Motherlandby KonstantChaptersPrologueI — DaydreamII — ConsciousProloguePrologue A breath shuddered through my ribcage. That meant I was still alive, then, if that breath wasn't my death rattle. I took another breath, equally painful and wrong. Yes, I was still alive, but for how long remained to be seen. My eyes fluttered open, and I was blinded by the brightness. Maybe I was dead, after all. The lights in New Moscow were never this bright... I laid there face-up for some time, listening to my own shattered breathing grow progressively worse and worse. Even though I was still somehow alive and somewhat conscious, my life wouldn't last long at this pace—I could feel my life draining away with every chirp of a bird pantomiming my heartbeat. Wait a minute. Bird? There was only one bird in New Moscow, Andrey's, and it died over two years ago. Maybe it was a sign, calling for me to give up and die already. Did birds go to Heaven? The omnipresent, blinding light eventually died down enough for my unfocused eyes to see things I knew only from stories. Sky. A blue sky, with little pillows of white clouds decorating the fringes. Just like Mamka described to me while she read me old books, and nothing like the sick-grey blanket that covered all of Old Russia. Trees. Actual trees, with green leaves, not the skeletal pillars that dotted the dying landscape as markers of past sin. I saw a small creature scamper across one of the branches, and I had to look twice because it looked completely normal: no hybridization or mutations in sight. Inching hands around degree by degree, I felt the ground with my worn fingertips. Instead of the dirt I was expecting, my fingers brushed against what felt like a soft, wet carpet—not unlike the feeling of the edible moss grown in the Labs. Grass. I was lying on grass. I tried to sniff the air, to smell the scents that the older women reminisced about while knitting, but to no avail. Whenever I tried, my nose exploded into pain. It was probably broken. Oh well. At this point, I didn't really care—I could taste the clean, unfiltered air; feel the soft, damp grass; see the beautiful, untainted sky; and I could still hear the light cuckooing of a songbird. Everything together, the amalgamation of so many sensations—it was indescribable. I was the grass. I was the sky. I was alive, utterly and completely. I felt complete. Smell was unnecessary. I felt tears roll down my cheeks, reflecting the light of the sky back upon itself as the saltwater left trails of liquid happiness in its wake. I could die now, and not feel the least bit disappointed. I always wanted to see the sky—the real sky, not the radiation cloud that engulfed everything—and now that I have, I was satisfied. I could just fall asleep under nature's loving embrace, and not worry about waking up. My lung wouldn't be punctured any more. My leg and nose wouldn't be broken. My sight wouldn't be failing. All I had to do was close my eyes... As I began to do just that, a loud rustling forced my eyes back open. I blinked repeatedly, trying to restore some clarity to the hazy blur that covered my sight. I immediately wished I had followed through with falling asleep when a brown blur swooped towards me. I winced and tried to look away: the last thing I wanted was an angry animal attacking me now that I had found peace. Instead of the raking talons and snapping beak I was expecting, all I felt was a weight on my right pectoral. I opened my eyes again. Perched upon my chest was a majestic-looking bird, wings half furled against its sleek body. It was easily three or four times the size of Andrey's bird, and its head was cocked to the side. Old Demyan made the same motion whenever it looked at me. Must've been curiosity. The bird's feathers appeared to be a mix of brown and white, and one of its yellow eyes stared at me. I felt like I was being evaluated. We remained that way for some time, the bird and I, trading sight with each other. I attempted to raise a hand to brush it away so I could die in peace, but when I tried, it expanded its wings and cawed angrily, as if daring me to do it. I left my hand in the grass after that. It was too difficult to raise, anyway. A rustling behind me grabbed the bird's attention. It cawed and looked at me one last time before flying away. It made a show of it too, twisting in midair before gaining enough altitude to escape my sightline. I mentally shrugged and discarded the idea that the bird was showing off; mocking my ground-bound and crippled form. That didn't seem like something a bird would do. Thoughts of the winged menace faded away only to be replaced by the tranquility of peace: that was, until something new entered my half-lidded eyes. Exhausted, I opened them wide again—and for the last time, I assured myself. It took almost a minute for my brain to register what I was actually seeing. A small horse—no, a pony—was circling and occasionally gently prodding me with one of its hooves. Except it wasn't a pony; not in the traditional sense. The proportions were all wrong. The eyes were too big, the muzzle too round—and the colours. Instead of brown, grey, white, or black—horse colours, according to Papka—it was yellow. A lighter yellow than the bird's eyes, but definitely still yellow. Something