The Dark Ones

Heavy gunfire was my wake-up call the next morning. The sounds of blasting gunpowder were far from our resting place, but they were more than enough to kick me out of slumber and groggily onto my feet.

Bourbon was crouched by the fire, and even though he looked guarded, he sounded relaxed when he talked. “I heard wheels on tracks earlier. They woke me up.” More shots, and after he looked up at the ceiling, he explained, “Fifty-cal machine guns. Most likely Hanza's military trolleys after more bandits.”

I nodded and began dismantling the camp with him. As soon as we finished, he gave me the sign to follow. “Let's get moving, Artyom. Sunlight waits for no one!” he said, laughing at the end. I just shook my head and followed him.

When we reached the place where I had found my new rifle, Bourbon took it upon himself to scrounge the pack of anything useful. However, all it held was items we already had and needed no duplicates of, with no clues whatsoever as for who it belonged to. We left it behind, following through an empty passageway that had large holes on the floor. “Watch your feet here, this floor is pretty weak,” my companion remarked as he tip-toed past them. “One misstep and you're mush for the lurkers, so avoid the flakier parts.”

I could see the remains of a ruined bridge through the broken concrete when I peered through it out of curiosity... and nosalises running on the lower levels. The shots were at their loudest here, and I could barely hear an engine among them. Bourbon looked back when he noticed I wasn't following. “Stop dawdling, boy! Gawking isn't gonna get us there faster. This racket only means Market station isn't far.”

I glared at him, annoyed, but he had a point and, honestly, I wanted to stay out of the tunnels as much as he seemed to. With its rotten structure, bad company and eerie silence, it was absurd to think I ever wanted to explore them in the first place. As we tripped upon yet another emaciated corpse, dead since who knows how long ago, I couldn't help but think how many wide-eyed adventurers' lives this eerie place had claimed.

We descended yet another staircase, which mouthed off onto the end of the bridge I saw from above. Bourbon, who was ahead, was already observing the place with his light. “A cave-in, shit!” He looked to the side, and I followed his line of sight to another way through. “And a staircase... how convenient.”

His speech was punctuated by a series of screeches and snarls that almost froze my muscles stiff. “Damn! Those idiots must have dislodged a nest or something!” Bourbon yelled out, frustrated. He turned to me and waved me closer. “Looks like we don't have an option now, Artyom. Watch my back.” Then, he kicked the winch holding the staircase up, and the loose mechanism sent it crashing down on an overhang down below.

My companion was thundering down the steps before I noticed, and I was quick to follow. The nosalises scratching the floor with their talons only mademe go faster. I ran forwards and into a water drainage pipe, where I saw Bourbon running for dear life not too far ahead. His headlight bobbed widely just as I heard a warning shout: “ARTYOM! TRIPWIRE!”

Paying attention to the warning was barely sufficient to avoid running into a pipe bomb trap. The monsters chasing us weren't as wise, though, and the tunnel bloomed in the orange light of an explosion, followed by crumbling cement and soil.

Market station was just a little further, but Bourbon warned me that our path went through the 'lost catacombs'...

My ears were still ringing by the time I vaulted over a handrail and was assaulted by the stench of rotting wet flesh. "Fuck! As if nosalises behind us were not enough, now we're stuck in a fucking graveyard!” Bourbon sneered, kicking a rusted tin can away. “Artyom, search these bodies. I'll try to get us out of here."

While Bourbon went ahead I began to scour the many corpses on the cloaca we’d landed in for ammunition and supplies. It felt wrong to do it, to violate the dead like that, but when the situation calls upon it, we must do what we can to survive. It's one of the lessons the Metro teaches you learn early on and keeps reminding you for life. As I gazed at the cold husks before me, I made out that some of them were guards, and others were workers. They were probably trying to clear some of the rubble in the area before the nosalises came in.

Suddenly, a bright light overcame my sight, and all sound but for two gentle clicks was lost. I found myself in some type of open-ceiling corridor, with Bourbon at the end walking towards a grate. Behind me, there was a large stone door, with an ominous pink glow leaking between its leaves. I began to move towards Bourbon, and as I did, I heard a deep, segmented howl. Then, my vision faded. I was back among the living, or, rather, I was back in reality with the corpses to scavenge. 'I'm growing tired of these hallucinations.'

