Metro fanfic

Just felt inspired to write a good Metro fanfic all of a sudden. I think it might be good to put it up somewhere on the web but I'm not sure where. Its a bit different and original from the rest at fanfiction.net and also contains some original ideas I have about the Metro setting.

Enjoy, and feel free to comment. Suggestions for a title would be welcome too.

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In the darkness of the tunnel, the stalker waited for death. Pain left him paralysed where he lay curled against the wall, his spine shattered, in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. His comrades’ last pitiful groans had finally subsided and soon he would join them. The bandits that ambushed them on their return from the successful expedition to the surface had not escaped unscathed either and two of the enemy were also slain.

For one, last time he tried to rise to tend to his wounds, only to scream in agony and collapse again. The effort only caused his heart to pump faster and hasten the loss of blood. So he closed his eyes and did his best to block the numbing agony from his thoughts. If he was going to die, he thought he might as well try to go with the fondest memories of his family and loved ones on his mind – but even the recollection of his mother’s embrace gave way to the lingering ache of losing her to a mutant attack in his early teens. No, there was little to be gained from remembering how most of his relatives experienced violent deaths at the hands of nosalises or fellow humans. Even the elderly were more likely to succumb to cancerous tumours or poisoning as a result of decades of exposure to radiation and pollutants; a slower and more lingering death. The missiles that were launched twenty years ago were still killing off the last of Moscow’s survivors as they fought each other over scraps in labyrinth of tunnels below the city.

The situation was completely hopeless. Some explorers even said that the dead still lingered as ghosts in the Metro, their shadowy forms unable to pass through the veil as no final place of rest remained beyond it. He wasn’t even sure if he could hope for total oblivion.

Suddenly the air before him seemed to shimmer, like the air above a heating vent, and a tall, slender bipedal creature with ebony black skin rippled into existence a few metres in front of him. Although he was already dying, the man still felt the icy grip of terror and yet fascination at the sight of a Dark One for the first time. Everyone he knew of that encountered a Dark One was left insane or dead and he wondered morbidly whether he would spend his last moments as a babbling madman gurgling in a puddle of his own blood.

The Dark One seemed to know instinctively that he was still alive and turned to face him. For the first time, he noticed the revolver lying on the ground before him. With the iron resolve of someone with absolutely nothing left to lose, he strained forward, pulling open his already torn flesh still further, until he was able to close his fingers around the gun, lift it in the mutant’s direction, and pull the tri…

The Dark One suddenly stepped to the right and he followed the movement, the shot ringing out and ricocheting against the wall before echoing down the tunnel. Yet the mutant was uninjured and simply vanished, only to reappear at its original location. With alarm mixed with resignation, the stalker realised that it had conjured a simple illusion to throw off his aim and could easily do so again. Immediately the turned the gun on himself, shut his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

*Click.*

It was empty. Cheated of even a self-inflicted death, he dropped the gun and slumped back helplessly, whimpering as tears began to flow down his cheeks.

Do not be afraid. There is nothing to be afraid of.

At once, all the pain in his body vanished and was replaced with soothing warmth. The creature had spoken directly into his mind! The stalker opened his eyes in disbelief and tried to struggle upright again, but realised his injuries still prevented him from rising, even if he could no longer feel them. He tried to speak.

“Why…why are you helping me?”

Hush, there is no need to speak, for I can read your thoughts. I cannot help you, only ease your pain. I cannot heal your wounds, but I can tell your mind that they aren’t important anymore.

Fear, amazement and cautious relief washed over him. Maybe if the Dark One really wanted to be kind it could summon medical help?

No, your friends cannot help you either. You are dying and your wounds are too severe. You would be dead long before they even got here.

Then why was it taking away the pain? Why are you interested in whether I suffer or not? What do you want from me? Your kind and mine are enemies.

That is untrue. We want peace. I also want you to be at peace.

The view of the tunnel, the Dark One and his fallen companions blurred into a vision of another time and place. The stalker was now standing behind a small group of five Dark Ones slowly walking towards a Metro blockade. He watched as the humans behind the blockade raised their rifles and fired, killing all but one of the Dark Ones, who raised his hand. The humans cringed away from some horror he could not see, most likely an illusion, and fled. Then the scene faded back to the present.