pink was growing out of its head and above its rear as well. A mutant. It had to be. Except mutants didn't nudge and poke and smell before attacking—I learned that first hand. So it wasn't a mutant, except that it was. My head started to hurt from the conundrum. What was going on here? I couldn't be on charred, radioactive Russian soil anymore: it was too green and alive. But there was a mutant pony, and I could not have crawled that far from my grave. So I was still in the Motherland, but not? When had the ground changed from grey to green and brown? I tried to remember, but everything was lost in a meaningless haze. The pounding vibrations of the mutant behind me didn't help, either. It was making noise: a soft, strangely comforting hum that I could feel in my marrow. I tried to turn my head and look at it, but my neck refused to move more than a few centimetres in any direction. I felt a tug at the nape of my neck, and then I started moving. Panic enveloped me for a few seconds before I realized what was happening. I was being dragged by the mutant pony. Where, though? Back to its home, to be cooked and eaten? I laughed at myself a second later. It hurt. Mutants didn't care if their meat was cooked or not, so why was it dragging me away from the location I so eagerly wanted to be my final resting place? I could feel a frown form. Maybe it was trying to help me. A nice mutant pony, dragging a dying man away from his place of death. It sounded ridiculous, but I had crossed the incredulity line when I first saw the unblemished sky. Smiling, I closed my eyes. Sure, why not? The nice mutant pony can drag someplace where I'll be made good as new, just like magic. Then I can go back home, kill Felicks, and live happily ever after with vengeance sated and peace of mind—just like in the stories. Maybe I'll even get a princess for my trouble. The only thing I wasn't certain of was if my story would have a happy ending. Most did—right? Darkness consumed me before I could answer my own question. I — DaydreamI — Daydream Many hours earlier... Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. My hand lazily swatted the ancient alarm clock, accidently knocking it over in the process. The noise stopped mid-buzz. Grumbling to myself, I tossed my dirty covers aside and sat up in my bed, rubbing my eyes to get rid of whatever sleep was still left in them. Once upon a time, my bed, the walls, the floor—everything, really—was a clean, sterile white. Not anymore. Now, I'd be lucky to find a patch of concrete where the grime wasn't a centimetre thick. That was the downside to living inside New Moscow. The city was a fortress, an impregnable shield that kept the mutants and radiation out, but we were trapped in. Water was more precious than gold, and certainly far too expensive to waste on cleaning. I was sure that the scientists in the Labs would eventually synthesize a cleaning product out of the compounds at their disposal, but that could take as short as a week or as long as a year. One never knew with scientists—they didn't seem to have a proper hold on the meaning of time. With a sigh, I lit my kerosene lamp, flooding my dark room with soft, yellow light. I bent over and picked up my alarm clock. Or at least, what was left of it. The shell that housed the buzzer was broken into multiple pieces, and the buzzer itself was split cleanly in two. I had inherited the alarm clock from my parents after they passed away, and it was old when they bought it, so I didn't feel too bad about breaking it, although I certainly wasn't glad. I doubted that I could find a new—relatively speaking, of course; there were no new things—alarm clock, which meant that I would have to rely on the notoriously unreliable buzzer to wake me. Ugh. After stretching like a cat, I clothed myself, drank the last of yesterday's water that I always saved for the next day's morning, and then left my single-room home, making sure to blow out my lamp on the way out. The air was only moderately fresher outside—again, relatively speaking; everything was technically 'inside'—and it smelt like it always did: a combination of body odour, decay, and a faint tinge of depression. Few people were up as of yet. The buzzers would either ring or not ring in about half an hour, and that would determine how productive the day would be. An extra hour or two of sleep for the populace of New Moscow might not sound all that bad, but it was: the production lines would be started late, and a few unlucky children would be deputized and ordered to go door-to-door, waking the thousands of inhabitants by hand. I was really starting to regret the fact that my alarm clock was now broken. My job required me to be extremely punctual. If I didn't want to fall-in with the majority of people by relying on the Godforsaken buzzers, I would have to bring it to Rafail after my shift ended. He could fix damn near anything, but he charged an arm and a leg for his services, not even including his alleged ties to the Mafiya. Shrugging off those thoughts until a later time, I continued walking along the grey corridor with dorms stacked and mashed together like Legoes on both sides. Due to some unfortunate circumstance, my home was located towards the far end of the housing section, which meant that