The bodies held, in total, a pouch with eight shotgun shells, ten 5.45mm rounds in a Bastard's magazine, three .44 bullets, and a small first aid kit with only one syrette intact. Not much, but every bit helped. I deposited the items and walked over to Bourbon, with a nosalis' wail in my wake. "Rusty piece of shit! Come on, open!” Suddenly, the man stopped complaining as he turned a squeaking handle and looked around, as if frightened. Then he turned to me with the most serious expression I had seen in his face so far. “Artyom, my gut tells me something is very wrong with this place. Remember our agreement – I'm counting on you, kid."

I nodded to him – the visions had already alerted me that this was not a normal room – and he went back to fighting with the mechanism. When I turned to face the entrance from whence we came, my vision gave way once more, returning my perspective to the corridor from before. I was somehow in the middle of the vast hallway, away from Bourbon. Now with some distance between us, something came to my attention, more specifically, the water that reached my ankles, and the dead people floating on it, numbering to an amount I estimated to be roughly equal to the number of bodies in the cloaca.

Out of reflex, I turned to the large stone door, only to find it beginning to open, revealing the reddish light in its entirety, casting a poisonous pink gleam towards me. I do not know why, but that light frightened me more than the nosalises ever could; I just knew I had to stay away from it at any cost. I ran towards Bourbon, my movements becoming more and more sluggish, before my vision receded all of a sudden yet again, and once more, I found myself hurled between realities.

I stood next to Bourbon as he worked the circular handle responsible for raising the gate as quickly as he could, despite the metal's shrill moans of protest. My headlamp began to flicker, and my ears began to ring. I felt tremors rage both throughout my body and the area around us.

"Come on! Nice little grille! I promise you, dear, I will come back and lubricate you, and also get you new paint!" he cooed to the mechanism. I did not think much of it, all things considered, but what he said next made me do a double-take. "Oh, the great door! I hear you are calling me!"

Another flash of white occurred, subsiding quickly this time, as if my eyes were adjusting to the constant abuse. I was in the middle of the corridor yet again, but this time, a strong wind buffeted me away from the blue light of the space beyond the grille, on which Bourbon was now leaning limply against, as if the air itself was trying to force me into the red light I had no doubt was behind me. Terrified, I began to run towards Bourbon, not sparing a single second to see what truly lay behind the colossal door of stone and aura of sanguine. A strong gut feeling told me it was something I would not ever want to be privy to. As soon as I was within reach I grabbed onto the gate and held myself in place.

Meanwhile, Bourbon kept yelling in an ecstasy that sounded almost sexual. "Yes, my mistress! I hear you! Yes, yes, yes! Always, always!" Whatever illusion my companion was experiencing at the moment must have been very different from my own. "Oh, yes! Now I'm happy! Your songs are magnificent! Sing more! Sing only for me!"

I felt the looming danger drawing closer, leaving the confines of the ominous gate behind us, and in an attempt to escape its grasp, I tugged Bourbon off the grating and shoved him through the gate. He didn’t seem to be as affected by the gales as I was, and as soon as he had gone beyond the gate, it increased. The terror had already lost one prey; it wasn’t going to let me escape easily.

My legs left the ground from the force of the air current, and I struggled to hold on and pull myself through with only my arms, until a hand gripped my arm and pulled me inside. I was able to get a look at it: it was the same as before, three long fingers ending in bulbs, connecting to the wrist almost without a palm inbetween. As soon as I was past the gate, the light faded and we were back in reality, tossed belly down onto the earth of the tunnel beyond the gate. Behind us, the rusted turnstile snapped off its slot, shutting the passage tightly.

As I rose from the ground, Bourbon tried to recompose himself from whatever he had gone through. "Aaaa!!! What the hell just happened to me?!” he screeched, turning to face me with genuine fear in his eyes. “Artyom, did you hear those songs? Brrr!” he shivered violently, hugging himself. “I wouldn't wish it on an enemy!"

