The mist was so thick Jack could barely see two feet on either side. The compass in his hand was his guide, little flickering hand leading him, leading them all slowly to the safety of the border. He had emerged from the combat with only a minor wound in the arm, one of the lucky few, and had taken charge as leader of the retreat through the jungle. The air about him was heavy with moisture, the lush verdant underbrush soaked with it. His boots sank in the wet soil, dragging him down, back; as though the jungle was trying to keep him, to embrace him tightly in muddy arms and smother him. He trudged on, leaning forwards against the weight of his pack on his back, of the automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.

Through the trees, the ferns and the mist on either side of him he sometimes caught sight of other men dressed in camouflage marching onwards up the hill, pale as an army of spectres. They threaded through the jungle, some carrying packs, some rifles, others their companions. The silence of the march was unbroken save for the swishing of legs through the underbrush and the occasional pained moan from the wounded. Even the animals were quiet, only the occasional caw of some tropical bird cackled through the dense flora.

Jack didn’t know whether they were being pursued or not. If they were, they had enough of a head start to make it to sanctuary, if they pushed on. They didn’t have enough men to mount a defence, even a rearguard was out of question. They hadn’t come in with many, but they would leave with fewer than half that.

Jack checked the compass, clutched tightly in his sweaty palm. It was the most important tool he had, the only one in the group to have scavenged a regular old-fashioned compass before the rebels had kicked in with their electronics jammers. For all their new-fangled technology, it was this centuries-old invention that would save their lives.

A figure slowly appeared out of the mist to his right, veering gradually towards him. He watched as it sharpened out of the white blanket into the form of Mei Ling, dressed in overly-large fatigues, a large satchel hung over one shoulder. She had picked up the marching beat, walking uphill with smooth, even movements so that even the sucking mud wasn’t slowing her much. She glanced at him and smiled wearily, usually perfect hair soaked, bangs plastered to her face, ponytail slithering down the back of her neck.

“This wasn’t in my briefing,” she said, slipping closer to him to navigate her way around a gigantic fern plant, more tree than shrub.

Jack shrugged. “It never is.”

“Have you seen Snake and Otacon?”

He shook his head, then brushed his damp hair out of his eyes. “I heard they were seen making a last stand on the edge of the encampment. Well, Snake was. I assume Otacon was with him.”

“No one’s seen them since the blastings? That whole area was wiped out!” Mei Ling stopped, sunk slightly in the swampy ground, and pulled herself out with an effort. Her dark eyes remained locked on Jack’s.

“If they have, I haven’t heard about it. Don’t worry too much. They’re pros.”

“‘A spark can start a fire that burns the entire prairie,’” quoted Mei Ling.

“Uh,” said Jack.

“Do not underestimate danger,” translated Mei Ling.

“I wish I could,” replied Jack. They trudged on in silence.

Slowly, the mist was lifting. Whether it was with time, or as they slowly rose in altitude, Jack didn’t know. But as it thinned he began to catch sight of more of their allies.

The men were mostly walking in groups, although here and there he saw some walking on their own, always eyes fixed on the peak they knew to be somewhere ahead of them, faces showing nothing of their thoughts. Probably many of them had no room for them, could only focus on the determination to continue walking, continue moving forwards, continue living. Some were walking in pairs, one with his arm thrown around the other’s shoulder, some in groups of three to support the middle man. In the poor light colour was difficult to distinguish, so that the world seemed to be cast in scales of grey like some old war movie. They marched on silently, resembling nothing to Jack’s mind so much as an army of ghosts.

He had a watch, but didn’t bother looking at the time. It didn’t matter. They would get there when they did, and that was all there was to it. The sound of explosions and gunfire behind them had ceased long ago. To his left, someone moaned and a woman swore. Jack and Mei Ling looked over.

Out of the mist marched Meryl, surrounded by a group of soldiers one of whom was leaning heavily on her shoulder. The rest were leaning on each other, many with stained bandages wrapped about them. Despite the fact that she was almost a foot shorter than the soldier leaning on her, she trekked on, face sharp with concentration.

“Meryl,” called Jack. She looked over at him, but kept moving.

“What?” She asked, voice rough.

“Do you need a hand?”

“I’m fine. These louts are my responsibility, anyway.” At this, the men around her smiled with embarrassment. But while they were limping along, or dragging others, she was the only one in their group not wounded. And, after all, she had a reason to be harsh. Most of the dead men had been under her command, her first recruits for her dream of someday creating a new Fox Hound. These mountains might very well prove to be her dream’s grave.

“Any sign of that bastard?” she asked, after a few moments.

“No,” replied Jack.