I had a solid walk whenever I had to go somewhere. My footsteps echoed, making me think that someone was following me, but whenever I looked behind me, the hallway was empty. I slowed down and stopped when I reached Andrey's dorm that he shared with his wife. Right before I was about to knock on the door, I heard a low, guttural moan emanate from inside. Out of curiosity, with my fist hovering above the door, I pressed my ear against the door. For my efforts, I was rewarded with a loud and definitely feminine scream that was cut off mid-yell. It sounded like she might have been in intense pain—or intense pleasure. Realization hit me upside the head. Ears burning, I silently counted to thirty before knocking on the door. A muffled voice told me that they would be right there. A few seconds later, the door opened. "Good morning, Anastasiya," I said, swallowing. She was wearing an old robe that only reached her knees, her normally straight hair was springy and dishevelled, and I could tell that she was trying to calm her breathing. I looked away. "Could you, uh, let Andrey know that it's time?" "Of course, Aleksey," she replied. "Please, come inside: Andrey is just getting dressed, and he'll be out in a minute." I thanked her and stepped inside the slightly larger version of my home. I could smell sweat and the lingering scent of passion as soon as I crossed the threshold. My face must've been redder than a tomato. My booted feet suddenly became very interesting. "Aleksey?" I looked up, and noticed that Anastasiya was looking at me with a wry smile. I could tell that she knew I had heard what was going on inside. "I probably arrived too early—" I began, trying to find some sort of excuse, but she shushed me with a wave of her hand. "No, you were right on time. In fact, we were the ones running a bit... erm, late," she whispered, putting specific emphasis on 'late.' "Thank you for letting us finish." If anything, my face got even redder. "Uh. Yeah. No problem." Thankfully, I was saved from any further embarrassment when Andrey appeared, fully clothed. "Goodbye, Asya." They embraced, and shared a passionate kiss with myself standing not two feet away in the confined space. Never mind what I just said about embarrassment. They broke their embrace. "I'll see you in a few hours, my Asya." "Be safe, Andrey." I opened the door, waved goodbye to Anastasiya, and then Andrey and I were on our merry way. Our footsteps fell into step, doubling the noise of the ever-prevalent echo. Just like how the lights in the roof were never quite bright enough, the echoes followed one wherever one went, trailing behind like an unruly shadow. "So," Andrey said, breaking the silence, "have you found a woman yet, Aleksey? I saw Sofya yesterday and she had only nice things to say about you..." He waggled his eyebrows. "No, I haven't, and no, I'm not interested," I replied, already dreading the teasing that was sure to come. Andrey and Anastasiya had married almost two years ago, and ever since, Andrey had been pestering me to find my 'significant other.' "Why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. "You're not getting any younger, Aleksey." I snorted: Andrey was three years older than myself. "I'm serious. Happiness is few and far between, so why not try to find yours wherever you can? Sofya is a nice girl, and I think she'd be perfect for you." I turned to glare at him. "I don't have the time, Andrey. Time is the only thing I have left that is honestly, truly mine, and I don't want to give that up for false hope." He gently punched me on the shoulder. "Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll have to take her for myself. Asya said she always wanted to try it with another girl—" "Christ!" I exclaimed and punched him back, but I could tell he was joking. I found myself grinning alongside Andrey. His smile was infectious. I knew that Andrey only wanted the best for me, which was why it was hard for me to stay peeved at him for trying to set me up with Sofya. I was an only child growing up, and he was the closest thing I had to an older brother. On my parents deathbed, he promised to take care of me, and he did a pretty damn good job of it. Maybe I could at least give it a shot... "Alright, fine," I sighed. "Alright fine what?" "I'll go and talk to Sofya after work. You convinced me to give it a go." "Good, because I already told her you were coming." It took me a minute to realize what Andrey just said. I stopped in my tracks. "You sneaky bastard," I stated. "I know you too well, Aleksey." He chuckled. "Now come on! Don't want to be late for work, do we?" I shook my head. That was something to be avoided at all costs. "Well: Let's go then!" I quickly caught up, and together we continued walking to work. II — ConsciousII — Conscious I blinked, expecting the same drab corridors of New Moscow to immediately reappear. Instead, my surroundings changed drastically, and I found myself lying down, looking up at a brown roof that was full of small, patterned black cracks that swirled and ran along vertically, as if trying to outrace each other. Maybe it was made of wood. I could feel something covering me. It was smooth and soft, unlike my rough apparel. Panic filled me when I realized that I wasn't wearing any