Fractured City
I hope you've been enjoying this story so far this chapter has been in the works for a long time I hope it's been worth the wait, I will let you get on with reading it for now as always I don't own metro but I do own Spartak.
I looked back at the now caved in tunnel and sighed turning back to look at Khan and Levii who both had their masks still on which were starting to fog up from their filters becoming ineffective, I could feel it becoming harder to draw air through my filter so I knew the same effect was happening to me too, this was compounded by the vapour condensing on the visor of my gas mask.
"Doesn't look like we're going back that way," Levii gasped for air his filter was almost done, I reached behind myself to try and pull of my back pack I was sure I had some additional filters in there.
"No, it doesn't my friend, but worse I think I left all our filters back there," I told him as the moisture barrelling down my visor obscured my vision making it difficult to see the two men.
"Come we need to move," Khan told us as he struggled to put one foot forward due to his oxygen starvation, his muscles were saturated with lactic acid which would soon start to digest his myofibrils and cause intense cramps but he forced himself onwards.
We haplessly followed onwards until I felt my lungs start to crush in on themselves like I had been put through a juicer but I had to keep moving or else. However eventually the worse had to happen and my legs buckled underneath me, I hit the floor hard scraping my elbow on the floor. I felt someone tug at me trying to get me to move but I was out of it and couldn't move my legs or arms, they did eventually manage to drag me a few feet leaving a trail of blood.
I coughed out the toxic air into the dead filter, I felt like I was slipping across that line into the unknown. I felt like someone was shaking me to try and wake me up but I couldn't open my eyes like they were taped shut but I still kept trying to stay relatively with it I wasn't going to go through hell just to die because of a fucked filter.
I eventually managed to pull my eyes open I could see a black figure standing over me with long arms and a strange face, I tried to lift my head up but they pushed it back down and looked over towards my arm. I could feel my breathing normalising, I thought that I must have slipped too far and started hyperventilating but I could feel my chest moving normally.
I just stared up at the sky which I could see was bright white almost blindingly so but after a few seconds I could see movement, the white was turning to a dull grey, it started to develop shape. They wisped through the air like smoke, I was slowly regaining the shapes of everything around me, I could see crumbled masonry a few breeze blocks were shattered on the floor, the roof of the tunnel had collapsed and I could see the clouds moving above me. Levii moved from my arm to my face and checked my something just below my chin.
"He's responsive," Levii said through an ancient style gas mask, its filter was draped down below him as he moved it sung from side to side, the visor had been replaced with two individual eye pieces which looked like they were several inches thick. His voice was more heavily muffled than normal.
"Good, Spartak can you hear me?" Khan asked me as I looked around taking in air through the strange mask my face was now in.
"Da, I can hear you," I told him as I sat upright and looked at my face in a reflection of myself in the ground water that had collected on the floor. The mask had two separate eye pieces like Levii's mask but they were more triangular with the filter attached to the side of the mask like a normal mask.
"Good, we need to get moving I don't know how long these filters will last, we need to get back to Polis," He then told me as he pulled me up with a rubber shroud over his head I doubted that he could hear much but I still nodded at his suggestion.
I picked my AN-94 off the floor but I couldn't shoulder it I felt too weak however I could hip the weapon so I just kept the gun pointed forwards and hoped that it was enough to keep things at bay. I saw Khan make his way over to a corner of the blown open tunnel peering out into the broken lands above the metro.
"It is still daylight," Khan said breathy as he scanned the horizon out over the city. I walked up next to him as he continued to scan, I could hear Levii's heavy boots knocking on the floor as he walked towards us making sure that nothing had gotten through the collapsed tunnel.
"Is that a good thing?" I asked him as I looked out at the fractured clouds which hung in the air above us like they were stuck in some kind of stasis. They just stayed in place not moving there was no wind like it was just frozen in time, it had been a while since Levii and I had been to the surface.
"Day light is good, night time the monsters come out to play." Levii said ominously from behind me as I heard his deep breaths straining through the thick old gas mask.
