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Post by Lawnmower Joe on Jul 22, 2014 13:46:11 GMT -5
Opal and Natalya were the only ones in the group who had been on the surface for an extended amount of time, and the latter had spent most of it inside an armoured vehicle. This left only Opal as the one with any real surface experience. Alexei kept casting fearful glances at the sky, remembering the tales of dreadful flying abominations. The Sun, a pale orb behind a dirty wall of clouds, shot arrows of pain into the young man's eyes whenever he looked too close to it. There was no darkness here, only light, and this made Alexei feel worse than in any pitch black tunnel. Sweat coated his skin beneath the rubber and leather of his suit, but it wasn't because of any heat. As the group slowly made their way through the flooded streets, they more often than not found themselves floundering through knee-high water. In some areas, Alexei had to probe the depths with a stick to make sure it was safe for them to continue. Before long, his rubber leggings were covered in mud and weeds.
"Moscow definitely has changed" whispered Natalya. Alexei looked back at the war veteran, and found her gazing up at the buildings around them. Her eyes were clearly visible behind her lenses, and all Alexei could see in them was immense sadness. "I remember...I remember passing through this neighbourhood on a bus, with Nadya. She had only just started university and I was on leave..."
“Howlers", interrupted Opal, “Some distance yet but how far… the water distorts too much to know for sure. We need to get out of the open.”
Natalya had dropped into a crouch, gun at the ready. Alexei froze as he heard a raucous howl drift through the swamped streets. Sweat ran down his forehead.
"In here" said Alexei, motioning to a nearby block of apartments. He set off towards the building's entrance, a doorway beset by moss and creepers.
"-Alexei, wait!" he heard Natalya hiss, but before he could react he was already through the door. The hallway was dark, its floor coated with partially dried swamp mud. On one side were a set of small letterboxes slowly succumbing to rust. Suddenly there was a loud shriek, and Alexei was knocked over by a small hairless animal, which scuttled out of the hallway and into a low hole in the wall. Cursing he scrambled to his feet.
"Fucking Lurkers" he muttered just as Natalya arrived behind him, assault rifle raised.
"Damn it, Alexei!" she hissed through her mask, "I might be new to this crapsack world, but I know that in a war zone you never EVER go rushing into a building like this. You could have been killed!"
The veteran roughly shoved Alexei aside and took the lead, moving slowly and clearing two adjacent corridors with swift sweeps of her Kalash. Alexei stood still, his heart thumping like a drum. All the tales the stalkers in Venice told were nothing compared to the real thing. He sighed and shuddered before seeing Gill, who was still crouching in the doorway and gazing out at the swamp. Trying hard to keep his trembling legs under control, Alexei went over to her.
"Gill? Don't stay here, it's dangerous" he told her. Gill looked up at him, her eyes not showing the slightest hint of fear.
"-I...sorry" she said, tearing her gaze away from the water. "This swamp...it's...it's calling to me..."
Alexei shook his head and turned to Opal. "Everything okay, Opal?"
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Post by Opal on Jul 22, 2014 14:51:45 GMT -5
When Alexei suddenly broke for the nearest building, Opal could only stare in open surprise. He didn’t seriously just do that did he? Oh Christ… there he goes, fucking idiot. She watched as Natalya hared off angrily behind him and followed closely by Gill. Making the judgment call that Nat could handle anything in the building, Opal followed along at a slower pace and kept an eye out behind them and thanking whatever higher power that the swamp was eating their footprints behind them.
“Everything okay, Opal?” Alexei asked her as she caught up to them at the doorway. “I’m fine, no thanks to you.” Opal said with a snort of annoyance. “Do you have any idea how reckless that was? You made enough noise to alert anything within a block or two. I haven’t survived 10 years of surface missions to have it end because some naïve idiot panicked into an ambush.”
Shaking her head and muttering a series of foul curses she dismissed the conversation before he could respond and moved off into the decayed hall. Pushing her glasses up on top of her head she used her eye sight to make out the details in the gloom.
