CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains a scene that some readers may find a bit distressing. No graphic descriptions, but it's there.

Chapter 7: The Dark Tunnel

Ilia – Day 1 – 18:22

I scraped my spoon across the bottom of the enamelled bowl to collect the last dregs of the stew. I didn't dare ask what was in the food Andrew had given me because, in my experience, it was better if you didn't know what you were eating; I was just happy to have some hot food. I'd spent some time recuperating so that I could eventually follow Alex. My side was still in constant pain, but I was getting used to it by this point. I looked at the clock and felt that I couldn't leave my journey any longer.

"I have to say," Andrew began as I finished up my meal, "you're strangely well-equipped for someone in your situation."

"I don't exactly have a problem with stealing from Nazis," I replied quickly, deciding not to tell him where I'd actually got most of my equipment from. With Andrew's help, I slowly stood up and began to get my equipment together.

"Can I ask why Alex means quite so much to you?" Andrew asked as he stood in the doorway and watched. "There aren't many people in this world who would go to these lengths to help someone."

Reservedly, I replied, "You know, he's a friend." As I searched through my coat and bag, I was thankful to find that everything that I had stored away was still in place.

"Been through a lot together?" Andrew persisted.

I pulled the empty magazine out of my AK and replaced it with the single full one I had left. I ignored the question and changed the topic. "How much do I owe you for everything you've done?" I loaded two rounds into my revolver, leaving me with one left spare, and hoped he would drop the questioning.

He hesitated as he realised that I didn't want to talk about my friendship with Alex. "Nothing." I raised an eyebrow at him; people never did things for free in the Metro, there had to be a catch. "You'll need your bullets more than me. Besides, your friend gave me a few bullets without me knowing." I wasn't about to complain about not being charged, generosity was a rarity.

I laughed lightly. "He's always been pretty frivolous with money. He recently spent 150 bullets on a rifle so terrible that we ended up calling it the Bastard gun. Damn thing overheats if you so much as think about pulling the trigger."

He chuckled and ushered me out. "He's a nice guy, I hope you find him."

"Thank you for everything. You've been incredibly generous."

He closed my sliding door and covered it with a wooden board before opening the front door for me and letting me out. "Don't mention it. Stay safe, Ilia."

He'd previously given me instructions on how to get to the tunnel that Alex had used so I headed for the marketplace. There were dozens of vendors on both sides of the pathway selling all sorts of wares. I came across a bullet exchanger and figured that I could refill my empty AK magazine. The price was quite hefty, six bullets to fill it up, but I paid the price because the rifle's usefulness became very apparent with the watchers.

As I came across the stacked supply crates that Andrew had told me about. I approached it, ready to push the large box out of the way that blocked the entrance, when I heard a voice come over the loudspeakers in the station.

"Attention! Document inspection is about to be carried out in this station. Please stay at your residences and assist the law-enforcement personnel in their work. Be vigilant, comrades! The enemy never sleeps."

I hurried to push the heavy box out of the way and revealed the narrow passage formed by the boxes beyond. It took longer than I'd have liked, due in part to its weight but mostly down to my current lack of real strength. Behind me, I heard the shouting of the officers harassing people for their papers and inspecting their places of residence. I rushed down the passage and to the doorway.

"You at the door! Stop!" An officer shouted behind me. I turned to see two of them sprinting towards me with revolvers at the ready. The door offered little resistance as I swung it open and slammed it closed behind me. When I found nothing to block it with, I simply charged forward through the narrow twisting passageway. I kept my AK slung on my back and readied one of my revolvers as there wasn't enough space in the decrepit corridor for the rifle.

As I reached the turning I had to make, I heard the door slam on the wall as the officers opened it and yelled for me to stop. I came to a small square room where a table and two chairs had been set up but were currently empty. A couple of vodka cups and red army helmets sat on the table. There were two doors in the room and I couldn't remember which one I was supposed to take, but I heard footsteps approaching me, many more than two sets, so I had to decide. Both of them were locked from the inside, so I chose a door at random and quickly unlocked it, went through, and closed it behind me, though I was unfortunately unable to lock it from this side. It opened into a large darkened train tunnel so I simply started to run down it to hide in the darkness.