"That sounds pleasant," I told him as Khan took our first tentative steps up the slope towards the precipice. I followed him trying to keep pace but I was too weak I fell as I approached the top of the slope however I was quickly scooped up by Levii who carried me after Khan.
"Khan, do you know where we are going?" Levii barked as he sat me down next to a building which had had all of its glass blown out by the bombs all that was left was a burnt scar on the side of the building where a passer-by was left in shadow form. I could see what he was doing down to the brief case in his hand and hat he adorned on his head.
"These walls have faces," Khan told me as he held his hand out to me to help me back to my feet. "The next entrance is four streets over from here on the other side of what is said to be a nest."
"A nest for what?" I asked as I held my elbow and panted for air.
"Nosalises," He replied sending a shiver down my spine.
"Those things? really? I didn't take them for the social type," Levii smirked which made the situation slightly less uneasy but I knew that in my state that would be made all the more difficult.
"Yes quite they adhere to a matriarchal society living like a pack of hyenas, a very large female leads the pack and they do not question, simple really," Khan told us as he peered down the street towards where we would be going. I kept staring at the shadow kept thinking that I'd see it move like the ones in the tunnel but it did not despite what my brain was telling me.
"So they do have an order," I sniggered as I hipped my rifle again and came around the corner to cover Khan to move up. I could see things crawling on a building about two streets away, "Khan up there, looks like we found the nest," I said to him as he kept up against a wall which had very little cover.
He took a knee and called Levii forwards with his bastard, Khan peered up at the building following one of the creatures with his gun knowing that we were out of range but also that it probably couldn't see us either. "Looks like there's three of them," Khan told us as Levii moved past him and took up position less than half a street away from the creatures.
"There's four," Levii whispered back at us.
"Slowly child, they do not attack those who they do not deem a threat," Khan whispered to Levii who hunkered down moving up against the building trying to be as stealthy as possible. His pack occasionally caught the masonry behind him bushing off which bounced off him onto the floor, it couldn't be heard hitting the floor as the snarls from the nosalises masked the ambient sound.
Levii eventually made it across in front of the nest and took up a covering position just past the next on the other side. "Spartak, are you ready?" Khan asked me softly. I just nodded my eyes fixated on the nest, "Just remember what I told Levii, keep low and move slow, you'll get there."
I felt like my body was on the verge of giving up the ghost so as I ducked down next to the wall and started shuffling. I could feel the pieces of wall impacting my head and shoulders they sounded like little patters almost like what the sound of the tunnels filling in Novokuznetskaya. It unnerved me that the creatures kept looking at me I knew their eye sight was ruined in the day but I still felt like they were penetrating my soul, their tufts of hair made them look slightly human or ape like.
A single large nosalise leapt up onto the roof of the building and stared at me. It maintained its gaze for at least five seconds freezing me in place, it drew its lips back exposing its stained teeth, I could almost smell the putrid stink that would be emanating from the bowls of the creature. I could just make out the pieces of half chewed rat that had been mangled between the creatures massive canines. I gulped and slowly turned my head to look down the street, I saw that Levii had his aim trained on the creature, nodding my head I shuffled towards Levii who was still some distance away. I was moving faster than before and more pieces of masonry were falling on me, the chunks were larger and made more of a definite thud when they impacted me. I felt one large chunk rain down on my collar bone making a crack as it struck me.
I winced in pain trying not to alert the creatures any more than I already assumed that I had. "Spartak, are you injured?" Khan asked as I held my collar bone, it hurt like hell but I knew I had to keep moving, "Spartak?" The pain and my wiriness had become so great that Khan sounded like a distant hum.
I pressed against the wall looking up at the creatures dancing around on the roof top, they must have sensed my weakness as I slid down the front of the building causing more rocks to fall on my each one that bounced off my hand pressing it into my shoulder which made the pain shoot back through my body.
When the rocks finally ceased to fall I saw the large creature bound towards the edge of the building causing the slate to drop off the roof top onto the floor, they all shattered on impact which gat the attention of all the other creatures.
"Shit," Khan said agitatedly as he bounded towards me running at full pelt. I saw the creature leap off the roof and land on his shoulder but he just twisted throwing it into the wall pulling an axe from his belt and hacking at the creature's skull. He then continued to run towards me sliding along the floor as he reached me, he pulled me up by my arm which put me in excruciating pain.
