
“Clear off,” one of the guards yelled, kicking his boot at the bird. It flapped into the air, screeching in indignation, before fleeing. “Bloody birds,” the guard muttered. He raised his rifle and sent a shot after the bird. It hit home, and the raven toppled down, right into the pen. The huddled children within it flinched away from it as the corpse thudded down.
“That's your dinner,” the guard said. “Enjoy it.”
He strode off, the simmering resentment within him sated temporarily, but still dissatisfied.
For Merpati, it had started, as many of these things did, with a war. The Indonesian civil war, to be precise. A burgeoning war economy, Indonesia had attracted private military contractors in their hundreds, allying themselves to the highest bidder, be they government or rebel forces. And caught up between them were civilians like her.
Her family had been killed in a random, unprovoked attack, gunned down as they fled their homes. Merpati had only been saved by the corpse of her father knocking her to the ground, and she had hidden beneath it, weeping in fear as the bullets flew over her. She had been taken, too afraid to struggle, and forced into pens with other children, beaten and abused by soldiers angry from the semi-constant fighting. There was no rhyme or reason behind their rage, simply the bitter anger of those who lived for conflict, but realised that they did not want to die, but at the same time didn't care. And someone had to suffer for it.
This had happened just over a week ago.
As one, the desperate, starved children grabbed at the bird's corpse, ripping at it in their frenzied desire to eat. It was a mad scrabble, the small, pathetic friendships they had made forgotten in the need to eat. The two guards watching them laughed as they scrabbled for food, the weakest ones being shoved away by the strongest as they tried to eat. Merpati was among them, grabbing a pitiful strip of meat from the dead bird and stuffing it into her mouth, not caring that it wasn't cooked. There was no restraint, no rational sense, just a desperate need to eat.
Within minutes, they were done, the raven just a few bloodied bones on the ground. As the frenzy wore off, the children retreated back into the edges of the pen, too frightened of catching the attention of the guards. The younger ones, unable to fight through the press of bodies to get some meat from the dead bird, whimpered silently with hunger. The older children did their best to help them, holding them close in a display of camaraderie, trying to comfort them. A younger girl, Arti, huddled close to Merpati, quietly weeping. Merpati clutched the girl in her arms, not knowing what to do.
“I'm scared,” Arti murmured to her.
“I know, Arti,” Merpati replied. “So am I.”
“I want to go home,” Arti said. “When can we go home?”
“I don't know, Arti,” Merpati said. “When...when the UN come.”
“The UN?” Arti asked.
“They're people who stop bad things like this,” Merpati said. “They'll find us and help us.”
“Will they put those men in jail?”
“They will. Yeah, they will.”
“When are they coming, Merpati?”
“Soon, Arti. They're coming to help us soon.”
But nobody came. No inspector ever arrived. No soldiers came to free them. Another week passed, and then another, and the children grew more desperate and terrified than ever. Starvation and dehydration did their work, and more and more of them lost control, living a waking nightmare from which there was no escape, constantly screaming in terror, delusional and mad.
They were dragged away.
There was a gunshot.
And they never screamed again.
Arti was one of the first to give in completely to the fear and hunger that ate away at her mind. She was one of the first to be dragged away and shot. The guards began to bet on who would last the longest, some putting cash on who would be next. Many of them weren't cruel men, just men who were desperate, driven slowly insane by constant fighting, fighting which showed an angry, sadistic side in them that would otherwise never be seen.
But Marpati didn't know this. All she knew was a burning hatred and terror that consumed her, each emotion mixing in equal measure in a poisonous cocktail. At night, she was bound within her pen, tied to the wire-mesh fence like an animal and left to freeze and be bitten by mosquitoes. Time blurred for her, a constant cycle of pain and fear that left room for nothing else.
But one morning, the children woke to find the guards gone.
For a short while, desperate hope flared within them. Perhaps help had come, soldiers from the UN or from the government arriving to take them home. But as the day went on, the sun beating down mercilessly, the truth became clear. The soldiers had moved on and left the children behind to starve.
Already, the ravens had begun to circle overhead.
The first ones landed by the evening, one of the children already perishing to the heat. They pecked at the corpse, tearing strips of meat from it in the same way the children had done with the dead raven before. The birds got bolder, attacking the weaker children while they were still alive. Most of them screamed and thrashed, trying to shoo the birds away, but some just sat there as the birds tore at their flesh, too consumed by despair to be concerned by the pain. They were the worst ones.
For Merpati, the waiting was torturous, fear looming over her like a shadow. It wasn't death she feared, but the fact that she had to wait for it in such a frustrating manner. In her darkest moments, she even longed for the ravens to choose her as their next meal, hoping that she could just ignore the pain and hurry to the welcoming embrace of oblivion.
She was the last to be chosen. The birds gathered around her in a ring, hopping towards her, beaks ready to rend and tear her flesh. She kicked at them weakly, but they weren't deterred by her efforts. One of them landed behind her, balancing on the mesh, and began to peck at her wrist. She couldn't struggle against it, her wrist bound to the fence by strong nylon rope.
The first began to gingerly peck at her feet, and Merpati kicked at them viciously, sending them flapping away. The one at her wrist pecked again, but not at her flesh. It was, like all ravens an naturally curious bird, and the rope fascinated it. It kept attacking it, trying to find out what it was, and then with a caw of satisfaction, snapped it with a particularly determined peck.