That was until I noticed that they hadn't followed me through the door. I readied my rifle and quietly moved back as I heard the latch lock the door from their side. I heard one of the muffled voices say, "Stupid bastard. He won't make it far through that tunnel," before a brief argument about how some people should have been on guard in the room with the table rather than checking the surface ladder.

Despite what he said, I relaxed slightly and took stock. The running hadn't done my wound any good but the pain was still manageable. I had a small rest before I unpacked my flashlight, charged it up, and moved forward. I couldn't use my AK as I couldn't hold both it and the flashlight, so I had to resort to the pistol once again; I did wish that I had the tape that Alex had used for his light.

My light illuminated the long-deserted tunnel. Its train tracks were almost non-existent as they had been broken, bent aside, or covered in rubble and several sections of the walls had collapsed and blocked large portions of the tunnel. At one point the entire roof had caved in and I had to climb over the difficult rubble to advance. So far, however, it didn't seem particularly dangerous to me, more obtuse than anything.

On that thought, I started to hear the distant sobbing of a man somewhere in the tunnel. It echoed through the tunnel but I didn't see anything as I approached. It continued to get louder and I started to hear the familiar metallic clinking of bullets being loaded into a revolver's chambers. I came across an open door in the side of the tunnel and rushed through to see what was going on.

I lit up the small square room with my light. It was covered in the normal spider webs and debris but was otherwise featureless. In the centre was a dark figure of a man. It looked like a shadow but wasn't cast by anything. The shadow was on its knees and loading a revolver as it continued to cry. A woman's skeleton lay on its back in front of it and was covered in pastel-coloured rags that would once have been clothes a long time ago. The shadow whimpered, "Why did this have to happen?" as it put its head where the skeleton's stomach would have once been. The silhouette lifted its head up and held the revolver to its head for a few horrible seconds as it continued to weep. "I'm so sorry," it said before it fired a flashless shot into its head with a deafening blast and fell backwards. It faded away as it fell into another skeleton lying on the floor next to the woman's.

I had no idea what I had just seen. Was that a real person? Had I just watched someone's last moments?It was horrible, I stood in the doorway for a while as I forgot everything else in the world. This person had clearly watched a loved one die which had driven them to kill themselves. It looked as though the person was being forced to relive that moment over and over again. Apparently, death wasn't necessarily final in the Metro.

I rushed out of the room and tried not to think about it anymore. I was unsuccessful, however, as I replayed the shot over and over in my mind. A strange guilt went through my mind but it wasn't like there was anything I could have done for them. I just had to focus on getting through the tunnel.

A quiet noise distracted me from these thoughts as I heard something moving across the tracks in the far reaches of the tunnel. A railcar? I didn't understand how; the tracks were completely broken, buried, and useless. I moved to the side of the tunnel and covered my eyes as blindingly bright lights came down towards me. It sounded much larger than a railcar; I thought that someone had managed to create a full train somehow, but it didn't answer the question of how it was using the terrible tracks.

I turned my light off so that the advancing people couldn't see it and I made a futile attempt to hide against the wall as the bright lights stopped me from seeing whatever was producing them. The lights came towards me and passed by, but they were created by nothing. The clatters and rumbles of the train's wheels against the tracks boomed through the tunnel and more lights in the shape of a pre-war train's windows passed by me. I heard dozens of voices coming from the phenomenon but I couldn't see any of the people that they belonged to. The apparition simply travelled over the destroyed tracks and headed for Kuznetsky Most.

I was left in the darkness of its wake. I began to tremble as I struggled to hold my revolver. What the fuck is this tunnel? I thought about going back but remembered that would likely be impossible, I had to push on. I turned my flashlight back on and kept going down the terrifying tunnel slightly faster than before. I could feel myself quiver as I breathed while jumpily swinging my flashlight across the tunnel and looking for any way out. I wished that I wasn't alone, Alex would have been able to offer some vaguely plausible and uplifting explanation. As it stood though, I was petrified.