How could a man's after-reactions be so radically different from what he seemed to be experiencing at the time? The very thought of it made me almost choke with fear, as if it constricted my throat with its invisible hands.

Once I returned to my feet I went to switch on my headlamp, only to find out its battery was dead, which, thanks to the universal charger Pavel had given me, was but a temporary sidetracking. I pulled out the gadget from my pack, connected the wire to the light, and began pumping the dynamo into motion, watching as the needle on the dial gravitated further and further to the right.

Pavel… Just thinking of one of my neighbours brought my thoughts back to Exhibition. Father has no doubt found out by now, I'm sure; I could only pray he didn't fall to the temptation of alcohol too vastly. He was a good man, and the whole station counted on him.

Another thought was how the Metro was different from what I imagined before this. Eugine had thought it would be an exciting adventure, full of heroism and dangers like the old novels told. But while this was indeed an adventure, no book could ever convey the tension, fear and loneliness the characters faced and I shared at this moment. It only made me want to reach Polis, or at least Market station, faster.

“Shit…” The other man, now calmer, snatched a canteen from his bag and took a deep swig from it, passing it to me as he rubbed his sweaty forehead with a gloved hand. I sniffed it, and discovered it was water. "You know, you're tougher than you look, kid,” he remarked as I helped empty out the container, which he stuffed back into a pocket. “Let’s move. I don’t want to be around when the nosalises find a way around that collapsed tunnel."

I got up from the dirt and followed Bourbon as he set off though the narrow passage, stepping over the various rotten planks and other trash that had accumulated there over time. There was an opening to the right, leading towards a large vertical chamber whose purpose I couldn't imagine. A roar nearby only ushered me to go faster, and soon I left the tunnel's narrow entrails, stumbling onto a horribly mutilated corpse on my way out. I could barely bring myself to collect the Bastard magazine near the dead man's busted gun.

-----~~~/)(~~~-----<

Instead of the luminous sunlight that greeted her every morning in Ponyville shining through her room’s window, a certain purple alicorn was called to the waking world and away from the meeting of spirits she was having with her brother by a violent sneeze. Rubbing the dust off her muzzle and the sand out of her eyes, Twilight Sparkle peered sleepily around at her friends.

Rarity sat nearby, sluggishly trying to set her mussed mane at least somewhat straight, and Applejack gazed blankly forward like she wasn’t fully awake, with an equally lethargic Fluttershy using her back as a pillow. Pinkie Pie was yawning almost non-stop, leaning against Rainbow Dash, who, in turn, was herself using the pink pony as a support so she didn't fall to the floor on her side. They all had dark circles around their eyes, adding to the impression of an ill-slept night.

The ponies watched groggily as the human sat by a fire pit, silently stirring something in a crumpled pan, emanating a pleasant scent of cooked food into the air. "Where did this guy get Zecora's mushrooms anyway?" Rainbow asked no one in particular.

The stallion-sized mare lifted herself off the improvised bed and stretched her stiff limbs. "If I had to guess, I'd say they’re most likely an indigenous species. Maybe it’s like the language parallel; it just exists.”

The speedster turned towards her. “Good morning to you, too, egghead,” she mumbled crankily. “Seriously, how doesn’t your crown slide off that oval head of yours?”

Twilight blushed pink, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Rainbow waved the apology off, rubbing her eyes with the other hoof. “Nah, Twi, it’s alright. I’m the one who’s sorry; I just…” she yawned widely, “… didn’t sleep that well.”

The little exchange brought the attention of the other ponies to their librarian friend. Pinkie just yawned and blinked forcefully, slurring something that remained open to interpretation, and Fluttershy offered a weak but genuine smile. Applejack nodded. Rarity shook her head quickly for a moment, craning her neck to face her. “Good morning, darling,” she said. “You seem to have had a much better beauty sleep than most of us,” the unicorn added somewhat unnecessarily.

“Looks like it,” Twilight answered as she contemplated her friends one more time. “What happened?”

“Didn’t y’all hear?” Applejack piped in. At Twilight’s questioning gaze, she added, “The noises.”

“Noises?”

Rainbow scoffed. “I thought I was a heavy sleeper.” Before the farmer mare beside her could add her two bits, she pressed on, “We heard some really weird sounds all night long.”