clothes. Straining, I forced myself into an upright position. My chest burned like Satan had left his mark when I did, and I couldn't feel my left leg at all. A plush, white blanket had been placed on top of me, and I was completely naked with my clothes nowhere in sight. Slowly and steadily, I brought a hand to my face. Where my nose should've been was a thick, hard cast, and alongside that were some stitched-up cuts that would definitely scar. I looked around. I was in a bed that was quite low and too small for me—my feet dangled off the edge, and I could touch the floor with minimal effort. The walls looked like they were made of wood, too, and a short, squat side table was decorated with a vase of brightly coloured flowers. Aside from the bed, table, and a single window that showed blue sky, the room was empty. There was a single door, also made of wood. Almost as if looking at the door brought it to life, it opened, and in walked two of the mutant ponies. I recognized the first immediately as the one that dragged me away from the peaceful area. The other, however, I did not. It was a little bit taller, coloured white where the first was yellow, and the 'hair' that grew was a lighter shade of pink and—stylized? I glanced at the yellow pony and noticed that, yes, that one's hair was stylized as well. Curious. The mutant ponies, deep in what appeared to be conversation, didn't look at me right away. They were speaking—I was sure of that—but I didn't understand any of it, which made perfect sense: why would I understand mutant pony language? When they finally noticed me sitting up and alert, they rushed over to the bed, one on each side. Using their hooves, which felt surprisingly soft, they gently changed my posture and made me lie back down, cooing softly as they did so. The fiery pain that had been present since I first sat up rescinded back to a mere dull ache. As the newcomer gently went over the bandages on my chest, I tilted my head and looked up at the pony who had dragged me. Their blue eyes were even larger up close, and I swear I saw concern present on its face. "Where—" I tried to say, but it came out as more of a wheezing cough. The white pony stopped tending my bandages for a moment, and placed an ear against my chest. I resisted the urge to squirm away. I felt the ear twitch. It tickled. Only after listening to my heartbeat for nearly half a minute did the white pony remove its ear from my torso, nod, and say something to the other pony. The white pony lifted up a corner of the blanket with its teeth, revealing my left leg. Or rather, where my left leg should've been. From my position, I could only see the whitish grey of a large cast. That explained why I couldn't feel my leg. As the white pony checked over my cast, I took a second to compare them, and thought that maybe they weren't mutants after all. From what little experience I had with the hybridized creatures in the wastes, I learned two things: one, they never, ever helped anyone other than themselves or their offspring; and two, none of them had the same exact body shape. Even mutants that were originally the same species of animal became so drastically different that they may as well have been unrecognizable from their base form. These... ponies—if they even were ponies—were more identical than any two mutants I had seen, even though they still differed in slight ways. Also, for not having arms or hands, they seemed to manage pretty well. The yellow one exited the room, leaving the door open. I heard the flap of wings before I saw the bird. In a flurry of feathers, the same bird that had landed on my chest when I was dying flew into the room and perched upon the end of the bed. It stood there silently, looking like a majestic statue, and stared at me once more. It felt like the bird wanted something from me, but I had nothing to offer it. The white pony seemed just as surprised as I was at the bird's arrival, for it attempted to shoo the bird away, albeit without success. Thankfully, the yellow pony was only gone momentarily, and it returned with a bottle gently clasped in its mouth. After placing the bottle on the table, it softly spoke to the bird, which cawed once, then flew away and out of the room. I tried to process what had happened. Was the yellow pony the bird's owner? It made sense: that could've been why the pony found me in the first place. But how did a pony keep a bird as its pet? Thinking of the pony as having human-like intelligence was difficult enough, but nothing else seemed to fit. My musings were interrupted when the yellow pony popped the cork of the bottle. I turned my head, and was immediately shocked when the lip of the bottle was placed into my mouth. A viscous, somehow dry liquid began bubbling out. It tasted like a combination of rotten cabbage and mouldy socks. I gagged and tried to spit, but the bottle was held firm by the white pony, and the liquid had nowhere to go but back into the bottle, which eventually fell back into my mouth. I both saw and felt the yellow pony's hoof against my throat. The pony made a shushing noise as it rubbed my throat, relaxing my muscles and forcing me to swallow the disgusting concoction. As soon as I swallowed, the world expanded, and then shrank to the size of a pinpoint before being enveloped in darkness.