Near-inaudible creaks and clangs of the decrepit tunnel spooked me as I slowly moved through the tunnel. I would turn my light behind me to see what had caused the noise, but found nothing and then worried that something would be in the darkness in front of me. The noises came from wherever I wasn't looking, it was maddening. A few times, I tripped and stumbled on several bits of loose debris and obstacles as I concentrated on looking in my light's direction, only just managing to stay upright.

A child screamed in terror behind me but turning my light towards the sound showed no source. I kept looking behind me as I picked up my pace and moved forward. In my haste, I caught my foot on a ruined crosstie of the track and collapsed on the floor. I dropped my light and revolver as a protruding corner of concrete stabbed my side and sent a wave a pain through my body from my wound. I let out a small cry of pain but quickly silenced myself as I scrabbled to find my equipment again. Another child screamed in the tunnel but I couldn't figure out its direction. My composure was in pieces and I clawed at the floor a few times before finally grasping my light and frantically searching the tunnel. A woman began to scream just before a man and another child did the same. They screamed over and over again and it started to sound like they were in my own head; covering my ears did nothing to silence them.

I grabbed my revolver and picked myself up before running further into the tunnel and hopefully away from the noises. I took laboured breaths and sweat dripped down my face as I skipped my flashlight across the tunnel but saw nothing. The noises were getting closer as I spotted a door in the tunnel's wall. Sprinting for it, I barged through and tried to take shelter in the crumbling utility room. The room was empty, so I ran to its far corner and collapsed against it before moving to sit against the wall and shakily aiming my revolver and flashlight at the door. My breathing was heavy as my pathetic flashlight didn't even reach the opposite side of the tunnel beyond and my aim with my revolver was too shaky to be useful. I found myself quietly pleading with whatever was causing this petrifying experience. The screaming suddenly stopped. The air was perfectly quiet and still. I didn't move, however. I waited where I was and watched the door intensely.

It still didn't feel safe though, it felt like I was being watched. I didn't understand the sensation, but I could definitely feel it. It wasn't until a few minutes had passed without issue that I tentatively checked the room around me again. I screamed at the top of my lungs and fired my revolver twice at the child's shadow that seemed to be watching me from the corner of the room before wasting no time in picking myself up and sprinting out of the room. The bullets impacted the wall behind the shadow with seemingly no effect as I slammed the door shut behind me and tore down the tunnel. I skipped my light across the walls but didn't see or hear anything else.

I stopped as the light that I shined ahead seemed to be blocked by a dark fog. I could only see a few feet in front of me. My hands were shaking violently as I looked into the darkness. Footsteps came from behind me, I looked in their direction but saw nothing. My light flickered and turned off as the fog enveloped me. Hitting the light to get it working didn't prove successful and I'd turned myself around so much that I couldn't tell which way I had come from. I holstered my revolver so that I could feel for the walls of the tunnel and just walked. Despite my previous proximity to the tunnel wall, I didn't feel anything anywhere near me, even after changing direction multiple times. The footsteps continued to advance towards me. I lost sight of everything, including my own body, which made walking on the horribly uneven surface incredibly difficult.

The footsteps stopped for a moment.

I waited and listened to the silence before timidly asking, "Who's there?"

The sound of dozens of screams filled my mind and completely deafened me. I dropped my light and tried to run away from the surrounding voices. The fog felt like it was pushing against me and weighing me down. I slowed to a tortured walk as I fought to take each stride. Every step became more difficult until I buckled under the pressure and collapsed to my hands and knees. I kept crawling but my muscles couldn't take it anymore. I fell to the floor and fought it for as long as possible, but I could feel a painful and unnatural sleep taking me. My muscles tensed up and I screamed in pain before my eyes were finally forced shut.

. . .

"What a fucking find!" I heard as I came to consciousness. I was completely unaware of my surroundings and didn't have the energy even open my eyes. "He had loads of shit on him. Check out his AK!"

"I know, right? Georgy and I heard a couple of shots down in the tunnel, so we went to check it out and just found him face down on the tracks. No idea what happened to him."

"Maybe he got caught by the darkness."

I was in such a mess that I couldn't even figure out how many people were talking. I simply knew that it was more than two.