“Huh,” was all she said, and turned her face to the task before her.

As they climbed higher on the mountain, aiming for the pass halfway up its side, the face on which they were walking was slowly becoming a kind of valley, siphoning them together in its shrinking path. More and more soldiers were slowly gathering around them, at least thirty where Jack had originally guessed somewhere closer to ten. Perhaps the casualty list wouldn’t be as high as he feared.

Sometime in the early-afternoon, just after he had paused for a drink from his worryingly light canteen, Jack became aware of a soft murmuring from far to his left. He angled himself that way, looming up upon several soldiers who he had only seen from afar.

As he came closer, his heart leapt a beat as he recognized the figures. Snake was walking nearly bent double up the steep incline, carrying his partner on his back. It was Otacon who was talking, chattering away quietly in Snake’s ear like some kind of huge, clothed monkey.

“Snake!” Jack called. Snake looked over, and Otacon fell silent.

“Hey, kid,” replied Snake, continuing to walk determinedly onwards.

“What’s wrong with Otacon?” Jack asked, glancing at the man on his back. Otacon had looped his arms over Snake’s shoulders and his legs over the larger man’s hips, and was resting his chin on Snake’s left shoulder. At Jack’s question he shifted his weight and turned to look in Jack’s direction, so sharply that Snake staggered before catching his balance again. His glasses were completely fogged with the humidity, masking his eyes. Around his head, someone had wrapped a bandage which was stained darkly at the back.

“He didn’t duck fast enough,” answered Snake. “He’ll be alright. Concentrate on leading.” He dismissed Jack, and kept on walking. Jack kept pace with them for a few moments before turning back to make his way to the centre of the group, which he was beginning to realise was spread out like a flock of geese behind him, its leader. As he began trudging through the muck, he heard Snake tell Otacon to keep talking, and the engineer take up his quiet mumbled story-telling again.

The afternoon wore on. Jack’s legs were aching, as was his back. He had plenty of stamina, could run for hours, but the constant effort of pulling his feet up out of the mud every step was exhausting. He had taken to supporting soldiers as he went, aiding a tiring one until he was steady enough to continue on his own, then taking another one.

He was careful to wander over to Meryl from time to time, to check that her party was getting on alright. She had nothing to say to him, but acknowledged him with a nod. Mei Ling on his right had taken half the contents of his pack and was continuing admirably, although he was beginning to worry about her. She was determined to keep up with him, but the exertion was clearly taking its toll, and she was beginning to falter.

He didn’t bother straying close enough to Snake to speak to him, knew the soldier couldn’t spare him the breath while carrying his partner. Jack wasn’t sure if he could have done it. But when he drifted in that direction, if he stayed long enough he would hear Otacon’s voice raised in weak bursts of song every now and then, having apparently switched over from story-telling.

And, as afternoon followed morning, and evening afternoon, dusk slowly began to fall. The mist, much thinner now but still lingering, was what first tipped Jack off. It began to turn a soft shade of gold, bringing a sudden burst of colour to the ghost world around him. And still, he could not see the summit of the mountain. He was growing cold. The mist had soaked him through to the bone, and even if it had not his sweat would have. Now, as evening approached, the air was cooling rapidly, mist wrapping itself around them like a cold blanket.

Mei Ling staggered up to him, wiping at her face with an equally wet hand. “How far it is to the border, Jack?”

He couldn’t miss the sudden keenness of the soldiers around him. They were listening. And he had no goddamn clue. “Not too far. Just over the rise.” That much, at least, he was sure of. There was a town there, the map had said. The rebels wouldn’t cross the border and risk insurgency, and they would be able to find food and water, rest, medical aid there. If they could make it over the mountain.

He continued walking for a while, then began to drift over to Snake. The other man had fallen behind, about thirty meters behind Jack’s position as leader. He didn’t look up as Jack approached. Otacon had sunk low on his back, head nodding against Snake’s as if in sleep. “Otacon,” murmured Snake, as Jack approached. The engineer pulled himself up slightly, coughed, and began to sing something tunelessly. Close enough to hear the words, Jack realised that Otacon was slurring most of them.

“Snake,” he said quietly. Snake didn’t turn his head, but Jack knew he had the older man’s attention. “Do you know how far it is to the rise?”

“No,” replied Snake. “But we’re not going to make it before nightfall.”

“But-”

“You have two options. Camp, or keep going.” Snake shifted slightly, adjusting his grip on Otacon’s legs. “Well, I say two options, but there’s only one really.”

“Camp.”

“If you don’t, you and maybe three others will make it to the border.”

“What will you do?”

“I ... can’t trek all night. I’ll make camp.”

