Roleplay Part 4

"Any of you familiar with Paveletskaya? Any?" I asked as I gazed into the fire. "A good station, filled with brave men and women. And even braver children."

"Paveletskaya is a station down by the south, and not the Hansa controlled one. The station we're talking about is the independent station." I added as I began to tell my tale.

"Paveletskaya is a station very much like VDNKH, which I'm sure you've all heard about, with this dark one sh*t running around. Day and night, they are constantly visited by these mutants from the surface. Not like those crapsack nosalis or watchers, but mutated humans. Apes." I explained, "So, what does Paveletskaya do to fight these things off? They post guards day and night at the top of the station, while the ones under it rest and sleep. They continue this exchange everyday, knowing full well they could be next to bite the bullet be it from the 'newcomers' or their own friends."

"Now, back in the day, me and a few of my friends were hired as extra guards for the time being while we were passing by. The price was one hundred two coins per head. Sounded pretty swell at the time, since we were about fifteen at the time and we just lost most of our gear from high tailing from Kitai Gorod. At the time, we were all pretty much nonchalant about it. It went for a full week without a hitch, and when the deal was done, we were just about to leave. And just then. Just then, the sukas decide to pop out of the surface and attack. And so, our acid-tongue friend Cherno decided to crank up the old cart and made the sixteen year old Alek man the Pecheneg Machine-gun the kind folks of Paveletskaya had decided to give us after they lost our fee from a small bet against a Hansa Officer. (Goddamn Sukas). And so we had to fight off a whole horde of these bastard while me and Danishka, another pal of mine had to pump up the cart, all the way to the next station."

"If any of you were there, you'd think of it as a hilarious comedy from an 90's sitcom. That was what Cherno was laughing all about while he was nonchalantly blowing their brains off... Or was he actually saying yob tvou mat'? I guess I'll never know. Anyway, after that, when we finally got to the neighboring station, they nearly shot us, thinking we were bandits. To make matters worse, the Pecheneg ran out of ammo, thanks to soldier-boy, Alek, going rock and roll on the bastards. So, in other words, we were still broke as hell, with only the goddamn Pecheneg as a way of income. So, we had to sell the MG, and get another job before we could return to the surface for our main source of income."

 

" so I guess you are a Stalker after all, huh?". " I remember those days... Those unforgettable days " I said in a depressed low voice. " If you've ever been to the surface before than you know what I'm talking about, the stale poisoned air, the icy grip of the wind." I said glancing at Pyotr. " but most of all... The silence. Where cars once drove and Boats once sailed was now still and absolutely quite. It makes your footsteps seem like thunder strikes and your breathe a howling wind. Few dare to enter this alien yet familiar arena, and ever fewer step out. " I said in a scary voice trying to make the story interesting. " I used to make regular trips to the surface for military goods and hardware with my friends Artem, Dimitry and Aexi." things would always work out and we would always make it back with the goods, until the day came when we were ordered On a mission to the Kremlin." I said in a sort of pissed off voice. " our mission was to break in and obtain the launch codes to Russia's remaining nukes. Simple mission, in and out no problem. And it would have been that easy if it werent for some schnitzel eating Nazi spy overhearing us. We got in the Kremlin and were downloading the files when a squad of Nazi rangers knocked on the door. Huh. It was a bloody fight indeed and a fight we were winning until some idiot took out the computers with a stray RPG. And as if that wasn't bad enough all our shooting attracted the mutants. Seeing as how the codes were lost we decided to pull out, but it's hard to out run bullets and Artem was shot right in the throat. He pulled me down to the ground with him and was clawing at me for help but there was no saving him. I remember his gurgled screams, begging me. 'Dima! Help me! Please!...Please!'.He Wouldnt let go of my leg so I turned over and helped him the only way I could. I..I shot him dead right there on the spot. I mean it's nothing shooting men you don't know but this was different. I put the gun to his fore head and blew his brains out. Actually with this gun right here" I said pulling out my Nagant and placing it on my lap. " alexi was captured, tortured for the codes he didn't have then executed." I stated. " And all that because of a Nazi spy". I said looking right in the newcomer Sergei's eyes while gently placing my hand on the revolver.

