Motherland

Prologue

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.