“I recognized a few from my time with those ruffian diamond dogs,” Rarity said with a shudder. “Shifting soil, falling rocks and the like.” She shifted closer to the others – because a lady never does something as vulgar as crawling –, putting a hoof near her mouth as if to muffle her own voice. “But some others… I just cannot find an explanation for.”

One winged pony shuddered. The one that also had a horn quirked an eyebrow.

“I think I know what Rarity’s on to,” Dash whispered, turning to the fashionista. “You mean stuff like metal screeching, banging sheets and that ringing noise?”

The classy pony nodded. “Exactly.”

“Ah swear Ah heard moanin’ comin’ from out there,” Applejack whispered, lifting a hoof to signal the door. “It kinda sounded like that dragon Fluttershy scolded off the mountain... but not, ya know? Almost like…”

“Like he was a ghost?” the meek pegasus on her back suggested quietly. Applejack nodded slowly.

Outside, the wind changed direction, bringing along a deep, incorporeal sigh. Twilight perked up an ear at it. “Girls, that's just the wind,” she explained. “Besides, the sound waves lose little energy as they rebound inside the walls of an enclosed compartment. And this place is-”

"Forgive my interruption of your marvelous exposition, Twilight, dear,” Rarity said with a hoof lifted in the air, “but what is our friend doing?"

After a second of confusion spent on re-gathering her scattered thoughts, Twilight finally noted that the unicorn's foreleg was pointing at Khan, who had moved himself to kneel before the fire with his hands pressed together. "I'm not sure," she admitted. “I’ll go ask him.” Stepping carefully over her friends, the princess of Ponyville made her way towards the meditative sage, stopping beside him and waiting for an opportunity to grasp his attention.

As she waited, she wondered about what he was doing, mumbling continuously with his eyes closed. The words were spoken in a language she didn't recognize, but the sound of them carried great conviction and seriousness, which sparked her mind into formulating a number of theories. After countless derivations and hypotheses failed to shed light on the issue, she decided to ask directly. *Excuse me, Khan?* she asked softly, reluctant of breaking his concentration. *If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing?*

Khan did not answer at first, but as soon as she resigned herself to wait once more, pouting a little, he stopped and made a slight motion with his hand. *What is it you need, Twilight?* he said serenely.

*Oh, it’s nothing, really, my friends and I were just a little curious about what you were doing,* she answered.

He took a deep breath and turned to face the curious pony. *I was praying, young Sparkle. It is a ritual of mine to pray each morning, not for myself, but for humanity. You must know, my little friend, that I am a man of faith, one who believes everything happens according to God's plan. I have grown to accept and be satisfied by the conditions I am in, which makes my life easier than theirs.

*They have given up hope, so I hope for them. For a future where all hope is abandoned is a future to be dreaded.*

Twilight couldn’t help but sit down, stunned by this man's devotion. That each morning he would seek the aid of a divinity, not for his own benefit, but for those whom have lost hope... Then, she began to wonder something. She wondered if this universe had its own elements of Harmony, or at the least those who symbolized them. Khan, for one, in as sick a place as the Metro, had saved and sheltered them, complete strangers to him, and he put the welfare of his fellow humans as a priority over his own. He couldn't be anything but the embodiment of Generosity.

Before she could compliment him on the nobility of his actions, the man in question cleared his throat, startling her a little. *Our meal is due to be ready soon. If you wish, we could debate your doubts and those of your friends until then.*

The purple pony took a second to realize what the human had just said, but when she did, her throat gave out a little squee of approval, with her wings half-flapping a few times. *Really?* Quickly, she conjured a pair of glasses, settling them upon her nose, and twisted her body to look behind her. "Girls!” she beckoned. “Khan said he'll answer the questions now!"

Each of them had their own response as they began to group around the two.

"Well that's 'bout time!..."

"… I've been dying to know what manner of beast created his ensemble..."

"… now I just wanna know when we're gonna have breakfast..."

"… we can ask anything?! When is his birthday? What is his favorite cupcake?"

"… if he's okay with it."

“Girls!” Twilight scolded the noisy herd. “One at a time, please.” She cleared her throat. "Alright then, let's begin..."