Jack could imagine how much it cost the soldier to admit his limits. But Jack wasn’t sure he would have been able to march all night, never mind find himself in the right place in the morning.

“Fine. We’ll stop then. Pass the word along to gather in at the centre.” He didn’t wait for Snake to make any protests. He had designated him leader, after all. Resigned to his decision, Jack struck out to the left until he found Mei Ling and the other quicker walkers, and had them spread the word to the left wing of the column. Leaving Mei Ling, Meryl and several soldiers cutting fern leaves to cover the swampy ground, Jack backtracked and began to collect the stragglers.

They ended up sitting on a great swath of fern leaves, some sleeping, some watching, some dividing what rations were assembled. Jack sat at the bottom of the slope, closest to the enemy, rifle in his hand as though it would do him any good in the dark. He sent Mei Ling to sit with Meryl in the middle of the group, dealing with the wounded as best they could with almost no first aid supplies.

Night fell in the jungle and it was pitch black. Even if the trees hadn’t blocked out the moon and stars, the mist was still with them, hanging over them like a shroud. The only light came from tiny flashlights employed by the few optimists in the middle of the group effecting first aid. Jack felt like he was sitting in a crowded crypt, counting skulls. How many of them will die tonight? Soaked clothes stuck to their exhausted frames, the heat of the march vanished to leave a bone-chilling cold trapped in the heavy material, while mud and dirty water trickled into open wounds and mosquitoes buzzed around their ears. In the darkness, the jungle felt angry and malevolent, as if having failed to pull them back from the march it was doing its best now to claim what lives it could through any means it knew.

The few chittering birds had fallen silent now. There was no wind. Only the occasional swish of leaves in the distance as some nocturnal animal wended its way through the foliage. And, off to his right, on the very edge of the group, a quiet murmuring.

Jack stood up, passing his rife to an alert-looking soldier nearby with only one visible bandage, and slipped through the night, legs aching in protest.

While the mist blocked out any light which might have fallen upon them from the sky, it captured the light they created in odd patches, creating artificial lights in some area while completely shadowing others. On the far right edge of the camp, the mist had fallen back into a loose frame, cupping the side of the camp in its wet grasp. Against the dim backdrop of light it provided, Jack could see two men sitting against the trunk of an ancient nurse tree, long ago uprooted but now a fertile bed for saplings to spring from.

Jack stood, hidden in a pocket of darkness, and watched the two men. When he looked back on that hellish night afterwards, it was not the quiet sobbing of the dying soldiers around him, or the desperate shift of fabric as Meryl and Mei Ling fought to save lives that were already forfeit, that he remembered.

He would still remember the image of the two men sitting bowed against the aged trunk when he was an old man, and both Philanthropists were in their graves. Snake, staring out into the distance, the small circle of light cast by the tiny spark of red light at the end of a cigarette showing a cold, darkly pensive face in which was set a pair of sad, tired eyes. To his right, Otacon sitting hunched over, face in shadow except for the strip of brightness where the light caught the linen wrapped around his forehead, still even though he had wrapped his arms around his knees in what must have been an uncomfortable position. He was reciting a poem, Jack eventually realised, over and over as he sat there, in a low, empty voice. He could hear the words, but they made no sense, no matter how many times he listened. It was only later, thinking back with a clearer mind, that he realised they had been spoken in German and wondered what if anything that meant.

Jack stood watching them for nearly an hour, drawn to the scene in a way he couldn’t describe. To the soldier, years of battle and bloodshed and death captured in his worn eyes, bend of his posture indicating his unconscious attention to his partner, a tree bowed by the wind. To the engineer, faceless voice devoid of feeling or expression or life, breath forced from a corpse. Eventually, mind nearly as cold as his body, Jack straightened and returned to the centre of camp to lend what aid he could.

They began the march again in the morning, to find that the mist had lifted and the jungle was filled with golden light and rainbows. It took them four hours to cross the pass, and another two to descend into the nearby village. By the time they arrived, they had fifteen fewer men than they had made camp with the night before, the last one having died in Meryl’s arms twenty minutes before they entered the village. Even if she had wanted to cry, she would have been too exhausted to, although Jack saw her hands shaking as she reached down to pick up her rifle.

They walked into the village to find the people crowded around their doors, watching them with wary eyes. Meryl snarled, dropped her pack, and walked over to the nearest group. Jack sighed, dropped his own, and went after her. With that movement, he felt as though he had stepped out of the shadows and into the light again. Behind him, the soldiers seemed to let out one collective sigh, and stepped forwards into their futures.

[this wasn’t meant to be the end, but the real end was terrible, so I suppose it is now…]