"Shut the fuck up, Georgy. That's not real."

"It is! How else do you explain this guy?"

"Look at his wounds. A snout probably got to him."

"You mean the bandaged stomach and the old cuts on his chest? And why would a nosalis leave him? They're as hungry as we are, they don't just kill for fun."

"If it was this 'darkness,' then where was it when we got there?"

"It fucking moves. It doesn't just stay in one place, that would be easy to avoid and people wouldn't keep getting caught in it."

"Look, guys. It doesn't matter. We just made nineteen bullets out of this guy as well as two revolvers and an AK. Just be grateful."

"I'm just saying that you should be careful in the tunnel. It's a dangerous place."

One of them let out a loud laugh before sarcastically saying, "And every other tunnel is a happy place full of flowers and rainbows."

There was a brief pause as the men ran out of points to argue. "What should we do with him, then?"

"We could probably sell him to Kirill in Kitay-Gorod. Get a fair few bullets for him I reckon."

"I think his condition might knock the price down a bit."

I started to regain some of my awareness and realised that I was lying on the floor face down with my feet tied together and my hands tied behind my back. These people had stripped me of literally everything so I was lying on the dirty and uneven concrete floor completely naked. I turned my head to the side so that I was resting on my cheek and inched open my bleary eyes.

"Looks like he's waking up."

I groaned as I tried to clear my vision and remember what had happened. I could see that the corridor we were in opened up into a tunnel not far away from us. I sincerely hoped it wasn't anywhere near the horrors that had affected me.

"Should we see if we can get him to tell us what happened?" The person approached me and kneeled down to speak to me. "What happened to you? People don't normally end up unconscious in a dark, empty tunnel for no reason."

It was a serious effort to speak to the person and I couldn't remember much of what had happened. I tried to explain, but what came out of my mouth was incomprehensible ramblings. "Screaming. Footsteps. Big train."

"Great," he immediately said sarcastically as he stood up and complained to his colleagues. "He's lost his fucking mind. We'll barely get thirty for him."

"What about the others?"

I turned my head to look the other way and saw two similarly naked men and one woman in similar situations to me except that they all had lengths of filthy cloth through their mouths stopping them from speaking. The woman and man at the end of our row were terrified and shaking uncontrollably in place but the man closest to me was just glaring in anger at his captors. They looked like they hadn't been fed in a long time and were particularly weak. I also noticed a collection of stolen objects, most of them mine, in the corner of the room next to a metal door.

"Kill the men. We won't get anything for them. I'll take the woman." He moved over to the woman, grabbed her by her upper arm and dragged her down the narrow concrete corridor and towards the door at the far end. She let out a muffled scream as he dragged her but he ignored it and continued.

One of our captors asked, "Are we killing the new one?"

"Nah. We'll see if he comes around first. Just gag him for now," he replied as he dragged the woman through the door and closed it behind him.

The person forcefully tied a length of cloth around my head so that it went through my mouth before he moved over to the furthest prisoner. He was wearing thick clothing that must have been gathered from various sources. A large purple coat covered an old and ripping white T-shirt and black tracksuit trousers. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, although it could have simply been that he had not aged well and he was much younger, and he had the beginnings of a full beard with moderately long, brown and greasy hair.

He grabbed the prisoner's hair and pulled him up so that he was on his knees up against the wall. The captor pulled a revolver out and leant down to look in the prisoner's trembling eyes. "You know who you have to thank for this?" The prisoner shook his head as the bandit looked over to me. "That guy over there. It'll be his revolver that ends your miserable life." Bastards. I knew that I recognised the gun. I scowled at the vile person as he turned back to face the prisoner. He pushed the barrel of the gun into the prisoner's forehead. The captive tried to plead with him, but it was to no avail through the cloth in his mouth. He squeezed the trigger with no second thoughts, lighting up the room with a bright yellow muzzle flash and briefly deafening all of us as the prisoner's head erupted in blood that splattered across the wall behind him. His lifeless body flew backwards before his head hit the back wall. The body slumped back forwards and eventually fell to the side.

