Metro 2034

The creatures were in some kind of stasis and didn’t seem to notice her. Suddenly the animal’s groaned, breathed out through the oblique slits of its snout and started to move… Hastily Sasha put the lamp away and rushed on. The few steps through the scary camp cost her lot of strength: The further she got from the entrance to the metro the denser the chimaeras lay next to each other and the harder it got to find a way past their bodies.

But it was too late to turn around now. Right now Sasha didn’t care about how she would get back to the metro, it only counted for her to get past these creature without any of them noticing. To remain unseen, to feel… If they just didn’t wake up, if they would let her go…. She didn’t need a way back.

She almost didn’t dare to breathe and didn’t even try to think and slowly enclosed on the exit. Asplit tile on the ground made a deceiving sound under her boot. Another wrong step or another coincidental noise and they would awake and rip her to pieces immediately.

Sasha couldn’t shake the thought that just short time ago, maybe yesterday or even today she had wandered between sleeping monsters too, so at least the feeling she had right now was somewhat familiar to her. Suddenly she stopped.

Sasha knew: Sometimes you can feel strangers look on your neck. And even though these creatures had no eyes with them they were searching the room, she clearly felt an intrusive starring on her.

She didn’t have to turn around to realize that one of the animals behind her had awoken and had put its heavy head into her direction.

But she did and turned around.

The girl was gone and Homer didn’t care to search for her right now.

To be honest he didn’t care about anything anymore.

The diary of the radio operator had left one small spark that the disease would spare the old man and Hunter had extinguished that spark with his merciless boot. Homer had started a well prepared conversation, a kind of death sentence. But he hadn’t wanted to pardon him and he wouldn’t have been able to. Homer was the only one responsible for his inevitable fate.

Just a few more weeks, maybe even less. Only ten pages left in his small book with the plastic cover.

He still had so much to say. For homer it wasn’t just a wish but his duty, even thought the unwilling rest was coming to an end very soon.

He straightened the paper so he could continue from his last point, when the doctor cut him off.

But again his hand wrote: “What remains of me?”

And what of the unlucky prisoners at of the Tulskaya? Maybe they had already lost hope, maybe they were still waiting for help and in that case they had a cruel end in front of them. Their memories?

There weren’t enough people that he still remembered.

Memories weren’t really strong mausoleum. If Homer wouldn’t die in the far future all those who he once knew would die with him. Even his own, his personal Moscow would dissolve into nothing.

Where was he? At the Pavelezkaya? The garden ring was now empty and without any live, for the last few hours they had been relocating heavy military gear so that the paramedics and police escorts could pass freely. Out of the side streets stood destroyed city villas and stared like decayed, half fallen out teeth…. Homer could imagine the landscape above him even though he had never himself.

Before the war he had been up there. Had had an appointment with his fiance in a cafe, a rendezvous next to the metro and then later had gone into the matinee showing of a movie at the cinema. He also remembered how he had gone under a pricy and clumsy medical examination for his driver’s license test. Also that he had used to leave from this station with his colleagues to go have a barbecue in the forest…

On the squared paper of his notebook suddenly the railway station in the autumn fog and the two in dust sinking towers appeared, a new office building at the ring where one of his friends had worked and the winding top of a new hotel with another just as expensive concert hall next to it. He had once asked for the price of a ticket and it had cost more than what he had made in two weeks.

He saw and heard the clinging, edgy white blue streetcars, filled with unsatisfied passengers, the anger of this harmless crowd made him smile, the garden ring, magnificently lit from thousands of search lights and blinking like one giant garland, timid snowflakes that didn’t fit to the scenery, melting when they touched the dark asphalt and the crowds, myriads of particles, loaded, bumping into each other, at the same time chaotic and racing but everyone moving in a well thought-out lane.

He saw the lane between the Stalin monoliths, where slowly the big river of the garden ring flew onto the plaza.

Hundredths of windows shined like small aquariums to both sides of the broad street. The neon fire of the signs and gigantic billboards which were soon many floors tall buildings would stand… But nobody would ever be able to finish them

He saw everything and realized that he couldn’t describe this beautiful picture anyways. So at the end there was nothing left but the graves of the business center and the luxurious hotel?

She didn’t come back, whether after one nor after three hours. Worried Homer searched the entire station asking the merchants and musicians and even asking the guards on the entrance to Hanza.

Nothing. It was like the ground had swallowed her whole. The old man didn’t know what to do.

Again he leaned himself against the door of the room where the brigadier was laying. He was the last person with who he wanted to talk about the disappearance of the girl, but what else could he do?

Hunter was laying there breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling. His right arm rested on the blanket, his fist showed fresh wounds. From small scratches blood dropped onto the blanket but the brigadier didn’t seem to notice it.

“When are you ready to go?” He asked Homer without turning around.

“If it was only about me, immediately.” The old man hesitated. “It’s just… I can’t’ find the girl. And how do you want to walk in your condition? You’re still totally…”

“I’m going to survive it.” Answered the brigadier.

“Also death isn’t the worst thing. Pack your things. In not even one and a half hour I’m back on my feet. We are going to the Dobryninskaya”

“One hour is enough for me.” Said Homer hastily.

“But before that I have to find her. I want her to come with us… I really need her, you know…”

“I’ll leave in one hour.” Said hunter. “With you or without you. And also without her.”

“I just don’t understand, where could she have gone?” Homer sighed disappointed. “If I just knew…”

“I know where she went.” Said the brigadier indifferent. “But from there you can’t bring her back. Go pack your things.”

Homer retreated and blinked with his eyes. He was used to relying on the brigadier’s inhuman abilities but now he refused to believe him. What if Hunter was lying again, this time to get rid of unnecessary ballast?

“She said that you would need her…”

“I need you.” Hunter moved his head in Homers direction. “And you need me.”

“For what?” Whispered homer.

“Much depends on you.” The brigadier had heard him.

He slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.

The bed squealed when Hunter rose up with his teeth fletched. “Go now. Pack your things so you’re ready in time.”

Before he left the room Homer stopped for a moment and took the red makeup box from the ground. The cover was broken and the hinges were bent and loose.

The mirror was fragmented.

Homer turned around and said to Hunter. “I can’t leave without her.”

The chimera was almost twice as big as Sasha. Its head bumped against the ceiling. The claws were almost hanging down to the ground.

Sasha knew how lighting fast these animals moved and with what unbelievable speed they attacked. To