 

(Hey guys, feel free to have me executed when we reach the station. I've got a lot of schoolwork happening, lots of projects, so I'm on here less than I want to be)

I put away my knife, and closed my eyes, trying to calm my nerves, trying to relax, and trying to block out the talk.

 

NO, not Steven!! D:
I listened intesively to the passionate stories. After Dimitri finished his story, I looked over at Steven who put away his knife again. It was all silent for a short moment.
When I asked someone, I asked them nicely, like a gentleman. Always. But this time, I saw on Steven that he did not want to tell his story. And still, I talked to him as if I was commanding him to preach. "Steven, what about you?" I asked simply and directly. If I had not done that, he probably would not have told his story.

 

Benjamin obviously wanted me to get my mind off the station ahead. "Well, I think most of you know my story, and a pretty messed-up one it is. I was a nazi, one of the worst kind, and I butchered many, both personally and by my order. Then something happened on a mission, and I wandered through tunnels which still haunt my nightmares. Amnesia was the result, probably from shock. Whatever caused it, it made me a better person. I tried to follow a moral code, unaware of my evil past. I follow that code today, but it feels hypocritical, like I'm playing at being a saint when I'm already damned..." I closed my eyes. Yes, that was exactly it.

Can someone be damned? I thought it over... no, there was always redemption. Even for a nazi. Just let me do it... let me survive... let me do penance...

I realised I was talking out loud. I look around, embarrassed, but no-one was laughing. I nodded, and closed my eyes again.

(Hmm, actually, I kinda don't want my character to die. He's been here since RP part 1!)

 

"There's a saying, I forgot from where I heard it, but I'm sure it was from the surface, before the blast..." I said as I tried to remember the words carefully. "I think it was, 'Don't live in the past. Don't hasten the future...." The quote itself meant well, but I just couldn't find the last sentence.

I was left pondering about it for a while.

 

I did not get out of Steven what I wanted to get out of him, but it was enough to know what I needed to know. Pyotr's quote was quite familiar to me. "Choosing whether to live in the past, the now, or the future, is something that one personally have to find out which one that one enjoys the most, and therefor choose which one", I stated. "It is not always that simple though. It is not. I know that myself. It is not always possible to choose the present or the future when you have a haunted past. It is not always possible to choose the present or the past when you are worried about the future, and so on. One just have to think it over enough, to find out which one fits you the most, and attempt as much as you can to follow that discovery", I finished as I unhooked the silver ring from the handle of my sword and spectated it as I stroked it gently.

"I have not been properly honest with you, I must admit", I said as I slightly lowered my head, allowing the dreadlocks to cover my disgraced face expression. "My two friends who were executed by the nazi officer...", my voice stated shamefully, taking a slight pause. "One of them was the love of my life. Kimii her name was. She died in my arms. This ring", I held it up, slightly turning it around slowly. "was a gift from her at our last spring in the sanctuary." I looked at the engraving inside the ring.

I raised my head suddenly. "But that is not what I am ashamed of. I never ended that Nazi's life. I amputated his arm with my sword, and I left him there to suffer. I believed that he would die from the bloodloss, and I did not care if he survived because it would be a tough life for him with only one arm anyway. Recently, almost twenty years later, we encountered a nazi officer who had slaughtered several stations with his armies and caravans. Yes, that officer, who we now have in captivity, is the same man as the one that I left alive a long time ago". I never said directly that all the lives he had taken could have been prevented by my choice, seeing as they probably understood that already. "It is all my fault, just because of my lust and greed for avenge and revenge." I finished as I put the ring onto my finger.

 

"Revenge is a cruel b*tch, no?" I replied as I took in what Benjamin had said. "I knew boy who had lived in a nazi station before it was controlled by facists. When they left during the Nazi-Commie War, one of the stations they traveled to stop them. It was a communist station and the guards were being paranoid. They called them all spies and both his mother and father were killed on the spot, while he was forced to watch as they raped his sister and as he was beaten to the inch of his life. When they tried to hang him, a friend of mine intervened, and pulled a few strings. We raised him as an errand boy, and soon enough turned him to a stalker."