Once our hearing had come back to us, we heard the woman in the next room. "No! Please don't!" Her voice was quickly muffled but we could still hear her try to scream. I closed my eyes and wished that I could be anywhere else, but all that happened was me picturing the vile things the man was doing to her since her screaming was so pronounced.

The executioner moved over to the next prisoner. He still seemed more angry than scared and almost seemed to growl through his gag. "Got something to say?" The bandit asked. He leant down and ripped the gag off the man while aiming my gun at him.

"Fuck you!" The prisoner shouted. "I hope you die in a vat of demon shit calling for your mummy to come and save your pathetic ass!"

The revolver fired again and the man screamed out in pain as the bullet passed through the back of his leg and shattered his kneecap. He began to writhe in pain on the floor as the blood slowly pooled around him. The bandit began to laugh at his misery. He looked at me and said, "See this? This is what happens when you are disrespectful." He shot the prisoner's other knee cap. His screams reverberated around the room. "Understand?" I nodded frantically as I trembled on the floor. He pushed the revolver into the back of the whimpering captive's head and pulled the trigger, finally silencing his horrifying noises.

He holstered the weapon and casually moved up to me before turning to a man behind me that I couldn't see. "Move the bodies into the tunnel." The person obliged and quickly moved to pick the first one up and drag them past us as the other man grabbed my hair and painfully pulled me to my knees similarly to the first prisoner. He looked into my eyes and said, "Ready to talk?" I was fully alert and ready to tell them whatever they wanted at this point. I quickly nodded as he smiled. He untied the cloth on my head and said, "Talk."

I severely stuttered as I spoke, but I managed to speak in a very quick and high-pitched tone, "I saw ghosts or something. There was this train that wasn't actually there and some kind of unnatural dark fog. I don't know what really happened, I just woke up here."

He rolled his eyes at me. "So, you're crazy?"

"No, I swear it's what happened!"

"Tell me a bit about yourself, then."

"I'm…" I stumbled with my words a little as I was confused by this line of questioning. I didn't want to piss him off, though. "I'm Ilia. A Hansa citizen from Novoslobodskaya." It didn't cross my mind to fake my identity at all through my stress and fear.

"Novoslobodskaya? Northern Arc, right?" I quickly nodded. "That's fucking ages away. What are you doing here?"

The blood from the corpse next to me started to pool around my knees as I spoke. "I'm looking for my friend. I was meant to go around this tunnel but the Reds forced me through here."

He suddenly looked proud of himself, "Well your search is coming to an end, I'm afraid." He slowly moved his head close to mine as he continued. "You're going to be a slave in Kitay-Gorod for the rest of your miserable little life." I could smell his terrible breath as he grinned at me and eventually put my cloth gag back on.

The other man came back after disposing of the corpses. He was dressed in a similarly disorganised way to his counterpart but was slightly younger. "I told you that the darkness was real."

His clear superior in this band of outcasts responded, "You believe this crazy fuck?"

"He doesn't seem crazy to me. Pretty coherent, actually." I quickly nodded in agreement at him.

"He said that he saw ghosts and a train." He turned to me and asked, "Do you mean a railcar?" I shook my head. "A proper pre-war Metro train?" I nodded up at him before he turned back to his subordinate. "You believe that?"

"I've heard crazier stories. Some people have said that they can hear singing in some of the pipes in the tunnels."

"Oh, fuck off with that. Gullible bastard."

They kept me silenced on my knees for hours. The blood around my legs dried but they didn't let me move, despite my attempted protests. My knees had seized up and ached from being on the hard concrete for so long. Throughout every silence, I could hear each of the three of them taking turns to have their way with the poor woman in the other room. It was disgusting.

I was in the room with the eldest and the youngest of the three bandits, while the executioner was with the woman. Both of my captors were sat on a nearby table and discussing about inane nonsense during all of this. I felt like I couldn't listen to them perform their horrible acts anymore, I had to speak out. I glared at the eldest, as he seemed to be the overall leader of the small group, and made angry but muffled sounds through my cloth gag. He noticed my anger and disinterestedly looked over to me.

"You want to say something?" I nodded aggressively. He sighed, stood up, sauntered over to me and took my gag off. I flexed my jaw slightly and swallowed some saliva that had built up. "What?"