ProloguePrologue A breath shuddered through my ribcage. That meant I was still alive, then, if that breath wasn't my death rattle. I took another breath, equally painful and wrong. Yes, I was still alive, but for how long remained to be seen. My eyes fluttered open, and I was blinded by the brightness. Maybe I was dead, after all. The lights in New Moscow were never this bright... I laid there face-up for some time, listening to my own shattered breathing grow progressively worse and worse. Even though I was still somehow alive and somewhat conscious, my life wouldn't last long at this pace—I could feel my life draining away with every chirp of a bird pantomiming my heartbeat. Wait a minute. Bird? There was only one bird in New Moscow, Andrey's, and it died over two years ago. Maybe it was a sign, calling for me to give up and die already. Did birds go to Heaven? The omnipresent, blinding light eventually died down enough for my unfocused eyes to see things I knew only from stories. Sky. A blue sky, with little pillows of white clouds decorating the fringes. Just like Mamka described to me while she read me old books, and nothing like the sick-grey blanket that covered all of Old Russia. Trees. Actual trees, with green leaves, not the skeletal pillars that dotted the dying landscape as markers of past sin. I saw a small creature scamper across one of the branches, and I had to look twice because it looked completely normal: no hybridization or mutations in sight. Inching hands around degree by degree, I felt the ground with my worn fingertips. Instead of the dirt I was expecting, my fingers brushed against what felt like a soft, wet carpet—not unlike the feeling of the edible moss grown in the Labs. Grass. I was lying on grass. I tried to sniff the air, to smell the scents that the older women reminisced about while knitting, but to no avail. Whenever I tried, my nose exploded into pain. It was probably broken. Oh well. At this point, I didn't really care—I could taste the clean, unfiltered air; feel the soft, damp grass; see the beautiful, untainted sky; and I could still hear the light cuckooing of a songbird. Everything together, the amalgamation of so many sensations—it was indescribable. I was the grass. I was the sky. I was alive, utterly and completely. I felt complete. Smell was unnecessary. I felt tears roll down my cheeks, reflecting the light of the sky back upon itself as the saltwater left trails of liquid happiness in its wake. I could die now, and not feel the least bit disappointed. I always wanted to see the sky—the real sky, not the radiation cloud that engulfed everything—and now that I have, I was satisfied. I could just fall asleep under nature's loving embrace, and not worry about waking up. My lung wouldn't be punctured any more. My leg and nose wouldn't be broken. My sight wouldn't be failing. All I had to do was close my eyes... As I began to do just that, a loud rustling forced my eyes back open. I blinked repeatedly, trying to restore some clarity to the hazy blur that covered my sight. I immediately wished I had followed through with falling asleep when a brown blur swooped towards me. I winced and tried to look away: the last thing I wanted was an angry animal attacking me now that I had found peace. Instead of the raking talons and snapping beak I was expecting, all I felt was a weight on my right pectoral. I opened my eyes again. Perched upon my chest was a majestic-looking bird, wings half furled against its sleek body. It was easily three or four times the size of Andrey's bird, and its head was cocked to the side. Old Demyan made the same motion whenever it looked at me. Must've been curiosity. The bird's feathers appeared to be a mix of brown and white, and one of its yellow eyes stared at me. I felt like I was being evaluated. We remained that way for some time, the bird and I, trading sight with each other. I attempted to raise a hand to brush it away so I could die in peace, but when I tried, it expanded its wings and cawed angrily, as if daring me to do it. I left my hand in the grass after that. It was too difficult to raise, anyway. A rustling behind me grabbed the bird's attention. It cawed and looked at me one last time before flying away. It made a show of it too, twisting in midair before gaining enough altitude to escape my sightline. I mentally shrugged and discarded the idea that the bird was showing off; mocking my ground-bound and crippled form. That didn't seem like something a bird would do. Thoughts of the winged menace faded away only to be replaced by the tranquility of peace: that was, until something new entered my half-lidded eyes. Exhausted, I opened them wide again—and for the last time, I assured myself. It took almost a minute for my brain to register what I was actually seeing. A small horse—no, a pony—was circling and occasionally gently prodding me with one of its hooves. Except it wasn't a pony; not in the traditional sense. The proportions were all wrong. The eyes were too big, the muzzle too round—and the colours. Instead of brown, grey, white, or black—horse colours, according to Papka—it was yellow. A lighter yellow than the bird's eyes, but definitely still yellow. Something pink was growing out of its head