[ninth bullet] action (for everyone in Camp Otacon)
[When Liquid was sane again, he found himself in the middle of a forest without the slightest indication of how he'd gotten there. The walls of the prison came had simply burned off like fog, leaving him confused and disoriented and exhausted beyond belief.]
...?
[Had he never left at all? Was that why he was covered in mud when he'd been in the desert, why there were tears in his trousers at brush-height and scratches that he'd never remembered getting? He looked down at himself and hardly recognized the body he saw; it was a good twenty or so pounds lighter, caked with dust and dried mud, filthy with sweat and blood. His lip was split and chapped, his hair was a matted, filthy mess of leaves, tangles, and brown roots growing in. He was still clutching a butcher knife in his hand like it was the Holy Grail.]
[It had all just been a hallucination?]
[The blood was real, though. The dried blood on the blade was very, very real.]
[He raised the knife to look at it more closely, his hands trembling. He'd cut someone with this blade, that much was evident. He'd gone mad and attacked someone, and he wouldn't have been surprised if all the towns and cities around knew his name and description by now. Liquid knew himself well enough to know that if he attacked someone, he killed them. In that kind of mindset, in that kind of mad, blind panic, he wouldn't have had the presence of mind to strike only to incapacitate. There would have only been killing blows.]
[And the closest person to him at the time of his madness would be...]
[Hal.]
[He killed Hal.]
[It was Hal's blood that stained his knife, his hands.]
[Underneath the dirt and a week-old beard, Liquid's face went pale.]
[What now? As a wanted murderer, he couldn't go into towns or get into contact with anyone; that would mean setting the police off after him. He'd killed plenty of people before, but he'd never killed someone he'd actually... liked before. Someone he'd kind of cared about. A friend.]
[That was a few days ago.]
[Now Liquid was trying to find his way out of the woods, trying to keep himself awake enough to focus on more than one thing at a time. Well over a week of no sleep, no food, and no shelter made for a man that looked like some kind of starved hobo zombie rather than the robust pinnacle of masculinity that Liquid usually was. He had one objective in mind: find civilization. Don't go into it, just find it. Once he had his bearings, then he could figure out what he was going to do about this whole warrant thing and the fact that he had killed one of the only people he'd ever cared for.]
[It was getting into evening by the time he saw... light, between the trees. And there were voices, ones that sounded familiar. Was it real, or another hallucination? Who the hell knew? Who the hell cared?]
...hn.
[He crouched slightly, lowering his center of gravity as he moved forward; knowing how to move silently was ingrained into him so as to be second-nature. He edged as close to the campsite as he thought he could without being seen, checking to see whether this was a police encampment or trainers and trying to judge how wide a berth he ought to give it.]
...?
[Had he never left at all? Was that why he was covered in mud when he'd been in the desert, why there were tears in his trousers at brush-height and scratches that he'd never remembered getting? He looked down at himself and hardly recognized the body he saw; it was a good twenty or so pounds lighter, caked with dust and dried mud, filthy with sweat and blood. His lip was split and chapped, his hair was a matted, filthy mess of leaves, tangles, and brown roots growing in. He was still clutching a butcher knife in his hand like it was the Holy Grail.]
[It had all just been a hallucination?]
[The blood was real, though. The dried blood on the blade was very, very real.]
[He raised the knife to look at it more closely, his hands trembling. He'd cut someone with this blade, that much was evident. He'd gone mad and attacked someone, and he wouldn't have been surprised if all the towns and cities around knew his name and description by now. Liquid knew himself well enough to know that if he attacked someone, he killed them. In that kind of mindset, in that kind of mad, blind panic, he wouldn't have had the presence of mind to strike only to incapacitate. There would have only been killing blows.]
[And the closest person to him at the time of his madness would be...]
[Hal.]
[He killed Hal.]
[It was Hal's blood that stained his knife, his hands.]
[Underneath the dirt and a week-old beard, Liquid's face went pale.]
[What now? As a wanted murderer, he couldn't go into towns or get into contact with anyone; that would mean setting the police off after him. He'd killed plenty of people before, but he'd never killed someone he'd actually... liked before. Someone he'd kind of cared about. A friend.]
[That was a few days ago.]
[Now Liquid was trying to find his way out of the woods, trying to keep himself awake enough to focus on more than one thing at a time. Well over a week of no sleep, no food, and no shelter made for a man that looked like some kind of starved hobo zombie rather than the robust pinnacle of masculinity that Liquid usually was. He had one objective in mind: find civilization. Don't go into it, just find it. Once he had his bearings, then he could figure out what he was going to do about this whole warrant thing and the fact that he had killed one of the only people he'd ever cared for.]
[It was getting into evening by the time he saw... light, between the trees. And there were voices, ones that sounded familiar. Was it real, or another hallucination? Who the hell knew? Who the hell cared?]
...hn.
[He crouched slightly, lowering his center of gravity as he moved forward; knowing how to move silently was ingrained into him so as to be second-nature. He edged as close to the campsite as he thought he could without being seen, checking to see whether this was a police encampment or trainers and trying to judge how wide a berth he ought to give it.]