Merpati felt the harsh tightness of the rope loosen almost immediately, and wrenched her hands away. Her wrists were chafed and bloodied, but she ignored that fact. She was free. She slumped forwards on her knees, almost weeping with relief. The ravens flapped away, disappointed at being denied a meal.
Merpati looked at the corpses of the children she had shared the pen with. She had known them for only a few weeks, but she had already developed a strong bond with them. She closed her eyes, silent.
In her mind, the hateful mix of hatred and fear that had been brewing within her was suddenly washed away. It was not some realisation of peace or forgiveness, or anything like that. It was superseded by something far worse.
Pure, raging hatred.
It was as if all the anger the soldiers had taken out on their captives had been poured into her, and then distilled into its purest form. It was like a white sheet that blanketed and blocked out everything. Reason and rationality were gone, even the gnawing ache of her starved stomach quashed away. She wanted nothing more than to kill the soldiers. It wasn't for vengeance or justice, or any other cause. She just had to release the anger that had built up within he like a cancer.
Her fisted clenched, then unclenched again, her eyes blank and wide. Slowly, almost mechanically, she walked to the gate of the pen, and wrenched the bolt open. There was no padlock-the soldiers expected the children to die without ever escaping. Looking as calm as she could, she walked slowly to the gate of the old camp. They were swinging open, one of them squeaking gently to and fro in the breeze.
She walked through them, barely registering their presence, eyes to the ground and following the tracks of the soldier's tyres. She didn't stop, ignoring the heat of the sun, the ache in her feet. Finally, after what could have been hours or just minutes of walking, she rounded a corner and saw the new camp the soldiers had set up. She stood there for a few moments, observing it, before slinking into the trees, and waiting for darkness.
That was when the slaughter would begin.
#
John cursed as he slapped another mosquito that had landed on his uniform, the insect dying without a sound. He hated this jungle, with its oppressive, damp heat, millions of insects and the constant danger of being ambushed by rebel forces. But the government here were paying his company well, and he had no say in where he was posted.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder, trying to relieve it's bulky weight, but it was no use-the damn thing was still as uncomfortable as it was before. He gave a sigh of irritation and kicked a stick. Guard duty was one of the dullest chores a soldier could be given.
He heard a twig snap, and John immediately bought his weapon to his shoulder, scanning the immediate area for a threat. He saw some bushes rustle, and he advance cautiously. It was probably an animal, but there was no harm in checking.
He reached the bushes, standing a safe distance away. He waited for a full minute, pointing his weapon at the same spot. It was still, and silent. He shrugged and turned away. As he'd suspected, it was just an animal.
There was a rustle behind him, and he turned again, but he was too slow. The girl was on him, punching furiously. She tore his rifle out of his hands and smashed its butt against his face, causing him to fall to the ground. She continued to pound at him, blood splattering against the ground and against her own face, smashing and smashing until all that remained of the man's face was a bloody smear on the ground.
It had been done in complete silence.
She checked through the pockets with swift speed, grabbing a thick bladed machete from the guard's belt and a large, weighty knife. She checked through the others, but nothing else in them was of any use to her.
She crept through the long grass around the soldier's newly made camp, a few wooden pickets with some barbed wire stretched between them the only real defence against attackers. She vaulted over one of the wooden poles, and landed silently.
A mind that was no longer quite her own saw through her eyes, watching two guards at a booth by the road, the main entrance to the camp. She advanced quietly, feet padding on the soft, damp earth. She grinned in an inhuman, predatory way as she saw one of the guards leave the booth, saying to his comrade; “I'll go check on him myself. The radio probably broke again-piece of crap.”
He only got three feet before the machete decapitated him.
The other guard, who had no real night vision after staying under a flickering bulb, jumped as he saw a figure appear in the doorway. It stepped forwards-a girl, perhaps thirteen years old. Her hair was a mess, her eyes wild and blank. The guard, however, was more occupied with the bloodied machete she was holding.
“Show it to me,” she hissed.
“What?” the guard asked, shaking in fear as he raised his gun.
“Show me your rage,” the girl said, twitching slightly. “SHOW ME YOUR RAGE!!”
She leapt forwards, and the guard pulled the trigger, but in his panic he had forgotten to flick the safety catch off. By the time he had, it was too late-the machete had already embedded itself in his skull and the knife sliding into his chest.
She gave a wordless scream of rage, a roaring howl that echoed through the night. Around the camp, guards gave a start as they heard it. They hurried towards the source, the booth, but its source was already gone.
A pair of guards were butchered as they hurried to their defensive positions by a howling, banshee-like apparition wielding a machete and knife. A burning match was cast into a tent full of fuel, the explosion blasting away almost half a dozen men and flipping a tank. Men fell as a hidden, roaring assailant cut them down without mercy or remorse. One guard had his throat ripped out by the girl's teeth, blood dripping down her mouth as she continued to roar in joyous hatred. Every soldier died, each death brutal and remorseless, each death ending in a butchered and mutilated corpse.
But she didn't stop there. She couldn't stop there.
Even the civilians captured by the mercenaries weren't spared, made easy prey by the pens that cooped them up. One slash sheared through the wire fence that held them, and she was in, swinging left and right with wide sweeps that tore through flesh and bone, sending arcs of blood flying into the air.
Within an hour, everything in the camp was dead. She was coated in blood, crouched on the ground, panting with exhaustion, and quivering with pent up adrenaline. Normally, anyone would have collapsed after the exertion of fighting so many people. She didn't. The rage within her was nowhere near satisfied. She moved off along the road, hunting for more prey.
Behind her, the ravens flew down to feed.