Return to the Red Line
I have just finished this chapter I hope it goes down well although it does go on a bit but anyway I hope you enjoy it and as always I don't own metro but I do own my characters .
As we moved down the tunnel along the sokolincheskaya line towards yugo-zapadnaya, Khan still had Svetlana over his shoulders she was out cold still but she was now breathing fine and she was responding to us talking. She rocked around as Khan walked and her head kept hitting a rolled up sleeping mat that Khan had attached to the outside of his bag.
I walked up the tunnel, which had massive cracks on the ceiling with a very dim light glowing on the top of a door which must have led to an old maintenance room; Khan nodded me over to the door. I slowly walked up to the door clutching onto the Kaparis which felt like a big old stamped piece of metal, the pistol grip had an ivory trim on it definitely not standard grip, the ivory had an old deeply carved crest, in the centre was a set of two eagles facing in opposite directions and two Russian flags beneath it, around the outer edge it had the writing "Войска специального назначения" (Voyskaspetsialnogo naznacheniya). I had hear legends of the spetsnaz but never had I met a survivor of the surface forces, I thought they all died fighting for the freedom of our nation.
Khan snapped me out of admiring his gun and tapped me on the shoulder to get me in the room; I opened the door slowly and kept the Kaparis high. I had never fired a fully automatic weapon but now I had one to protect my friends. As I entered the room I scanned from left to right but I couldn't see anything just a small beaten up couch with a large coffee table in the centre of the room.
"No one's home," I told Khan as I moved up to the coffee table which had a few cases of ammunition on top of an old magazine, I picked up the magazine and opened it. The people inside looked so alien and the scenes looked completely surreal, "Khan where are these pictures from?" I asked as he laid Svetlana down on the couch.
"This?" He questioned as he took the magazine from me, I nodded as he looked through the magazine, "This is America," He told me.
"What is America?" I asked.
"They are one of the sides who fired missiles at our land," Khan replied with a droll sense in his voice like he knew the war was petty.
"Why was the war fought?" I then asked Khan.
"Why do you ask so many questions?" Khan replied.
"Because I am keen to learn our past's mistakes," I told him with a dead straight face.
"That way of thinking will take you far child," He then told me as he scooped up the ammunition that was on the table and then held out his hand and I passed him his Kaparis back. As he turned and started looking over the paper that was sprawled all over the table.
As I started to rest and clean my Makarov, Svetlana started coughing on the couch Khan and I moved over to her. She quickly stopped coughing and woke up slowly, she looked very confused but when she regained her bearings she then quickly relaxed.
"Where am I?" She asked.
"We're safe," I told her but she looked at me with some distrust and looked over to Khan.
"It's true he got us out of the Nazi camp, he should have your thanks," Khan told her with a smile.
"Thank you, but how did you keep me alive? I felt death," She replied as she looked around her body.
"Khan gave you some kind of medicine," I told her as I looked over to Khan, "What did you give her?" I then asked him.
"It's the counter to the toxin the Nazi's use to gas people, it's called dicobolt edetate, it counter acts the cyanide they tried to gas you with," He told her as he pulled out the syringe.
"Well if it keeps you alive then that is all that matters," I told her as I helped her off the couch.
"Are you able to walk?" Khan asked her.
"Yeah I think so," she told us as she took a few steps forward. As she turned around and started walking back towards us she had a grin on her face.
"Should we move?" Khan asked us.
"Da, where are we moving?" Svetlana asked.
"Dzerzhinskaya, it's not too far from here," Khan told her, he then moved to the edge of the room by the door, "We have to find someone who can get us to Biblioteka Imeni Lenina. Now come it's not far from here."
"Okay," I replied as I placed my Makarov back in my jacket and moved right behind Khan, Svetlana kept right behind us.
Khan came straight through the door and pointed his Kaparis aimed down the tunnel, he then hand gestured to us to move out into the tunnel. He then turned on his flashlight as the tunnel became very dark as the light above the door became dimmer and dimmer, but as the flashlight shone the area outside of the illuminated area became near enough pitch black, these areas scared me the most as I knew that everything in the metro had adapted to see in pitch black.
We continued to push through the tunnel and I could hear the creatures moving around but they didn't approach. "We are nearly there," Khan told us as we moved.
"How can you tell?" I asked him. Khan pointed the light over to the wall of the tunnel where there was a white sign on the wall; it had big red writing on it with a slight blood smear over it. However the thing that made Svetlana and I stop in our tracks was what it had written on it, Lubyanka.
"Kakogo cherta, are we going to Lubyanka?!" I shouted at Khan ruining the tranquillity of the tunnel.
"Calm down little one, I have friends in this station," Khan replied calmly.
"You are a red!" I shouted at him, chambering a round into the Makarov as I pulled it out and pointed it at him.
"No, I'm not a red child, I do have a friend here who can get us through," He attempted to calm me down.
"Why should I believe you? You are taking us through our vision of hell!"
"Just trust me I can get us through, have I failed you yet?" Khan asked.
"Not yet," I replied.
"Then I'm not planning on doing so," He replied calmly, "Put your gun down child, this will be fine."
I started to lower my gun and then clicked it onto safe, "You have a chance."
"That weapon will do you know no good here child," Khan told me as we moved forward into the station, as we moved I could feel Svetlana's breath on the back of my neck like she was worried as hell, I had never seen her doubt Khan but now she was scared.