Trash crunched underfoot and Opal couldn’t help but run her fingers along the peeling wallpaper of the walls as she passed. Once, Opal’s family had lived in an upscale community like this with other people of wealth and means. Her father had called it a ‘penthouse’ and that she had had her own room that overlooked the city of St.Petersberg. She couldn’t remember it but occasionally flashes would surface from her memory of green gardens with beds of flowers that her mother had tended and Opal almost believed for a second she could smell them. But the memories never lasted long and always left her unbearably sad.
Opal heard movement in the next room and as she peered cautiously around the door frame she spotted Natalya and relaxed. The woman was gazing out a heavily cracked window but it was cleaner than most. Coming to stand next to her, Opal looked out at what had once been a public square. She couldn’t remember anything but Natalya could. What would be going through the older woman’s mind right now? Opal couldn’t even guess.
“I had a sister once,” Opal said quietly, never taking her eyes off the calm square. “But she wanted too much to be like me, but she was too reckless, too carefree. When the demon came there was nothing I could do and it ripped her apart. She died in my arms and then I used her body to hide mine own. I fucking used her and then I was forced to leave the body so I could live. And may I never forgive myself. I drink to block out her screams.” Opal wasn’t sure what had prompted the confession but deep down she felt the older woman would understand at some basic level. She wasn’t looking for pity or really feeling sorry for herself, it just was.
With a shrug she finally tore her gaze from the window and turned to find that Alexei and Gill had finally made their way into the room behind them. Clearing her throat, Opal was a little embarrassed that she had been so focused that she hadn’t heard them enter. How much did they hear? She wondered.
“We should lay low here for a bit.” She murmured quietly and cleared her throat once again.
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Post by Lawnmower Joe on Jul 22, 2014 18:36:09 GMT -5
Alexei sighed and slumped into a corner of the room. Natalya and Opal's rebuke had revealed just how useless and unequipped he was in this new and frightening world. He found himself longing for Venice's creaking piers and comforting tunnels, which he may never see again. The room they were in was what had once been a ground floor apartment, its floor blackened by floods and mud and its wallpaper slowly peeling away. Alexei picked a small flat object from the mud, revealing a long forgotten picture frame. He wiped the mud off with his gloved hand and, predictably, found the photograph had rotted away long ago.
Gill sat down next to him, her breath coming in slow whistles through her filters. "Don't let a mistake get you down" she told him, "remember, you and I had never been to the surface until now."
Alexei nodded. Until now he had never seen the Sun or the sky, and the surface was only a place of myth.
"-If I get out alive, I'm buying you a drink" he told Gill. The gilled mutant smiled shyly, a gesture thankfully hidden by her gas mask.
"Don't be silly, Alexei. You'll be fine. You're a lot tougher than you think."
Alexei smiled. "Thanks Gill."
Natalya gazed sadly outside, floating between past and present. The square beneath them was but a shadow of what it once was. Water had flooded it entirely, and large sections of earth and tarmac had been torn upwards as if by some monstrous earthquake. In the center stood a statue covered in moss and filth, the last sentinel of a lost world. Natalya looked to Opal with haunted eyes.
"How fucking pointless it all was" she said, "the war in Chechnya, the shelters up at Gora Yamantau. It was all for nothing. We used to rule the skies, the seas and the land. We used to be billions...now we're just a handful of rat people crawling about underground."
The veteran turned away from Opal and glanced outside the apartment. A crushing sense of emptiness and sadness filled her. The world was well and truly gone, and the realisation was soul-crushing. She had unknowingly built a cocoon around herself, seeing the Metro through the eyes of a dreamer and not entirely accepting the fact that everything had changed forever. To people like Alexei, Opal and Gill, the past meant almost nothing. It was just a collection of stories or, in Opal's case, a few fading memories. Their reality was the Metro and Moscow's poisoned surface.
Natalya sighed. Never before had she felt so alone.
