Chapter Text
"This is ridiculous!"
His comrade's sudden outburst makes Artyom jump. Bewildered, he watches the man point the barrel of his Kalash at a rat that has just come crawling out of a broken pipe; his face contorts into a disgusted expression at the sight of the pest. He's finally outgrown his long lasting fear of those furry creatures, but it grew into contempt instead. The other man decides against wasting bullets on the rodent, slinging the old gun over his shoulder instead and slumping back into his seat, facing the darkness of the tunnel they are supposed to guard.
The return to Exhibition, after the exhausting and utterly unnecessary campaign against the Reds, is a breath of fresh air, fresh air which he hadn't had the luxury to feel in his lungs ever since his mother carried him inside the subway tunnel the first time the bombs fell upon Moscow. Despite knowing that he - they - hadn't solved anything with fighting yet another pointless battle, he somehow feels a little more at ease. Like he had made the metro a little safer for his son, and for Anna. But every now and then he can see Ulman's face, crystal clear in his mind; while death is ever present, it doesn't mean it hurts any less. This small feeling of safety they indulge in at the moment came at too great a price.
So he refrains from asking what his comrade finds ridiculous; everything is, more or less. That struggle to survive. The fact that they had to kill each other for resources, for weapons, for a doctrine, learning nothing from the bloodied past. Artyom sighs, gripping at his own gun tighter, pointing it at the black mouth where the rails disappear, swallowed by the tar-like darkness. The rat, sensing the two aren't interested in its presence anymore, runs squeaking across the metal rails and hides into another pipe, diving for safety.
A long howl follows, prompting both to tense in their seats; the older man lifts the sights to his eyes, ready to jump out of his chair.
"Watchmen," Artyom says, out of reflex, tapping the trigger guard with his finger twice. The butt of the Kalash digs into his shoulder; the other man looks over the sights into the darkness, attempting to distinguish any figure and failing.
"This deep?" He says, although he doesn't doubt Artyom's guess. Anyone who has ever walked the tunnels, from the Botanical Garden all the way to Polis, knows exactly who and what makes each sound their ears are capable of picking up; vital information when your vision is rendered nearly useless by electrical interferences killing lanterns and flashlights, that could make the difference between getting to live another day and becoming another casualty. It is, however, odd to hear that sound there, so close to a station; Artyom remembers the horde he had once seen on the surface. He had waited nearly three minutes for all of them to pass; massive numbers and scouts on every vantage point. At every tunnel mouth; but despite all that, they rarely venture inside.
He listens closely, holding his breath as long as he can afford. The mutated beast falls quiet; Artyom glues his cheek to the wooden stock, finger tense on the trigger, but nothing jumps out of the darkness. He hears the older man shift beside him, shuffling his clothes.
"It's nothing." He concludes, annoyed. "Must have been lost or something. Man, this fucks with your head!" Artyom straightens his back, rubbing at his sore neck and laughing humorlessly; this man, despite being older than him and remembering exactly what the world looked like before, had never left Exhibition once he was forced inside the station. He speaks sometimes of how beautiful the State Library once was, but what does he know of the terrible monsters that lurk inside of it now? What does he know about the paranoia that these tunnels instill in you, the way they make your hair sit on its ends. The feeling you are being watched. People going crazy, babbling words with no meaning around you.
People you thought you could trust stabbing you in the back.
That wound is still fresh; no matter how many times he tells himself he would let it heal, something keeps coming back to him and makes him pick at it until it bleeds again, and then he's back to square one, starting the painful process of forgetting all over again.
The sound of the gate opening is a blessing; it means he can finally pass the heavy Kalash to another man, and go back home. The kid he switches with is no older than twenty and his eyes shine with admiration when he looks at him; for him, Artyom is some sort of a hero, though he had never felt like one. Never wanted to be. What is the point of being a hero when the world he's tried so hard to save, to make better, is still dying. Still refusing to learn. When there's almost no one left to share it with.
Anna kisses the corner of his mouth when he comes home that night; he had glanced, on his way back, at the treasured clock the people of Exhibition keep working no matter what disaster befalls them to see that it's almost nine. Time feels surreal, lacking something substantial to give it meaning; it almost doesn't exist anymore, the station stalling in limbo. The only way to see it is in the length and color of the elders' beards, and in children. His son is fast asleep, with an old stuffed cat Artyom found somewhere in his small hands; it's been a while since he saw a real one in the metro. They're probably all gone or mutated into gruesome apparitions, and his son will grow up to think it's some sort of a fantasy monster. A figment of another civilization's imagination.
He sighs heavily, and Anna grips his shoulder in a reassuring gesture. I'm here, it says, and yet somehow it isn't enough.
When he returns to the gates the next day, the first thing he sees is a red splatter staining the dirt, followed by two large, contorted bodies covered in grey fur, skulls turned into sieves by the spray of lead. A man is nursing a bite on his leg that tore both the thick material of his camouflage pants and his meat off his bones; the other is nudging the mutants with a Bastard, wiping the sweat off his forehead at the same time with the back of his hand. They have both been caught by surprise, the unexpected enemy doing more damage than it should have done.
"What the hell?" Artyom grunts and takes the gun from the uninjured man's hands, allowing him to help his comrade. He studies the corpses - Watchmen. And not just a stray one.
"That is unusual." The wounded man points at them, wincing as his comrade wraps the lacerations in dirty bandages, the best he knows how; Artyom examines the gun's clip - only four bullets left, casings scattered all over the entrance to the station like shiny, golden bugs. "Definitely something wrong with them, they were agitated, like they were running from something." He drapes an arm around the other's shoulders, standing up with a groan and an ugly curse.
"Something is stirring a nest." He confirms what Artyom has been thinking all along; he was positive he heard one the other day, and now this. It could be a demon that had hit the jackpot, or it could be something else. Someone else, maybe. He knows for sure there's a stalker safehouse somewhere near the entrance to Exhibition. Whatever it is, it's putting the station's safety in danger; two watchmen aren't that much of a threat, but a whole horde of them pouring down the tunnel could spell disaster. A feeling of déjà-vu hits him and he shakes his head, to refocus on the dead bodies at his feet.
The injured man is carried to the makeshift hospital that Exhibition houses; the doctor insists on congratulating him on the dumb luck he has been gifted with. While vicious enough to make a sizeable hole in his calf, the bite didn't catch his bone, nor any artery. News spread fast in this confined space; Artyom listens carefully to the several men that propose going to the surface and seeing what is causing this weird behaviour, before volunteering to go with them, the very next morning.
While most of them are more than happy to have him amongst them, Anna doesn't share the feeling; she looks at him warily. She's been doing that for a while, half expecting him to blow at any moment. He dares to say she knows him better than anyone - or at least she is the only one left that knows him well, now that Sukhoi is gone. She knows something's been eating at him, and it's related to the reason why he's so eager now to return to the surface.
"Be careful, okay?"
There's more she wants to say to him, he is sure of that. But for now, she settles for trying to show him she cares, that it's not worth risking his life. He slings the Kalash across his back anyway, and looks her straight in the eye this time.
"I will be." He assures her, with a soft smile.