"You can't fucking treat her like that. How can you possibly think that's ok?"

He casually looked over to the door and listened for a moment before turning back to me. "I don't think you're in much of a position to tell me what's right and wrong."

"You seriously think that this is fine?"

"Hey, we all have needs. It's a natural as eating or sleeping."

"Fucking hell, you people disgust me."

"What do you care? That your dear old mama in there or something?"

At the mention of my mother, I snarled at him. Any semblance of sympathy I had towards him faded as I started to only see anger. "You know fucking nothing about my mother."

He laughed. "Oh, was she a whore or something? The station bicycle?"

"When I get out of here, your own mother won't be able to recognise your face."

His calm demeanour suddenly changed to one of anger. "Is that so?" He growled before moving to tower over me. He stayed there for a few seconds. I didn't know what he was doing, but I stayed still and said nothing. He pulled his leg back and launched a hard kick into my wounded side. Intense pain shot through me as I fell to my side and cried out in agony. "What were you saying about getting out of here?!" He shouted as he booted my side again and again. My wounds reopened and covered the gauze wrapped around me in blood. I pleaded with him to stop but he ignored me and carried on kicking my side. I began to feel sick and dizzy as the pain was unrelenting and I couldn't focus on anything but the torture.

Two thunderous gunshots came from the woman's room as the bandit with her crashed through the door and landed onto the floor with one shot in his stomach and another in his head. The leader instantly stopped his assault and looked to the door in a thinly veiled panic. He glared at his subordinate and shouted, "Go and check it out!" as he pulled a revolver out from under his coat.

The younger man also pulled a revolver out and rushed for the door. He tentatively stepped over his dead friend and quickly moved inside. His boss followed him but waited outside the room. The young man aimed his pistol to the right but immediately took a shot to the head and slammed up against the wall. As he slid down and left a trail of blood on the wall, the boss swore loudly and charged in. He fired a shot to the right before quickly taking one to the chest. He fell to his knees but didn't die until another two shots came a few seconds later and hit him in his stomach and chest. I heard the clicking of an empty revolver's hammer continue a few times before he fell to the floor, along with someone on the other side. I could hear that the woman in the other room was in pain, but I couldn't tell what had actually happened past the wall.

The pain was still intense from my beating, but I desperately tried to loosen my wrist ties, spending the better part of five minutes frantically trying to wriggle my arms despite my excruciating pain. The woman's pained groans and heavy breathing matched my own, but I finally managed to loosen the rope enough for me to pick at the knot with my fingers and eventually untie it completely. I held my side as I painfully sat up against the wall and untied the rope around my feet with my other hand. I prepared myself for the agony of standing up by taking deep breaths before I used the wall to very carefully do so.

I staggered over to the door, almost knocking over one of the chairs and going down with it as I did, and held the doorframe to carefully step over the bodies and into the room. The small room contained little more than a disgusting single bed with multiple faded old Metro safety posters lining the walls. I looked over to the right to see the woman sat up against the wall. She was still naked but now covered in a range of cuts and bruises and clutching her bleeding stomach. Her short red hair was a mess and matted in places where it had clearly been pulled and her wrists and legs had clear rope-burn marks. Next to her was my revolver, now completely empty; she'd somehow managed to steal it from the bandit during his vile acts. She was still alive, however, so I collapsed down next to her and tried to look at her wound. She didn't respond as I moved her hand out of the way and looked at the deep wound the gun had created. The bullet had penetrated deep into her stomach and blood was pulsing out of it.

"Don't move," I said as I gently placed her hand back where it was and prepared to painfully stand up again. "I'll try and find some medical supplies."

She grabbed my arm with her free hand and quietly said, "Don't bother. I'm done. See to yourself." She wearily nodded her head at my bloody gauze. "I'm just happy to have killed those motherfuckers."

I completely forgot about my pain and held her free hand with both of mine. I knew that she was right. I couldn't hope to save her. I personally wouldn't have been able to with the best medical equipment in the Metro. "Fucking hell." I felt horrible; I was just watching someone die and there was nothing I could do about it. "I'm so sorry." I didn't even know her but it hit me hard. She didn't deserve to die.