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Post by Opal on Jul 24, 2014 13:17:38 GMT -5
Opal lifted her good hand and squeezed Natalya’s shoulder in companionable understanding. “Despite all we have lost, some of us still have something or someone we love and need to protect. We keep them close and watch over them, even if they don’t realize it. For many it is all you need to keep going. So chin up, Natalya. You have family who need you now. For me, I thought I had something but… I don’t know any more.” Opal shrugged and dropped her hand, she continued with a humorless laugh. “One step at a time right? Well I’m going to make sure the floors above us are clear. I’ll shout if I find anything.”
Opal turned to leave the room and carefully avoided Alexei’s eyes but accidentally gave Gill a sad glance. Her steps were determined but soft as she made her way soundlessly down the darkened hall.
She turned a corner and let out a contented sigh to finally be alone for a time. Keeping her crossbow up and ready to fire in a moment’s notice, she kept her senses alert despite being more relaxed now that she was alone than she had been in days. This was the way she preferred things wasn’t it? She asked herself as she pushed a door in with her booted toe and quickly scanned the room before moving on.
Her thoughts troubled her as she silently went room to room. She was a stalker, a mercenary, an alcoholic who enjoyed meaningless sex and violence. Opal wasn’t fit for constant companionship, so why was she acting like this?
Opal was more hopeless then she realized. She laughed softly to herself as she mounted the stairs to the top floor. She’d do this job, find Nadya, and go home to her small shack and do some serious reevaluating.
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Post by Lawnmower Joe on Jul 29, 2014 18:03:44 GMT -5
Vsevolod crouched behind a rotting sofa, his AK-74 ready in his hands. The squad's spotter had seen the small group of stalkers approach the building a few minutes ago, and their superior had ordered them to lie in wait. Vsevolod shrugged in his light patrol armour and glanced towards the door of the apartment. Judging from one of the stalkers' behaviour, this group was not particularly experienced and would be easy prey for Slava Rossiy's soldiers.
He tensed and raised his Kalach when he saw a on the dusty floor outside. Silently he nodded to the four other Reich soldiers who lay in wait behind overturned furniture. Finally the target came into a view, its face and features hidden by a gas mask and heavy clothing. Without warning Vsevolod rose and aimed his Kalach at the stranger.
"Freeze", he said, his voice soft but exuding hidden brutality and menace. "Move an inch and I'll kill you."
Alerted to the commotion, other hiding Reich soldiers emerged from neighbouring appartments and cut off the stalker's retreat. Slava Rossiy never failed to disappoint Vsevolod. He stepped slowly forward, never lowering his Kalach.
"Drop your weapons, hands behind your head" he said.
On the other side of the building, Natalya was completely unaware of Opal's predicament. The war veteran continued to stalk the corridors, checking each apartment for any suspicious activity. As she approached the door of one apartment she heard the soft click of a gun being armed.
"Freeze" said a muffled voice. Natalya froze and raised her arms, her Kalach dropping to the ground with a metallic clatter. She could hear the soft patter of boots approaching her from behind.
"Now what do we have-"
As soon as her unidentified attacker was in range, Natalya dropped into a crouch and kicked him in the ankles. The man yelped in anger and pain, his grip on his rifle momentarily loosened by the sudden attack. Natalya was on him in a flash and drove her knife deep into the man's throat. She had no time to rest, however, as angry voices cried out behind her.
"KILL HIM!"
Natalya threw herself through a nearby door, the rotten wood splintering beneath her. Bullets smacked into the concrete floor of the corridor, whipping up dust and shattered concrete. Natalya drew her Stechkin and fired at the first man to poke his head through the door. The burst of 9mm bullets caught him in the chest and face, ripping through his gas mask and splattering the wall behind him with blood. Ignoring their fallen comrade, the other soldiers sprayed the room with automatic gunfire, forcing Natalya to retreat deeper into the apartment. She was beginning to realise her mistake, as she was now trapped in a small apartment by a numerically superior force of well-trained and well-equipped soldiers. Another burst of gunfire raked the apartment, a TV screen shattering with a dull thud and bullets tearing through an overturned sofa bed. Natalya retreated to a room she assumed was a kitchen, firing random bursts in the enemy's direction to buy herself time and cover.