and above its rear as well. A mutant. It had to be. Except mutants didn't nudge and poke and smell before attacking—I learned that first hand. So it wasn't a mutant, except that it was. My head started to hurt from the conundrum. What was going on here? I couldn't be on charred, radioactive Russian soil anymore: it was too green and alive. But there was a mutant pony, and I could not have crawled that far from my grave. So I was still in the Motherland, but not? When had the ground changed from grey to green and brown? I tried to remember, but everything was lost in a meaningless haze. The pounding vibrations of the mutant behind me didn't help, either. It was making noise: a soft, strangely comforting hum that I could feel in my marrow. I tried to turn my head and look at it, but my neck refused to move more than a few centimetres in any direction. I felt a tug at the nape of my neck, and then I started moving. Panic enveloped me for a few seconds before I realized what was happening. I was being dragged by the mutant pony. Where, though? Back to its home, to be cooked and eaten? I laughed at myself a second later. It hurt. Mutants didn't care if their meat was cooked or not, so why was it dragging me away from the location I so eagerly wanted to be my final resting place? I could feel a frown form. Maybe it was trying to help me. A nice mutant pony, dragging a dying man away from his place of death. It sounded ridiculous, but I had crossed the incredulity line when I first saw the unblemished sky. Smiling, I closed my eyes. Sure, why not? The nice mutant pony can drag someplace where I'll be made good as new, just like magic. Then I can go back home, kill Felicks, and live happily ever after with vengeance sated and peace of mind—just like in the stories. Maybe I'll even get a princess for my trouble. The only thing I wasn't certain of was if my story would have a happy ending. Most did—right? Darkness consumed me before I could answer my own question.
I — DaydreamI — Daydream Many hours earlier... Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. My hand lazily swatted the ancient alarm clock, accidently knocking it over in the process. The noise stopped mid-buzz. Grumbling to myself, I tossed my dirty covers aside and sat up in my bed, rubbing my eyes to get rid of whatever sleep was still left in them. Once upon a time, my bed, the walls, the floor—everything, really—was a clean, sterile white. Not anymore. Now, I'd be lucky to find a patch of concrete where the grime wasn't a centimetre thick. That was the downside to living inside New Moscow. The city was a fortress, an impregnable shield that kept the mutants and radiation out, but we were trapped in. Water was more precious than gold, and certainly far too expensive to waste on cleaning. I was sure that the scientists in the Labs would eventually synthesize a cleaning product out of the compounds at their disposal, but that could take as short as a week or as long as a year. One never knew with scientists—they didn't seem to have a proper hold on the meaning of time. With a sigh, I lit my kerosene lamp, flooding my dark room with soft, yellow light. I bent over and picked up my alarm clock. Or at least, what was left of it. The shell that housed the buzzer was broken into multiple pieces, and the buzzer itself was split cleanly in two. I had inherited the alarm clock from my parents after they passed away, and it was old when they bought it, so I didn't feel too bad about breaking it, although I certainly wasn't glad. I doubted that I could find a new—relatively speaking, of course; there were no new things—alarm clock, which meant that I would have to rely on the notoriously unreliable buzzer to wake me. Ugh. After stretching like a cat, I clothed myself, drank the last of yesterday's water that I always saved for the next day's morning, and then left my single-room home, making sure to blow out my lamp on the way out. The air was only moderately fresher outside—again, relatively speaking; everything was technically 'inside'—and it smelt like it always did: a combination of body odour, decay, and a faint tinge of depression. Few people were up as of yet. The buzzers would either ring or not ring in about half an hour, and that would determine how productive the day would be. An extra hour or two of sleep for the populace of New Moscow might not sound all that bad, but it was: the production lines would be started late, and a few unlucky children would be deputized and ordered to go door-to-door, waking the thousands of inhabitants by hand. I was really starting to regret the fact that my alarm clock was now broken. My job required me to be extremely punctual. If I didn't want to fall-in with the majority of people by relying on the Godforsaken buzzers, I would have to bring it to Rafail after my shift ended. He could fix damn near anything, but he charged an arm and a leg for his services, not even including his alleged ties to the Mafiya. Shrugging off those thoughts until a later time, I continued walking along the grey corridor with dorms stacked and mashed together like Legoes on both sides. Due to some unfortunate circumstance, my home was located towards the far end of the housing section, which meant that I had a solid walk whenever I