"What's your name?" She asked as she began to shiver.

"Ilia Kozlov. Why?"

She gave me a small smile. "Gal…" She stopped and thought for a moment. "No, fuck it. Mary Lagunova. It was nice meeting you, Ilia."

I tried to warmly smile back. "Wish it could have been in better circumstances."

I sat against the wall next to her as the life slowly drained from her body. She at least had someone with her until the last moment. I couldn't think of anything else that could help. She died with a vague smile on her face, at least. I stared at the corpses of the despicable people that had caused all of this and wished that I could have done something.

I thought over the events. I could have done something. If I hadn't have angered so quickly, I would have been in better shape and perhaps could have helped her before she was shot. I analysed my memories and felt worse and worse as I realised every little thing that I could have changed.

I eventually had to move on. As much as I didn't want to, I still had to continue my journey. I found my clothes next to the door and redressed myself, being extra careful around my agonising wound. Everything took longer than it needed to as I repeatedly lost my balance and had to use anything in my vicinity to help me stay upright. I searched all of the bandits' bodies as well as the rest of the stolen collection and found seven extra bullets as well as a sharp combat knife with a leather sheathe and ten rounds for my revolvers, one of which was still loaded. I loaded my other revolver leaving me with five bullets spare. The knife was a surprisingly well-constructed weapon; the sharp serrated blade itself was clean and mostly straight while the wooden handle had a decent leather grip and a metal guard around it.

The bandits had a few flashlights between them, so I tested them out and took the brightest as a replacement for the one I had lost earlier. I filled my water canteen with their small supply of water and sat on the bed as I rested and ate some of their disgusting food.

I looked over Mary's body and thought about leaving my revolver with her. I eventually decided that I couldn't threaten my own safety for something that ultimately wouldn't change her fate. However, to make a symbolic gesture, I withdrew the knife from its sheathe that I had tied to my waist and hidden under my shirt, and carved a small 'ML' into my revolver's wooden handle. If nothing else, I would at least remember her sacrifice.

Before I left, I made sure to make good on a promise. I went over to the leader's corpse and glared at his lifeless body on its back. His eyes stared helplessly up at me but I felt nothing but anger towards him. I stabilised myself on the wall next to me and held my boot over his head. With all of my strength, I forced it down into the centre of his face. I heard his nose break and saw a small amount of blood spatter across his face. I lifted my foot up and examined the extensive damage. It felt good. I stamped down again, pushing the nose further in and causing more blood to spray across his face. I kept crashing my foot down onto his face, disfiguring it further with every hit as I loudly shouted obscenities at him. I hit him until I'd pushed his head against the wall and eventually cracked his skull against it. Scraping my bloody boot off on a cleaner bit of his shirt, I caught my breath and composed myself as I looked down at my work. His face was completely unrecognisable and his nose had been pushed in to a point where it was more of a dip in the centre of his face. I was satisfied.

I prepared myself to move on and find out where exactly in the Metro I was. I knew that I couldn't have been too far from whatever horrors had affected me in the tunnel but also not too far from Kitay-Gorod itself as they were prepared to sell me there and moving prisoners isn't easy over long distances; unless you're the Reich, that is.

I exited the small outpost through where I was held captive and shined my flashlight across the tunnel. On the other side was an old and rusting train carriage. On it was a set of two arrows etched into the metal that showed that going to the right was Kitay-Gorod and the left was the Armoury, presumably so that the bandits didn't somehow forget. Just under the Armoury arrow, someone had etched the word 'Darkness' but it had later been hastily crossed out. I staggered over to the other side of the tunnel and shined my light into the open back door of the carriage to see if they used it for storage. I only found that they had ripped all of the seats out and replaced them with a few bedrolls that the bandits must have used for sleeping. I decided to avoid the pain of pulling myself up through the train's rear door to further search it and instead moved towards Kitay-Gorod. I had to stick close to the wall and often had to use it to stabilise myself as I moved over the floor of the empty tunnel. After everything I'd been through and despite the near-constant torment of my injuries, it was oddly peaceful.