"After her!" She heard one of the men bark, followed by the thud of boots as the enemy entered the apartment. Natalya emerged from cover and fired twice, forcing her attackers to duck behind any cover she could find. At the end of the second salvo, however, her machine-pistol clicked. She ducked behind the kitchen wall just in time as another hail of Kalach bullets hissed past her and slammed into the dust-covered kitchen sink. Ceramic tiles cracked by time shattered under the brutal assault. Natalya glanced around her, desperate for an escape route.
Her eyes settled on a rotund white canister nestled in a cupboard. Above the cupboard were the rusting rings of a gas cooker. Natalya lunged forward and yanked the heavy gas container out of its refuge. With a vicious yell, she hurled the canister through the door and sent it clanking into the abandoned living room. As soon as the canister stopped rolling, Natalya popped out from cover and fired at it. To her amazement the soft hiss of escaping gas became audible.
"CEASE F-"
There was a snap of gunfire and the apartment shook. Flames rushed through the open kitchen door and Natalya winced as the heat scorched her skin through her clothing. Black smoke began to fill the apartment. Natalya glanced cautiously outside and was greeted with a scene of total devastation. The entire room had been ripped to shreds, and large fires were starting to consume the destroyed furniture. Worst of all were the charred and battered corpses of her attackers. Without pause Natalya ran towards the door, and after checking for enemies outside, she left the burning apartment. She took the time to retrieve her AK-74.
She heard shouts from the direction of the stairs. More were coming her way and she was sure her luck wouldn't get her through a second fight with similar soldiers. Natalya retreated down the corridor, intent on staying out of the enemy's sight. Behind her gas mask's partially clouded lenses her eyes hunted for any kind of exit. She was about to give up hope when she spotted the familiar outline of a rubbish chute in the wall.
"Bingo" she said before opening the chute. The rusted door squeaked on its rusted hinges, but the hatch was otherwise big enough for her. Without further ado, Natalya slid into the chute legs first and let go. She was immediately engulfed in pungent darkness, and she felt herself slide faster and faster. A sudden impact jarred her, and she found herself falling free down the narrow conduit. She slammed into something mushy and putrid and was knocked unconscious.
"Shit!" Swore Alexei as the building shook. Gunfire erupted soon after. "What the fuck is going on up there?"
"-It's an ambush!" Hissed Gill, panic filling her voice, "We have to get out of here!"
"No, we can't leave Nat and Opal!" Snapped Alexei. He drew his harpoon gun and headed for the stairs, but was greeted by the cold black steel of a gun barrel.
"You're not going anywhere" said the black-clad man. Alexei's eyes widened in terror as he saw the red and white armband on the man's uniform. A black triskelion was set in the center of it.
"The Reich!" He breathed, dropping his harpoon gun.
"You there, stop!" Barked the Nazi when he spotted Gill. The gilled mutant turned and ran, her awkward gait replaced by a powerful run as adrenaline coursed into her bloodstream. Bullets zipped past her.
The water! Get to the water!
Gill sprinted to the closest and deepest pool, ignoring the curses and shouts behind her. She reached the edge of the pool and launched herself into the water, her body slicing into it like a knife. Without thinking she tored her gas mask away and took several gulps of water, her gills quivering. If the water was radioactive, she was doomed. Bullets crashed through the water, but Gill was already swimming away faster than any human ever could.
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Post by Opal on Jul 30, 2014 13:13:35 GMT -5
She was so lost in thought that she almost missed the flash of shadow that passed across the corner of her eye. Hurriedly she angled her crossbow and fired at the same moment as a man called out with orders to freeze. The deadly bolt went wide and narrowly missed the speakers face and imbedded itself into the wall behind them.
A moment later more men appeared, she grit her teeth and cursed, there was no way she was going to overpower them. She had no chance against their numbers, especially if she expected to make it out in one piece. Opal made a growling noise at her displeasure at being taken by surprise and ambushed by such numbers. It grated at her pride as a Stalker.
