A Sorrowful Man and a Bitter Mare
"You can't hide from the future."- Khan
The first thing Pavel noticed was the steady patter of rain on his gas mask. He let out a sigh, turned into a hiss by the gas mask as his eyes flickered open.
He stared up into a horrifically bright blue with a grey cloud straight above him. Pavel's eyes snapped shut at the light before he though about where he had been. The last thing he remembered was that light beyond the red arms, the endless sea of damned bodies reaching out, crawling towards him, begging. Before that, Red Square and...
"Artyom..." Pavel winced as the memory came back to him. "Why did you let the beast loose on me, D'Artagnan? I thought we were friends, but orders are orders... And I suppose we both followed them." Pavel laughed bitterly as he continued to lie on the ground, eyes closed as he talked to himself about what had happened in Red Square. "I never wanted to fight you Artyom, but I had no choice..."
Pavel sat up, grunting in pain as he took a look at his leg. Blood had already soaked from the wound into his trousers, turning the faded blue into a dark purple. He reached down, tore the bloody patch off and tossed it behind him before he tore part of the other leg off and began to wrap it tightly around the wound.
"That bastard still knows how to shoot..." Pavel muttered to himself as he tied the improvised bandage off. He glanced around the shaded clearing, leaves blowing across as the rain continued to fall, small drops running across his gas mask. His trusty Saiga was lying next to him, as it should be, while his Kalash was resting up against a nearby tree.
Pavel patted himself down frantically, searching for his revolver. People in the Metro underestimated the usefulness of a revolver, and you never knew when you might need to pull a gun on a friend, as he had learned.
He signed with relief as he found it, still in its holster, strapped to his waist. He pulled it out, flicked the cylinder out and satisfied that the bullets were chambered he pushed the cylinder back in before he slid it back into its holster.
He grabbed his Saiga with his right hand and drove the stock into the ground, pushing himself to his feet as he glanced around the clearing once again.
It wasn't as bright as earlier, but it was still lit up like the theatre at Teatra station to Pavel's eyes. He smiled beneath his gas mask as he thought about what this meant, this new world, this second chance.
Pavel simply shrugged after a few seconds of deep thought. It was not for him to consider the why of things, they just were. He dealt with the where and when: everything else just complicated it.
Blinking, Pavel looked up. The sky had begun to change from a light blue to a pale red, a sunset.
Something he hadn't seen for over twenty years. Moisture began to collect in his eyes as he thought of what once was, and would never return. Scenes flashed before his eyes: drinking a fresh bottle of vodka with his co-workers from the Arms Factory, walking his dog Vladimir through Park Pobedy, the first time he played piano at the Theatre...
All things he would never do again. Pavel blinked, clearing away the tears as he limped over and slid his Kalash's strap over his head so it rested on his right shoulder.
Satisfied, Pavel looked up at the sky. The sun had dropped lower, and he could see tip of the moon beginning to rise over the treetops.
He had to make it to somewhere safe by nightfall; just because this place was green and bright, it could have any number of things waiting put there to tear his body apart for a evening meal. Just like the Dead City.
Pavel glanced around the clearing one last time, before he limped off in a random direction, using his Saiga like a crutch. As long as he reached a cave or something similar in about half an hour, he would be fine.
That didn't happen.
Instead, Pavel spent the next two hours slogging his way through hard undergrowth and avoiding anything that vaguely growled at him before he laid down under the branches of a thick oak. He could have easily blasted his way through the forest straight to the other side with his Saiga, but then the unspoken rule of the Metro kicked in: never waste ammo.
And considering he was at least a few thousand kilometres away from the Red Line, or even the nearest ammo maker, Pavel wasn't about to waste his. He could make his own dirty rounds, given the right materials and equipment; materials and equipment he did not have.
====================
"Move out of the way, you green piece of shit!" Pavel swore loudly as he smashed yet another bush out of his way with the butt of his Saiga. "It's times like this that I would be glad to be back in Metro. He had been walking for what felt like weeks now, drinking whatever water he could find on the ground of the forest floor and eating whatever he came across that looked edible, be it berries or the half-eaten corpse of some unknown mutant. Two hours until he hit civilisation? Pah! There probabaly wasn't any civilisation out here!
The mutants here were rather tasty; surprisingly so. They almost tasted like proper steaks, like what he had eaten before the apocalapse came. Normally he wouldn't have eaten the meat of the strange, Daemon-like creatures. But hunger drove a man to do desperate things, such as eat mutant meat,
Pavel swore loudly as he stumbled out of the forest onto a dirt road before tumbling to the ground, groaning in pain as he looked nervously down the road. With his luck some Nazi or similar would show up and put him out of his misery. If not, then all the better.
When no Nazi showed up, Pavel shoved himself onto his back, grabbed his Saiga and shoved himself to his feet before the distinctive clatter of wooden wheels reached his ears.
He blinked as the source of the clattering revealed itself.
A wooden wagon was slowly clattering down the track with no visible method of propulsion. Pavel simply stood there, a mixture of amazement and confusion on his concealed face as the wagon stopped about a meter in front of him.
Pavel quickly dropped his Saiga, letting it clatter to the ground before he grabbed his Kalash and barked "In the name of the Red Line and Comrade Moskvin, leave the wagon, now!" at the wagon.
Pavel waited a few seconds before he got any sort of reply, and even when he did get one, it was not the reply he wanted.
A window slid open at the front of the wagon as a strange creature poked it's head out. "Who dares disturb the Great and-" The creature stopped as it stared keenly at Pavel.
Pavel didn't recognise what it was, or even what it was similar to. Firstly there was it's colouring, a light blue completely unlike the dark-skinned mutants of Moscow. It's head was dominated by a short stub of a horn which looked to be completely useless as a weapon.
A strange look spread across the creature's face as it stared back. A deep frown slowly became a smile, and then a grin. "Well, it appears that Trixie does have some luck left..."
Pavel stared, uncomprehending, at this 'Tri-xie', if that was it's name. It sounded like a name, even if he couldn't understand anything else that it said.
Trixie looked up towards the sky where the moon had finally risen over the horizon. "Take that, Twilight Sparkle! The Well-travelled and Inquisitive Trixie has found a new species!" Trixie let out a small chuckle as Pavel continued to stare at her, before she was reminded of a old Gryphonic saying; 'If you stare long enough into the Abyss, they say the Abyss stares back.'
For some reason, that seemed entirely appropriate for whatever this creature was. "Trixie demands to know what you are!"
Pavel looked up at Trixie. He didn't understand a word of what Trixie was saying, so he shrugged.
"Trixie demands to know what or who you are!"
Pavel shook his head. He pointed at himself and mimed talking, which was rather difficult under a gas mask, before he shook his head and pointed at Trixie.
Trixie stared into space for a few moments before realisation hit her. "It doesn't speak Equestrian..." She mumbled to herself. "Time for Trixie to put her acting skills to use."
Trixie pointed at herself and said "Trixie", before she cocked her head and pointed a hoof at the creature.
It pointed at itself before it simply answered "Pavel."