Just as we started moving the huge creature leapt from the rooftop smashing its under biting jaw into my cheek slicing through my flesh like it was butter, causing an eruption of blood from just In front of my ear. We collapsed under the sheer weight of the creature which sent us flying into the wall. I felt the brickwork give way as we smashed through it I hit my already battered against the felled brickwork which made me cough up a splatter of blood most of which poured out of my cheek.
Khan swung the axe once more and cleaved the creatures ear and front paw off, it yelped in pain as it reared back attempting to scurry off but as it came out of the dust it was mown down in a barrage of gunfire from Levii's gun. Once again I was hauled to my feet by Khan who held me over his shoulders trying to keep me upright. As we exited the building the creatures swarmed us, Khan swung his axe like a Viking warrior beating back the creatures whilst Levii battered back the blood thirsty hordes with a barrage of gunfire.
Khan slid the axe into his pack with the head just poking out whilst reaching for his machine pistol and unloaded an entire magazine forcing him to reload. Just as he reached for a magazine the creature with the severed leg sprang for us, as it flew through the air I quickly grabbed the axe and swung for the creatures jaw. I felt the impact crack through the under bite, inserting itself in between two razor sharp teeth. I struggled to pull the axe free but the force of Khan kicking the creature back dislodged the axe and it was free for me to take another swing. The second strike shattered the creature's eye socket, its black eye ball exploded in a pool of deep back jell and gunk, shooting all over Khan and I.
After this strike Khan finally loaded a magazine and plastered the creature with bullets, causing it to rear up bolt upright and keel over backwards like the nerves in its body had all contracted simultaneously.
Khan scurried to keep me conscious as we entered the cove which led to the metro, I couldn't make out the sign as we pulled up close to the station, it started with an O that's all I could get not a lot more. I was laid down by the entrance with the huge metal gates in front of us. Levii smashed his huge fist into the intercom making a loud sound like the circuitry was being activated for the first time in a millennium.
"Let us the fuck in!" Levii exclaimed into the intercom as he turned to face the creatures, I lazily untucked my AN-94 and slid it across the floor to Khan as I knew the 7.62mm rounds would pack more of a punch than his 9mm.
"Okay, Okay, We're opening the inner gate now!" A voice replied from the speaker on the wall as a screech echoed down the tunnel towards us. It made my blood curdle as it came closer, I then heard the barrage of bullets as Khan and Levii belted the incoming creatures.
I could hear a distant whirr as the inner gate on the station open, its large metallic gears ground as they rolled into life, I could almost hear the twenty years of rust cracking off them as they turned but I figured that was just me becoming delusional. I watched Khan butt one of the creatures with my AN and then finish it by kicking it in the head. One of the creatures made a break past the two of them and tried to take a bite out of me but Levii grabbed its rear leg which made it double back and swipe his face taking chunks of flesh as it did. Levii snapped his head back and plunged his bayonet into the creatures temple watching the life slowing melt out of the creature's eyes.
I suddenly experienced an intense heat as the outer gate of the station slid open, the flames from the guards flame throwers belted the tunnel with a wall of fire. The sound and sight of fire made the remaining creatures scarper off back out of the station I was pulled inside by a soldier wearing a visor who quickly started checking me over as I was hauled inside the inner gate. Khan and Levii were followed by the two thrower guards who wore a thick set of fire retardant armour. A nurse quickly went to work on levii's face and the soldier working on me lifted up their visor exposing their soft face and long blonde hair.
"Can you hear me?" She asked as she checked my pulse and applied pressure to my face as further medics came to my assistance. I had just about enough strength to nod as she pulled out a syringe with a brown liquid inside, "I'm going to give you a shot of morphine okay?" She then asked I just nodded as she plunged the needle into my arm making the whole world turn slowly black.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have been enjoying the story so far, please review and tell me what you thought I really do appreciate the feedback, also can you guess what statin they have just arrived in. Clue it's in Last Light. Until the next one…PEACE!