“Drop your weapons, hands behind your head.” Came the next command as the man moved forward. It was then she saw the flash of red and saw them for what they were. Nazis.
Opal was suddenly thanking all the gods she could name that her glasses where firmly in place hiding her mutation. Having no desire to die at the hands of a group Nazis she did as they asked and slowly dropped her crossbow and kicked it away and steadily reached back to put her hands behind her head. She kept her eyes focused on the speaker in an attempt to read his intentions. If she could learn enough about her captors it would be easier to eventually escape.
Suddenly gunshots echoed up the stairway, followed by an explosion that shook building. Panic for her companions gripped her insides and she momentarily forgot herself. “Alexei!” she cried as she dropped her hands and made for the stairwell. Opal didn’t make it more than two steps before a rifle butt slammed into the back of her skull. Instantly knocked unconscious she dropped to the floor. Her hood had been knocked loose causing her red tinted hair to add a splash of color across the dirty ground around her head. A more fanciful person might have compared it to a bloody halo.
Opal awoke sometime later and found herself bound, gagged, and slung over the shoulder of a particularly large Nazi. Keeping herself limp she glanced around as best she could from her awkward angle. Directly behind her she saw Alexei being led at gun point but couldn’t see the other two from her vantage point. Her companion didn’t seem to be damaged too badly and that gave her a small if short lived moment of relief. Where were the others?
Alexei seemed more pissed off then aggrieved so she figured that even if they weren’t there at least they hadn’t been killed. Or at least that is what she hopped. Continuing her observations she noticed they were no longer within sight of the apartment complex and they were moving quickly in a tight formation, but from her position she couldn’t tell in what direction.
After another hour her damaged body began to scream from the constant jostling and pressure from the man’s shoulder. Her mask and glasses effectively hid her expressions of agony as she fought to control her breathing. Opal wasn’t going to be able to stay still much longer hoped they would be reaching their destination soon. Once again she checked on Alexei and found him looking at her. Taking a chance she unobtrusively waggled the fingers of her good hand in an effort to let him know that at least she was awake.
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Post by Lawnmower Joe on Sept 5, 2014 7:49:24 GMT -5
"Kapitan!"
Vsevolod shifted in his rickety chair and reached for the radio. The small set croaked again as his gloved hand closed around it.
"Captain Vlasov here" he said, pressing the button. Outside the warehouse some distant beast let out a low howl, but Vsevolod remained calm. The building was superbly defended, enough to repel any assaults by the swamp's mutated inhabitants.
"Group Beta reporting in. We caught ourselves a group of loners trying to sneak through our patrol zone. Two of them escaped. We took some casualties. But we captured the two others. Over."
"-Nobody of value comes through this area. Execute them. Over."
"But sir, one of them's a woman."
Vsevolod paused. He had orders to take any captured women back to Reich.
"Very well. Bring them over. Vlasov over and out." Vsevolod rose from his chair and set the radio down, glancing at the dog-eared paperback that lay on a crate nearby. On its cover was a black and white photo of an old and bearded man. The title remained legible despite the fragile paper cover's age: "The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin."
Vsevolod pondered the book he was reading as he slowly left the bare cold room. Among with other "Jewish and decadent propaganda", Darwin was on the Reich's banned list of books. Vsevolod had acquired his copy from a travelling Hansa merchant, mostly out of a desire to spite his increasingly incompetent National-Socialist masters, but also out of curiosity. His parents had often told him about Darwin and his sacrilegious work. But why would such a book be banned in a station where the Bible itself was only available in a heavily edited "pure Slavic" format? Surely Darwin's ideas were not incompatible with the Reich's ruthless policy of eugenics and purity?
