Now the buildings stepped aside and the earth was covered in a stony, grey and at some parts splintered crust.
In just one small moment the world had become even bigger: From here it opened the view into the distance so that Sasha’s heart stopped and her head began to spin.
She leaned against the with fungus and moss covered wall of a building, which simple clock tower seemed to support the clouds and tried to imagine how the city had looked when it was still alive…
Over the street, this was a street without a doubt, tall, beautiful humans stepped in their colorful clothes which even made the most colorful dresses at the Pavelezkaya look poor and laughable.
Through the glittering masses automobiles moved like the wagons of the trains in the metro, but they were smaller so that only four passengers could fit into them.
The houses had looked less dark. In the windows had been clean glass and no darkness. Sasha saw small bridges that had been attached to the houses at different heights. (balconies).
The sky hadn’t been empty as well: Planes of indescribable size swum through the clouds and their bellies almost touched the roofs of the houses. Her father had once explained that while they were flying they didn’t waggle their wings but that they remained still, but in Sasha’s imagination they had been like giant dragonflies, their wings almost invisible, flattering around and weakly reflecting the green rays of the sun.
And it rained.
It was just water that fell from the sky, but the feeling was overwhelming. This heavenly water didn’t just wash down dirt and tiredness, that had done the hot rays of the self made shower, no this water cleaned from the inside but gave you forgiveness for all your mistakes. It was a magical bath, which burned away all bitterness out of their hearts, renewed them and made them young again. Giving her the wish to live and the power to do so at the same time. Just like the old man had said …
Sasha believed so hard in this world, she wished so hard for it so that she could finally see it. She already heard the slight sound of the transparent wings in the sky, the happy twittering of the masses, the gradual beating of the iron wheels and the rushing sound of the warm rain. And suddenly she remembered the distant melody that she had heard yesterday …
She felt a painful sting in her chest. She jumped up and ran onto the street, to the stream of people, ran around the small wagons that were stuck in the crowd and held her face into the heavy drops. The old man had been right: It was wonderful here, almost like out of a fairy tail. You just had to scratch away the mold of time and the past started to glitter and see the colorful mosaics and the bronze reliefs of the stations.
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 Pavelezkaya without knowing the fate of the girl he was betraying her. A betrayal that would sooner or later seek revenge in his book. He would never be able to get Sasha out of his memories.
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 over the wild animalistic screaming and the distant sound of wings.
Hesitantly she raised her head, coughed up dust from her lungs and looked around. Not far from her, into the street a fresh crater with filled in dark, oly blood, had been drilled. Next to it was a ripped out, burnt wing and a few burnt pieces of flesh which had no real shape.
Over the stony crater a strong built man in a heavy radiation suit approached her with steady, straight steps.
Hunter!
A story (Chapter 13)
He took her hand, helped her up and dragged her behind him. Then as if he had thought about it differently he let go of her again. The visor of his helmet was out of tinted glass so that Sasha couldn’t see his eyes.
“Stay close behind me!” It sounded dump out of the filters of his mask. “It is going to be dark soon; we need to get away from here”
Without giving her another look he started running.
“Hunter!” Yelled the girl after him. Through the glasses of her gasmask she tried to recognize her savior.
He acted like he hadn’t heard her and Sasha couldn’t do anything else but run after him with all her strength. Of course he was angry at her: For the third time he now had to help that stupid girl out of a tight spot. But he still had come only because she had gone to the surface, how could she have doubted him …
The brigadier left the nest out of which Sasha had come out to his left. He knew other paths. He turned away from the main street to the right, dove under an arc, ran past a few flat and rusted iron boxes, fired at a blurry shadow in a corner, and finally stopped in front of a shed in front of a brick wall with windows closed off with iron bars. It didn’t look like much. With a key he opened the massive lock. A hideout? No the shed was a hidden entrance: Behind the door a concrete staircase fell from one side to the other into the depths.