had to go somewhere. My footsteps echoed, making me think that someone was following me, but whenever I looked behind me, the hallway was empty. I slowed down and stopped when I reached Andrey's dorm that he shared with his wife. Right before I was about to knock on the door, I heard a low, guttural moan emanate from inside. Out of curiosity, with my fist hovering above the door, I pressed my ear against the door. For my efforts, I was rewarded with a loud and definitely feminine scream that was cut off mid-yell. It sounded like she might have been in intense pain—or intense pleasure. Realization hit me upside the head. Ears burning, I silently counted to thirty before knocking on the door. A muffled voice told me that they would be right there. A few seconds later, the door opened. "Good morning, Anastasiya," I said, swallowing. She was wearing an old robe that only reached her knees, her normally straight hair was springy and dishevelled, and I could tell that she was trying to calm her breathing. I looked away. "Could you, uh, let Andrey know that it's time?" "Of course, Aleksey," she replied. "Please, come inside: Andrey is just getting dressed, and he'll be out in a minute." I thanked her and stepped inside the slightly larger version of my home. I could smell sweat and the lingering scent of passion as soon as I crossed the threshold. My face must've been redder than a tomato. My booted feet suddenly became very interesting. "Aleksey?" I looked up, and noticed that Anastasiya was looking at me with a wry smile. I could tell that she knew I had heard what was going on inside. "I probably arrived too early—" I began, trying to find some sort of excuse, but she shushed me with a wave of her hand. "No, you were right on time. In fact, we were the ones running a bit... erm, late," she whispered, putting specific emphasis on 'late.' "Thank you for letting us finish." If anything, my face got even redder. "Uh. Yeah. No problem." Thankfully, I was saved from any further embarrassment when Andrey appeared, fully clothed. "Goodbye, Asya." They embraced, and shared a passionate kiss with myself standing not two feet away in the confined space. Never mind what I just said about embarrassment. They broke their embrace. "I'll see you in a few hours, my Asya." "Be safe, Andrey." I opened the door, waved goodbye to Anastasiya, and then Andrey and I were on our merry way. Our footsteps fell into step, doubling the noise of the ever-prevalent echo. Just like how the lights in the roof were never quite bright enough, the echoes followed one wherever one went, trailing behind like an unruly shadow. "So," Andrey said, breaking the silence, "have you found a woman yet, Aleksey? I saw Sofya yesterday and she had only nice things to say about you..." He waggled his eyebrows. "No, I haven't, and no, I'm not interested," I replied, already dreading the teasing that was sure to come. Andrey and Anastasiya had married almost two years ago, and ever since, Andrey had been pestering me to find my 'significant other.' "Why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. "You're not getting any younger, Aleksey." I snorted: Andrey was three years older than myself. "I'm serious. Happiness is few and far between, so why not try to find yours wherever you can? Sofya is a nice girl, and I think she'd be perfect for you." I turned to glare at him. "I don't have the time, Andrey. Time is the only thing I have left that is honestly, truly mine, and I don't want to give that up for false hope." He gently punched me on the shoulder. "Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll have to take her for myself. Asya said she always wanted to try it with another girl—" "Christ!" I exclaimed and punched him back, but I could tell he was joking. I found myself grinning alongside Andrey. His smile was infectious. I knew that Andrey only wanted the best for me, which was why it was hard for me to stay peeved at him for trying to set me up with Sofya. I was an only child growing up, and he was the closest thing I had to an older brother. On my parents deathbed, he promised to take care of me, and he did a pretty damn good job of it. Maybe I could at least give it a shot... "Alright, fine," I sighed. "Alright fine what?" "I'll go and talk to Sofya after work. You convinced me to give it a go." "Good, because I already told her you were coming." It took me a minute to realize what Andrey just said. I stopped in my tracks. "You sneaky bastard," I stated. "I know you too well, Aleksey." He chuckled. "Now come on! Don't want to be late for work, do we?" I shook my head. That was something to be avoided at all costs. "Well: Let's go then!" I quickly caught up, and together we continued walking to work.
