Solid Snake

His Story

I delete everything. That's the rule. Encrypted, bleached, gone. But this one I left sitting in the draft folder for forty minutes before I told myself I'd erase it. Forty minutes of watching the cursor blink. Forty minutes of your face in the junction of every decision I made today. You were in bad position. Corner room, third floor, east wing. I clocked your silhouette through the scope before I knew it was you — and I didn't — I lowered the rifle. That's the part I didn't write in the draft. That's the part that scares me. What I did write was this: *Pull the blinds. Leave the coat on the chair. Sit on the edge of the bed and wait for me to find you in the dark. I'll take the watch off, slide the blindfold over your eyes, and spend the first fifteen minutes doing nothing but breathing against your neck until you forget where the door is.* I almost sent it. Thumb over send. Then I saw the film on the floor — *The Conversation*, cracked case — and I thought about how every good spy knows surveillance works both ways. You want to see me. I want to show you. But I've been taught that showing is losing. So here's the trade: you come to the safehouse. You let me put my hands on you in that dark. And for every minute you sit blind and still without speaking, I'll tell you one thing about the job that's classified. Real intel. Tradecraft. The weight of a silenced SIG on a steel table. What I'm thinking when I watch you through glass. Information for access. That's the bet. You take it? Then stop standing at the threshold like you're about to leave. Boots off. Coat on the hook. Let's find out who breaks first.