We tried to approach your kind to offer our help. To offer hope. We have established areas where the air is safe for you to breathe, barricaded them against dangerous mutants, and planted them with crops you can eat. The sun is slowly returning too. It is time humans came back to the surface and the abandoned city. It cannot be rebuilt without you.

But I am dying, Dark One. What use am I?

The surface is not the only thing that has been destroyed, and it is not the only thing that needs to be rebuilt. Alone in this tunnel, I could sense your spirit well before you could see me and know of the bleak despair you feel in your last moments, believing that your people face oblivion and that even death would not bring you rest.

The stalker drew back mentally. The Dark One could read his mind even when out of sight…but he also realised that this fact was irrelevant now.

As you shape the world around you when alive, so too you build the realms of the spirit in death. As war and cruelty sears the world with fire and destruction, despair and bitterness darkens the path to your final destination. So I am trying to convince you to let go and understand that within a few minutes, you can find yourself in a happier place of your own creation. You must hold on to that hope or you will never leave this tunnel.

Are you saying that…heaven…exists only because we make it so?

Yes.

There was a pause in their mental exchange as the stalker tried to comprehend this, before eventually giving up. Still, he was comforted by the gentleness and compassion emanating from the Dark One and began to hope, however vaguely, that it was right. He’d seen enough incomprehensible things in the last few minutes to suspend his disbelief.

Hope for a better future, and trust in us who dwell on the surface, will lead your people back to a life beyond these dank tunnels. We do not resent your fear and misunderstanding and still quietly speak to those whose hearts are more open, guiding them into seeking peace between your factions. You can go without regrets, knowing that your kind is not doomed.

That is incredibly generous of you, Dark One. I am truly sorry I thought you were a monster coming to kill me. He glanced at the gun and realised it was hard to focus on now. His eyesight was failing. Blackness was creeping into the edges of his vision, and the ambient sounds of the Metro were also fading. The endless dripping, echoing and metallic creaking of the pipes had also grown silent. The man realised that in the absence of pain, these were indications that he was dying. His senses were shutting down slowly and he also felt increasingly sleepy. Thank you Dark One, I wish you well.

If he listened intently in the silence, he could almost hear the distant sounds of children’s’ laughter and the songs of long extinct birds. Perhaps the Dark One was right. Children and animals were innocent creatures that did not easily fall to despair or the fear of death. They were in the same, kinder place that he hoped to reach.

Go to sleep now. ‘Heaven’ awaits.

The man sighed and closed his eyes. This time, he dwelled only on the fondest memories of his short time on earth and dreams of a better world for those he would leave behind. Suddenly his eyelids fluttered open and he reached out to touch the blood-soaked ground before him.Wait a little longer Dark One! I have just enough strength left for one, last gesture to help repay you…
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“Hey Artyom! Have you finished searching the ones at your end?” Ulman’s shout jolted Artyom from his reverie. The team was on a simple mission to investigate rumours of a bandit attack in the area and stumbled onto the aftermath of their battle. There were no survivors, so he busied himself searching the bodies for ammunition and filters.

“Yes…yes, I’m done!” he replied.

“Then come over here. I think you need to see this.”

Artyom hurried over. Ulman had an annoying, cheeky habit of mimicking the snarls of nosalises and other mutants to get his undivided attention if he stalled. “Look at him…the poor bastard must have gone mad.”

The younger man peered down at the body Ulman was pointing to. The stalker lay at the base of the wall with an empty revolver beside him. Before him was a strange drawing painted onto the concrete with his own blood, an unnaturally tall, slender, humanoid figure with thin fingers and toes; large ovoid eyes, and a vertical slit for a mouth. Though it was little more than a crude stick figure, it was an unmistakeable depiction of a Dark One. What gave Artyom pause for thought was the fact that the deceased stalker had also added a halo-like ring around the creature’s head, and a pair of curled, angelic wings.

Ulman spat. “He must have stayed alive a little longer than the rest. Then the Dark One came, shattered his mind, tore him up bad and made him draw this bloody portrait. We might have saved him if we got here earlier.”

It seemed like a logical conclusion to Artyom, but the same doubts that gnawed on his conscience for the last year returned. Slowly, as if uneasy over what he might see, he shifted his gaze to the face of the dead man.

Unlike the twisted, agonised expressions frozen on the faces of the other bodies strewn across the floor, the dead stalker’s eyes were closed as if he were merely asleep, his lips curled into the ghost of a peaceful smile.