"We were still idealistic men, back then." I added as I remembered the boy named Suede, "And we thought of him satisfied of the life the Stalker had. He wasn't. THe next thing we knew when we entered one of the stations... Kuznetsky Most, was it? Well, when we walked around and resupplied... We found hanging by the gallows. When we asked, they said he killed thirty men, by himself. Most of them were officers... I guess he couldn't find peace, even in his wealth and success..."

I nodded as I remembered another dark image in my mind as I drank my whiskey. "If anyone wants a drink, just ask. I've got another bottle we could all share."

 

" 'Time heal wounds', they say", I said before I took another sip of my tea. "Litterally, indeed. But in your heart, mind and soul... time just lays the wound behind to rotten. The day when you find that wound again, it will hurt more than when it was fresh, for now it is rotten", I said depressively as I put the ring back onto the string on the handle of the katana in its holster on my back.

"Everything you see, hear, feel, smell, do etc. is always in your memory. The human brain has an infinite database. It's just that something gets lost amongst all the other memories and might never come back out for you to remember them. Sometimes they may just all of a sudden find their way back for you to remember them. Everyone has experienced it before: To suddenly remember something that happened many years ago that you haven't thought of since it happened. I wish one of the things I learned in the sanctuary was to be able to control your mind, making you forget things. But it was not. I never learned that. I do not believe it is possible, thinking of the capability of the brain compared to how much it stores. I guess my depression never got lost in the database. It is always there, and will most likely be so until my final day."

 

Hearing Pyotr's offer I casualy accepted. While drinking from the glass I looked over to the cart then slowly got up. I hopped up on the cart and approached the prisoner who was still unconscious. "hey, wake up" I yelled at him while smacking him on the cheek. He slowly came to with an uncomfortable moan, he was trying to speak but his words were all jumbled up. " here drink this ". I opened his mouth and poured water down his throat. He choked it down with a coughing fit. " don't worry were almost there " I said with a sinister laugh. I then put the bag back on his head and returned to the fire with a heavy plop as I sat back down and finished the drink.

 

As Andrey got up and was ready to move on, I was forced to get rid of the rest of my tea, so I downed it and put the cup back in my packpack before I got up onto my feet and sat down over in the cart, also ready to move on.

 

I got up reluctantly and put out the fire with what was left in the kettle, then slowly walked back to the cart. Sitting down at the front of the cart I quickly lit a cigarette and awaited our departure.

 

I grabbed my bag, stuffed back the cork in both my bottles, and shoved them inside my knapsack. I then went back to the cart and nodded.

 

I grabbed my stuff and went back to the cart. It was only a matter of minutes before Steven's fate would be decided. When I got into the cart I sat around the engine and looked at him. He wasn't exactly happy, after all.

 

I was sitting in the left rear corner of the cart, pondering over what lied ahead. I did not wish for Steven's fate to be decided yet, nor did I want to be the one to fulfill it.

 

5 minutes to Paveletskaya. Everything seemed to have absolute clarity, I saw benjamin place his cup in his bag, watched everyone take their places, and then we set off. "Well, guys" I began, with a catch in my throat. I coughed, then began again. "Before we reach the station, I'll give all my stuff to Benjamin" I nodded in his direction, "for safekeeping". I expected some smiles, but even my own face couldn't fake that. "And if I don't come back, share it around, you know..." I broke off and went silent.

 

"I do not believe it will be necessary to do this, as you will come back to retrieve them, but I have great grattitude for your trust in my assistance, and so I shall honor that by accepting it" I comforted and recieved his belongings. I could feel the knowledge flowing between our looks of what was about to happen, but I never dared to accept it, and I kept resisting it.

 

The cart rolled on, over rails set down decades ago, the creators of which were probably long gone from this world...

(Yeah, actually, don't execute my character! I think I can make time).