The Reich captain pushed the door of his quarters open and stepped into the dusty corridor. A sentry stood to attention and saluted him as he walked past. None of the men present in the warehouse were wearing gas masks, as the building seemed to be devoid of toxic or radioactive air particles. Vsevolod turned right at the end of the corridor and entered a large room lit by a couple of large fires. The rusted outlines of two trucks were visible in one corner, stripped of any valuable materials. A sliding metal shutter kept the outside world at bay. Vsevolod stopped and waited for his men to arrive, all the while reflecting on the prohibited book he was reading. The book had shaken his perception of the Reich's official doctrine, for in Darwin's logic, if the Slavic race was besieged and threatened with extinction, it was not a superior race. Mutation, a universally feared and hated ill in Reich stations, was depicted as evolution's tentative ways at changing a species. Good mutations meant survival and the passing on of those genes to descendants, whereas deformities meant death. Vsevolod had seen many mutants in the course of his duty, and while most of them were miserable cancer-ridden souls, others were...different. He had shot men and women whose eyes were better suited for seeing in the darkness, killed children whose bodies were capable of resisting lethal amounts of poison and radiation...at the time they had only been abominations to him, filth in humanity's precious bloodline. Now, however, he was beginning to wonder if they, the Fourth Reich, self-proclaimed saviours of the Metro, were not exterminating their best chance at survival.
Three bangs sounded on the metal curtain. Three guards rushed to the doorway, guns half-raised.
"Password!" Barked Vsevolod.
"Russia lives on!" Came the answer. Vsevolod turned to one of the guards and nodded. Without a word the guard went to the curtain and pulled it up. As the articulated metal sheet slid up with a raucous clatter, Group Beta became visible. Two men each carried bound figures over their shoulder.
"Kapitan" said the group leader, marching forth and giving the Nazi salute. Vsevolod's expression remained impassive, but in his mind he winced at the ugly salute. Why must we ape Russia's blood enemy? He thought bitterly.
"Here are the prisoners" continued the group leader. The men carrying the bound prisoners roughly threw them to the floor. "We found their group hiding in a block of flats six streets from here."
"-What of the other two?" Asked Vsevolod, his eyes fixed on the squirming prisoners.
"One fought his way out of our trap and killed several of our men before disappearing" said the group leader, "the other ran from us and dived into the Swamp. He's probably dead by now."
"Maybe" growled Vsevolod, "unless he's a mutant, in which case he may still be alive. Not all mutants are grotesque freaks. I heard tales of one mutant who could breathe underwater."
The Nazis shifted uncomfortably, much to Vsevolod's satisfaction. He had to keep them on edge lest they become arrogant and overconfident. Enemies of the Reich had a way of taking advantage of such attitudes.
"I'll interrogate those two" said Vsevolod nodding at the two prisoners. "Double the patrols in the area you found them in. I don't want any survivors slipping away."
The prisoners were dragged out of the garage and into a back room. The room's floor was almost black with dried blood, and a single halogen lamp filled the place with its intimidating glare. Vsevolod had the prisoners shoved to the floor before him while he stood with his back to the light. The soldiers who had lead the prisoners into the room left quietly and shut the door behind them. Vsevolod knew that a single shout from him would have three guards bursting into the room to kill the prisoners.
"So" he said, towering over the prisoners. "It's time you and I had a little chat. Now if you'll just let me see your faces..."
He reached for the male prisoner's gas mask, only to have him jerk his head back. Vsevolod tutted and grasped for the mask again, his gloved fingers gripping the back of it and wrenching it off. The male prisoner turned out to be a surprisingly young man with blond hair and blue eyes. Very Slavic features.
The eyes!
Vsevolod stared at Alexei's pupils, which had retracted into narrow reptilian slits. Now that was something unexpected.
"So you're a mutant" said Vsevolod calmly, "good job on hiding this from my men. Let's see what your girlfriend has to say for herself..."
Vsevolod tore Opal's gas mask off and was not surprised to find a similar mutation on her. For a few maddening minutes the Nazi captain simply stood and nodded to himself.
"Very good job" he complimented Alexei and Opal. "If my men had seen your eyes, they would have ripped them out with a knife and left you to bleed out. Although..." He added, turning his cold gaze to Opal, "They probably would have raped and eviscerated you. The penalty is higher for mutant women."
He took a step back and sighed. "Fortunately for you I am not of the same barbaric breed as them. I am a Christian, and I am willing to make a deal with you if you tell me about your two friends."
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