Metro: 2017
Prologue
Soon enough, they had traversed the labyrinth of the inner city, and were well on their way to making it out altogether. The mutants gave them very little trouble – even the flying ones preferred to simply circle overhead, like vultures keeping an eye on soon-to-be carrion. Perhaps they knew how doomed the two men were, and thought it a waste of energy to strike the killing blow themselves.
More curious still was how the creatures reacted when the towering office buildings gave way to smaller flats, and then to suburban domiciles. While some of them, the dogs most notably, continued to stalk them out of the city proper, almost all slinked back to the tall, decaying spires of twisted iron and bleached-grey concrete that they called home. It was as if some force was keeping them confined to the city. Kieran had said he'd never seen mutants before arriving here, so perhaps it was their home; perhaps they were confined to Moscow as punishment for those who resided below, standing a stalwart vigil, preventing any of the guilty from leaving their sprawling, underground prison.
It was much more likely, however, that they knew what awaited them should they leave, and were sensible enough not to be brave.
After a time walking along deserted highways, the buildings disappeared entirely, and Abram turned around to look back at his home. What a blight it seemed on the landscape; what a stain. All around him were flat, grey fields of dead and frostbitten grass, which, when punctuated by the occasional petrified tree on the horizon made a pleasant scene, but there in front of him rose this great, blackened mass, jutting up into the sky like a man-made mountain.
He heard nothing, and all at once he was struck with how precious that was. For the past four years he had not experienced one moment of silence; the gunfire, the chatter of people, tightly packed together, and the shrieks of countless monsters had been the soundtrack to his life since the war. It was as if these things were the ringing the bombs had left in his ears, a constant reminder of that day.
"Quite a sight, eh?" said Kieran, who was also standing in awe of the colossal pile of rubble.
"I hate it." Abram replied.
Kieran turned his head to look at his companion.
"You don't have to go back; you could come with us."
Abrams eyes remained fixed on the city, still rising out of the charred earth, in stark defiance of humanity's attempt on its life. He wondered, how many times had his companion seen the same horizon? How many cities lay as rubbish heaps, gaping monuments to humanity's Grand Failure? All of them?
"Would anywhere else be better?"
It was nightfall by the time they reached the town.
Over the course of the day, the flat landscape had been usurped by sheer cliffs, one of which the two sat on, surveying the area below. The town was not like Moscow; most of the buildings were intact, and the damage seemed to more a result of neglect than nuclear fire. It was entirely abandoned, and it was unlikely that they would have spied it in the dark, had they not noticed a warm, orange glow coming from the church, which appeared to have caught fire.
"What do you suppose started the fire?" Asked Abram, struggling to open a can of beans "It can't have been burning all this time."
"Probably lightning" Kieran replied, lowering a pair of binoculars "But who knows, maybe somebody who came through was just… angry"
The beans came open with a final stab of the can-opener, he pried the top off and they both fetched spoons to eat with.
"I take it you're going to take your mask off, now?" asked Kieran, who had removed his not long after they left the city "It's perfectly safe"
"I guess so…" Abram replied.
The gas mask hissed quietly as he took it off his face, and he was immediately struck with the oddity of the wind on his face. At first, the unfamiliar sensation made it hard for him to concentrate, and as a result the conversation lulled for a few seconds. That is, until he asked the really pressing question.
"Why did you kill the General?" Abram asked "I mean, I know why, but… Why bother?"
Kieran replied instantly "He deserved to die. I hope if you'd known what I did, you would have shot him"
Pietrov's face filled his mind for a moment, the look in his eyes, when he knew he was going to die. Abram never knew him well; they would exchange the occasional 'hello' on the station floor, but they were hardly friends. Despite that, however, he couldn't forget the man's death. Perhaps it was his proximity to the thing – he still had the general's blood on his clothes. Perhaps it was his companion's demeanor, his utter apathy regarding what he had done. Was he psychotic, or was this just how people lived in the new world?
"What do you think happens when we die?" Abram asked
Kieran looked slightly aghast.
"Whoa!" He laughed, leaning back "This got heavy quick, didn't it?"
He took a moment to think, before answering.
"I had a friend once who thought that the war was the rapture" he answered "That the people who were vaporised went to heaven, and that all of us left behind are in hell on earth. I don't have a theory, though"
Abram gave his own before his companion could inquire about it.
"What if there isn't anywhere for us to go?" He began "What if the afterlife was destroyed? Or if there were too many souls leaving their bodies all at once for any of them to go anywhere?"
He shuddered silently at the thought.
"What if we just… Remain?"