"We can't just walk up to the gate here," Khan pointed out as the guard post came into view, "There's a side route which will lead us pretty much straight into the middle of the station."
"Okay let's do it," I told him as I followed him in his exact footsteps.
We approached a small door that had a lot of cobwebs around it so Khan pulled out a machete and hacked the webs down, we all moved in after that and Khan lit up a lighter which illuminated a very small area. The tunnel led on for maybe a hundred metres with a slight bend, I kept one hand against the wall the entire time feeling a pipe which had cobwebs wrapping it but I kept holding the thing even though I could feel small creatures walking all over me. Khan told me that we had almost arrived at the stations entrance, I still kept on the pipe but Khan moved out into the station while Svetlana and I moved in his shadow.
The patrols that the reds had all over the station kept giving us dirty looks like we didn't belong, although the troops rotate around the stations under Red control they still knew the stations and kept tabs on the known inhabitants of the stations. The patrols kept getting closer to us so we began moving more frantically through the station, as they reached a small alley in-between two houses but as we got closer to the edge of the building I spotted an officer who had an array of stars on his shoulder.
"I order you to stop!" The officer shouted at us, so we stopped and stood looked at him, his green cap lined with a red ribbon, his green and red trench coat barely moved as he walked towards us with his green trousers just poking out the bottom of the coat. In his hands he clutched onto a green plastic Kalash model 2012, his right hand was clasped to the grip and his index finger was firmly over the trigger, "State your number and name!" He then demanded.
"We are merely passing through the station," Khan told the officer as he walked forward with his hands in the air.
"Halt!" The officer told Khan as he shouldered his rifle.
Khan said nothing as he broke into a sprint and tackled the officer to the floor, knocking the officer's cap off, as the two began to scuffle on the floor Khan eventually moved on top of him and put his machete to his throat. As I stood there watching the two men scuffle the officers face struck a chord in my memory, as Khan's blade drew in closer to the man's throat, I pulled his arm up.
"Why did you do that?" Khan asked me as I looked down at the officer's confused face.
I didn't reply as I dragged the officer to his feet and pinned him to the wall, "What is your familiya?"
The officer stuttered as he responded probably wondering why I didn't let Khan kill him, "S…S… Solovyov?" He said sounding confused.
"Don't fucking lie!" I shouted as I rolled him to the floor and kicked the rifle from him.
"I'm not, why do you ask?" he shouted at me.
"Because I know none from my family would ever become a fucking red pena!" I shouted at him as I picked up the rifle and pointed it at him.
"Spartak?" He asked as I collapsed down on my knees as tears streamed from my eyes.
"Why? Why did you become a Red?" I asked him as I threw the rifle down.
"I had no choice son," He replied as he moved over to me the dirt from the floor all over his jacket.
"You always have a choice!" I replied as I tried to back away from him.
"Not when the reds are involved," he told me as he stood up.
Khan helped me to my feet, "Child how do you know this man?" He asked.
"He is my rotidel'," I replied as I looked back over to him.
"How did you become an officer?" Khan then asked my father.
"I have a brain and around the red officer corps there isn't much of that," He told Khan almost jokingly.
"How could you after what they did to our family?" I asked him.
"I had no choice, it was either do this or die, I didn't think I'd ever see you and your mother again," He answered calmly.
"How did you get out of here the first time?" Khan asked me.
"Andrew the blacksmith," I told him as he looked back with confusion.
"How do you know Andrei?" Khan then asked my father.
"He helped people escape during the purge of the station," he told Khan. He paid close attention to what my father told him.
"How do you know of Andrew?" I then asked Khan.
"He and I have helped people escape the Red Line for years," Khan replied with a grin across his face.
"So you're Andrew's contact?" My father then asked him.
"Yes," Khan replied as he looked around the area noticing that the streets were empty.
"Then sir, I owe you a lot," My father told him.
"Well you can help us now as repayment," Khan told him as he passed his rifle.
"What do you need?" My father asked Khan.
"Get us to Andrei," Khan told him simply.
"Okay," My father told him, as he took the rifle and Khan's Kaparis, and then tied Khan's hands up. I looked at him with suspicion but Khan seemed completely relaxed so I did too and allowed my father to tie my hands up then Svetlana did the same.
We were then marched off into the station red soldier patrols looked at us with their Kalash rifles which had bayonets attached, I looked at one of them but he shot a look back at me like I was lower than low.
"Do you want us to take this prisoners, Podpolkovnik?" The soldier then told my father.
"Neit, I have them, you get to your duties," My father replied calmly as he guided us through the station, as we were move off the main route we ended up in a part of the town where there didn't seem to be as many guard patrols. "Get in that house!" My father ordered to us in an aggressive manner.
As we ended up in the house, there were no lights but when my father entered the room he flickered the light which was sat on the table in the middle of the room. After a few seconds of flickering I heard footsteps in the room next door. "Mikhail, is that you?" A voice asked from the back room.
"Da, Andrew, I have some people for you," My father told him as he untied our hands and then left the house.
Andrew entered the room and looked at me and instantly knew who I was, along with Svetlana. He then looked at Khan and smiled.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, it took a while to write and I went a slightly different route than what I planned but I think I got it to work but anyway please feel free to review and tell me how I can improve and until the next chapter… PEACE!