At the other shore of the green river she stopped. The bridge which had once stretched over it had broken down right at the beginning of the bridge, the other shore was out of her reach.
The magic disappeared.
The picture which just a few moments ago had been so real and colorful fainted and went away.
The dried up, empty houses, the cracked open skin of the streets, the two meter high grass at the edges, the wild impenetrable grove, the rest of the street next to the river bank, as far as her eye reached, it was all that was left of her beautiful phantom world.
Sasha felt hurt from the inside that she would never see this world with her own eyes. She now only had the choice between death and the return to the metro. Nowhere in the world was still one of those tall humans in their colorful clothes.
She was the only human soul on this broad street, which ended at a far away point, there were the sky and the deserted road met each other.
The weather was good. No rain.
Sasha couldn’t even cry. Now she just wanted to die.
As if it had heard her wish, far over her a black shadow opened its wings.
What should he do? To let the brigadier go, to give up on his book and stay at the station until he had found the girl? Or should he take her out of his novel forever, follow hunter and wait like the spider in its nest until a new heroine got caught in his net?
Reason forbade Homer to separate himself from the brigadier. For what else had he made the journey, for what else had he been exposing the entire metro to a deadly danger? He had no right to wager his work, the only thing that justified all those sacrifices, the once already made and the coming ones.
But when he picked up the broken mirror from the ground he realized: When he left the
Whatever Hunter said, Homer had to do everything to find the girl, or at least convince himself that she was still alive.
So the old man doubled his effort. The ring line?
Can’t be, without documents they would never let her through to Hanza. Through the gate?
Homer searched from the beginning of the station to its end, asking everybody who passed him if they hadn’t seen a girl pass them. She must have worn a radiation suit. Homer didn’t believe his ears.
Finally he had followed Sasha’s footsteps to the guard at the end of the escalator.
“That’s not my problem.” Answered the guard in his cabin tired. “She can go wherever she wants. I even gave her some good glasses… You can’t go through there now though, I already got in trouble for letting her through. Up there our nightly visitors have their nest. Nobody goes there. When she asked me I almost started laughing.” His pupils were as big as the end of a pistol and starred into the distance without noticing Homer (the guard is high as hell).
“Go back grandfather, it is going to be dark soon.”
Hunter had known! But what had he meant when he had said that Homer wouldn’t have been able to get her back from there? Was she still alive?
In his haste he stumbled back to the hospital. He dove under the low hallway, climbed down the narrow staircase and opened the door without knocking…
The room was empty: Neither Hunter nor his weapons were anywhere to be seen. Only the bloody bandages which were brown from his blood were lying on the ground. Next to it the empty flask.
The cleaned radiation suit in the next room was gone. The brigadier had left Homer like an annoying dog.
Humanity got signs. Her father had always believed that. You just had to see them and encrypt them.
Sasha looked up and froze. If somebody had wanted to give her a sign it couldn’t have been clearer.
Not far from the broken bridge, out of the thicket, an old round tower with a strangely decorated dome on it stood and was the highest building in the entire area. She could see it clearly: The walls were covered in deep cracks and the tower slowly tended to one side dangerously. It would have already fallen to its pieces if not a miracle had kept it standing straight… How could she have overlooked it?
Around the building was a giant climbing plant. Its stem was of course a bit thinner then the tower itself. But it seemed that its strength was enough to support the gradually decaying building. This strange plant ran around the tower and from its stem thick branches with thinner twigs built some kind of web that held the building in place.
Surely this plant had once been weak and had bent like the soft and young plants. But now it had climbed onto the edges and the balconies of the tower. If the tower wouldn’t have been that high it would have never grown to that size.
Amazed, yes even under a spell Sasha looked at the plant and the building it was saving. Everything made sense again and her will to fight returned. It was strange but for her nothing had changed. Still, against all odds this small plant had broken through the grey crust of her despair.
Of course there were things that she could never repair. Things that had happened and words which she could never take back. And still, there was so much in this story that she could change even though she didn’t know how. The most important part was that again she had new strength.
Now Sasha believed to guess the reason why the hungry chimera had let her go unharmed.
Somebody had dragged its invisible chain back so that she could still have a chance.
Full of thankfulness she was ready to forgive, ready to discuss and ready to fight. From Hunter she just needed a small sign. Only a sign.
Suddenly the lowering sun disappeared and flamed up again. Sasha raised her head and out of her line of sight she could see the black, lighting fast shadow that had dove down over her head. For a second the sun had been darkened.
A howling sound cut through the air, a deafening screaming, like a rock the creature fell from the sky at Sasha.
Acting only out of instinct she threw herself onto the ground at the same time and only that saved her. The shadow missed her by about the length of a hair. A giant creature glided with spread wings over the ground. Returned with a powerful beat of its wings into the air, started to fly in a circle and attack again.
Sasha reached for her rifle, but lowered her arms at the same time. Even a frontal salve wouldn’t stop this monster.
Nor kill it. And she also had to hit it first! She stumbled back to the free plaza from where she had started her short expedition. She didn’t waste a single thought how she would be able to return to the metro.
The flying creature screamed and attacked again.
Sasha’s legs got stuck in the suit and she fell stomach first on the ground but she managed to turn on her back and shot a short salve at the creature. The bullets scared the monster off for a few moments without leaving a fatal injury.
The few seconds she had won she used to get back up on her feet and run to the next houses.
Finally she knew how she could defend herself against the attacker.
Now another shadows circled the sky. They kept themselves in the air with their heavy, leathery.
Sasha plan was simple: When she kept close to the walls of the houses, these big and immobile monster couldn’t get to her. How she got away from here… Well she didn’t have any other choice anyways.
Done! She pressed herself against the wall and hoped that the cruel creatures would stop their attack.
But no: It seemed they had hunted more skillful prey before. The first one landed on the ground, and then the second one, around twenty meters from her and approached slowly, dragging their wings behind them.
Another slave of her rifle didn’t scare them off but only made them angrier, the bullets seemed to get stuck in the thick skin. The animal that had gotten closest to Sasha opened its mouth: Under its big snout and the raised black lips came oblique, needle-like looking sharp teeth to the light.
“Down!”
Sasha threw herself onto the ground without thinking where the voice had come from. Suddenly something exploded closely next to her and a burning hot shockwave griped her. Another one followed immediately, sounded