II — ConsciousII — Conscious I blinked, expecting the same drab corridors of New Moscow to immediately reappear. Instead, my surroundings changed drastically, and I found myself lying down, looking up at a brown roof that was full of small, patterned black cracks that swirled and ran along vertically, as if trying to outrace each other. Maybe it was made of wood. I could feel something covering me. It was smooth and soft, unlike my rough apparel. Panic filled me when I realized that I wasn't wearing any clothes. Straining, I forced myself into an upright position. My chest burned like Satan had left his mark when I did, and I couldn't feel my left leg at all. A plush, white blanket had been placed on top of me, and I was completely naked with my clothes nowhere in sight. Slowly and steadily, I brought a hand to my face. Where my nose should've been was a thick, hard cast, and alongside that were some stitched-up cuts that would definitely scar. I looked around. I was in a bed that was quite low and too small for me—my feet dangled off the edge, and I could touch the floor with minimal effort. The walls looked like they were made of wood, too, and a short, squat side table was decorated with a vase of brightly coloured flowers. Aside from the bed, table, and a single window that showed blue sky, the room was empty. There was a single door, also made of wood. Almost as if looking at the door brought it to life, it opened, and in walked two of the mutant ponies. I recognized the first immediately as the one that dragged me away from the peaceful area. The other, however, I did not. It was a little bit taller, coloured white where the first was yellow, and the 'hair' that grew was a lighter shade of pink and—stylized? I glanced at the yellow pony and noticed that, yes, that one's hair was stylized as well. Curious. The mutant ponies, deep in what appeared to be conversation, didn't look at me right away. They were speaking—I was sure of that—but I didn't understand any of it, which made perfect sense: why would I understand mutant pony language? When they finally noticed me sitting up and alert, they rushed over to the bed, one on each side. Using their hooves, which felt surprisingly soft, they gently changed my posture and made me lie back down, cooing softly as they did so. The fiery pain that had been present since I first sat up rescinded back to a mere dull ache. As the newcomer gently went over the bandages on my chest, I tilted my head and looked up at the pony who had dragged me. Their blue eyes were even larger up close, and I swear I saw concern present on its face. "Where—" I tried to say, but it came out as more of a wheezing cough. The white pony stopped tending my bandages for a moment, and placed an ear against my chest. I resisted the urge to squirm away. I felt the ear twitch. It tickled. Only after listening to my heartbeat for nearly half a minute did the white pony remove its ear from my torso, nod, and say something to the other pony. The white pony lifted up a corner of the blanket with its teeth, revealing my left leg. Or rather, where my left leg should've been. From my position, I could only see the whitish grey of a large cast. That explained why I couldn't feel my leg. As the white pony checked over my cast, I took a second to compare them, and thought that maybe they weren't mutants after all. From what little experience I had with the hybridized creatures in the wastes, I learned two things: one, they never, ever helped anyone other than themselves or their offspring; and two, none of them had the same exact body shape. Even mutants that were originally the same species of animal became so drastically different that they may as well have been unrecognizable from their base form. These... ponies—if they even were ponies—were more identical than any two mutants I had seen, even though they still differed in slight ways. Also, for not having arms or hands, they seemed to manage pretty well. The yellow one exited the room, leaving the door open. I heard the flap of wings before I saw the bird. In a flurry of feathers, the same bird that had landed on my chest when I was dying flew into the room and perched upon the end of the bed. It stood there silently, looking like a majestic statue, and stared at me once more. It felt like the bird wanted something from me, but I had nothing to offer it. The white pony seemed just as surprised as I was at the bird's arrival, for it attempted to shoo the bird away, albeit without success. Thankfully, the yellow pony was only gone momentarily, and it returned with a bottle gently clasped in its mouth. After placing the bottle on the table, it softly spoke to the bird, which cawed once, then flew away and out of the room. I tried to process what had happened. Was the yellow pony the bird's owner? It made sense: that could've been why the pony found me in the first place. But how did a pony keep a bird as its pet? Thinking of the pony as having human-like intelligence was difficult enough, but nothing else seemed to fit. My musings were interrupted when the yellow pony popped the cork of the bottle. I turned my head, and was immediately shocked when the lip of the bottle was placed into my mouth. A viscous, somehow dry liquid began bubbling out. It tasted like a combination of rotten cabbage and mouldy socks. I gagged and tried to spit, but the bottle was held firm by the white pony, and the liquid had nowhere to go but back into the bottle, which eventually fell back into my mouth. I both saw and felt the yellow pony's hoof against my throat. The pony made a shushing noise as it rubbed my throat, relaxing my muscles and forcing me to swallow the disgusting concoction. As soon as I swallowed, the world expanded, and then shrank to the size of a pinpoint before being enveloped in darkness.
