Escape From -- Nowhere? [Zoe]
Snake didn't think it was possible, but he may have finally found the one place he could not escape from.
Then again, it had only been a few days, so he wasn't counting himself down and out. Not just yet.
He hadn't slept since he'd arrived in The City. Sleep would put him at a considerable disadvantage if the truth behind his new location finally decided to show its teeth. (Or its claws, or its institutionalized police state, or anything else it might have been hiding.) As was to be expected, Snake was not a man who trusted openly. In fact, he wasn't a man who trusted at all. Once upon a time, he had devoted his life to a cause, but when that cause was shred to pieces like a bleeding man fed to a tank of starving sharks, well, he decided that there was only one person on the planet that he could put any stock in. And that was himself.
His energy was beginning to wear. And the hours of walking were showing scrapes on the toes of his combat boots and blisters on the bottom of his feet. But he was a soldier. A soldier, a fighter, a man to be reckoned with. (Even with one eye.) But even the best of the best needed to close their eyes every now and again, and fill their bellies with sustenance. It was the smell of the Chinese restaurant that drove him to stay awake and kept him from dozing into a zombie state on the streets. Money didn't seem to be an option. (Or maybe Snake was interpreting his Chinese incorrectly.) Either way, the old man with the wire rimmed glasses and the fu manchu gave him a takeout box of pork low mein and an eggroll, free of charge.
Snake thought maybe he should bow in respect. But he didn't want to risk getting his head lopped off by some unsuspecting ninja. (Delirium was beginning to set in.) So he just nodded his head and left.
He found a quiet corner at a lazy intersection with a bus bench, and that's where he took up residence. (For the time being.) That overly large and unnecessary gun was set on his lap (for safe keeping) while he dug a pair of chopsticks into the takeout box. He took a big bite. Then another. Hell, he had forgotten how good it used to be to eat real food. Food that wasn't contaminated by the acid rain which had plagued America's farmlands for the last fifteen years. Food that hadn't been processed and reprocessed and processed again, just for the hell of it. Food that wasn't in competition with Soylent Green.
Snake sighed, glancing up at the tall buildings around him. The lights of Wayne Industries seemed to sparkle against the nighttime backdrop.
Fuck the rest of the world. Maybe The City wasn't worth escaping from.