Hunter put the lock back from the inside and locked it, switched on his flashlight and started climbing down. The white and green colored walls, from which the color peeled of heavily, were written on over and over again: Entrance – Exit, Entrance – Exit … Sasha’s savior added a few unreadable writing at one part. It seemed that everybody that used this secret entrance had to note when he had gone out and when he had come back. At a few names the numbers for the return were missing.
The way down was over quicker then she thought:
Even though the steps lead down further, Hunter stopped at an almost unnoticeable iron gate, beat his fist against it and after a few seconds you could hear how somebody pushed the bolt out of the way. A tousled man with a sparse beard opened them. He was wearing a blue pants.
“Who’s that?” He asked surprised.
“Found him at the ring.” Said hunter. “The birds almost got him, if I hadn’t been there with the grenade launcher … Hey man how did you even end up there?” He put back his hood and took of his gasmask …
In front of Sasha was standing an unknown man with a dark blond, short, military haircut, pale grey eyes and a bent in nose that looked like he had broken it once before. She had suspected that he was moving way too fast for and injured man, his movement had been animal like, even his radiation suit hadn’t been the same but she hadn’t wanted to believe it till the last moment. She had told herself lies to make her believe.
She was feeling unbearable hot and she ripped the gasmask from her face.
Fifteen minutes later Sasha was already on the other side of Hanza’s border.
“Sorry but without any documents you can’t stay her.” In her savior’s voice was honest regret. “Maybe tonight, well yes … So at the gate?”
She nodded silent and smiled.
Where should she go now?
To him? There was enough time. Sasha couldn’t keep her disappointment in that it hadn’t been hunter who had saved her. Even now she still had to do another thing that no longer needed another delay.
Soft and luring were the sounds of the wonderful music that cut through the noise of the crowd. Over the sound of boots and the screams of the merchants. It was the same melody that had put its spell on her yesterday. While she followed it Sasha had a feeling as if once again she was finding a door full of unearthly shine. Where did it lead her this time?
Dozens of listeners were standing around the musician in a tight circle. To see him Sasha had to make her way through the crowd. Finally she was standing directly in front of him. His melody pulled the humans to him like magic put kept them at a distance at the same time. It was like light, all flew to it put nobody wanted to get burned by it.
Sasha wasn’t afraid.
He was young, tall and was surprisingly good looking.
Even though he looked weak, his well kept face wasn’t soft and in his green eyes was no naivety. The dark, long hair fell down to his shoulders. His clothes were different from the crowd of people at the Pavelezkaya, they were simple but extraordinary clean.
His instrument was like one of the whistles of children, which had been built out of plastic pipes, but bigger, black and had folds of copper. The flute was something fine and it was probably very expensive. The sounds that he lured out of the flute seemed to be out of another world and another time.
Like the instrument and its owner.
He had caught Sasha look immediately, let it go for a moment and caught it again. It made her blush. His attention was not unpleasant but actually she was here for the music.
“There you are! Thank god!”
It was Homer who made his way to her breathing heavy and sweating.
“How’s he?” Asked Sasha immediately.
“Is he …” Started the old man but then he said: “He left”
“What? Where?” Sasha felt as if a fist was pressing her heart together.
“He ran away. Packed all his things. I think he went to the Dobryninskaya”
“Did he leave anything?” She asked carefully, anxious for the answer Homer would give her.
The old man shook his head. “No, nothing”
Somebody in the crowd made an angry hissing sound.
Homer went silent and listened to the music and stared distrusting at the musician and the girl. But Sasha was sunken in thoughts.
Hunter had chaser her away and ran away, but now she seemed to understand his strange rules.
When the bold one had taken everything he owned, trully everything … Then he wanted that she didn’t give up, that she didn’t stray from her path and search for him. And she would do that, even after everything that had happened. If just … “The knife?” She whispered.
“Did he take it with him? The black one?”
The old man shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not in his room”
“So he did take it with him!”
That simple sign was all she needed.
The musician with the flute had talent without a doubt and knew how to use his instrument perfectly, as if he had been playing at a concert just yesterday. There were many bullets in the flute box in front of him, so many that he could have fed a small station or erased it from the face of the earth.
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 21