-----~~~/)(~~~-----<

The sewer tunnel, as I found out, led to an old maintenance passage with an exit to the railways once again. The lamp behind me as I left through the hole in the wall shone an orange light on Bourbon's skin, making him look like a ghost. "And here is the Market,” he announced, pointing for a moment towards a bulkhead sealing off the right end of the tunnel. “Stay calm - Uncle Bourbon will get us in."

We approached the entry gate with the howls of animosity in tow. Once we reached the massive steel seal, Bourbon shouted to the sentries within. "Hey, people! Open up! Don't let your two legged brethren die a foolish death!" When that failed to rouse the guards, he hammered the solid metal with his foot. "Are you deaf in there?! We're going to be eaten!"

Thankfully, between Bourbon's continuous abuse of the door and the feral sounds behind us, the sentries answered our call. As warning bells began to sound off inside the station, one of them showed himself from a barred outcropping to our left, his rifle raised at me. "Motherfuckers! Who the hell did you drag with you?!” He looked to the dark stretch behind us as the mutants growled one more time, closer and closer. “Damn, nosalises! Semyon, start the trolley, we'll save their asses!"

Now all we needed to do was halt the advancing mass of flesh and make it within the station, a task that was much easier said than done.

"Artyom, hang on! Fate's on our side!"

'Let's hope you're right, Bourbon...'

The moment I saw the primal eyes in the darkness beyond the reaches of the lights, I opened fire, tearing through the skull of the first nosalis, while the stray bullets pierced those behind it. I could only thank God for how smooth the recoil was on this Kalash 2012 rifle when compared to the Bastard; it would have flown out of my grasp otherwise. Bourbon saw fit to use his shotgun to mow down the closer beasts, dismembering them whenever he did not hit their bodies and blasting deep dark holes when he did.

I could hear a large gate – which, unfortunately for us, was not the one behind our backs – slamming open, a grinding noise coming along with it. Soon after, a trolley rolled onto the tracks on the other side of the room. "Let's kick some snout butts!" somebody shouted from it as its headlight flashed on.

The trolley then began to release controlled volleys of heavy machine gun rounds into the approaching nosalises, cutting down on their numbers. The few that made it through or climbed up from outside its range were no match for the power of my weapon and Bourbon's combined. The deafening bouts of gunfire tore through the swarm of beasts in no time. Despite the adrenaline, I smiled. It seemed things would finally turn out well.

Just as it seemed like we would at last have a reprieve from the onslaught, a vent grate dropped from above. Neither me, nor Bourbon or the sentries had the reflexes to react to the nosalis which followed the metal square, dropping on top of me and pinning me to the ground. The mutant did not attack right away; instead, it roared to me in what I could only think of as surprise, which surprised me in turn. Wasn't it expecting to catch prey?

Right then, everything went crimson, and the weight concentrated on my arms eased up as most of it collapsed on my chest. Piercing through the veil of tinnitus, Bourbon's laughter made me even more confused. "Ah, kid, I really needed a mirror right now! You're really missing out on the faces you can make!"

It turns out Bourbon eviscerated the nosalis' head with a well placed shell, so well-placed, in fact, that I wasn’t hit by any of the spread. It was very impressive, although there was still one matter I had to discuss with him. "Bourbon...!"

"Aaah,” he sighed, recuperating from his guffawing. “Yeah, kid?"

"… Get this snout off me!" I choked out. “I can’t breathe!”

“Crap,” I heard him utter, and soon a foot rolled the carcass off my chest, finally freeing my arms. After the red veil of mutant blood was wiped off by my hands, he helped me to my feet. “Life’s never boring with you around, is it, Artyom?”

Once I arose, the trolley casted a spotlight on both of us. "Hey you!” the same voice from before demanded our attention. “Show yourselves!"

Bourbon was quick to walk, slowly, to the edge of the platform we stood on, facing the trolley’s beam fully. "Do as he says - these guys have no sense of humor," he advised me.

We stepped into the light and lowered our weapons, not eager to add our blood to that spilled on the ground.

"Are my eyes playing tricks? Bourbon, old friend, is that you?!” Apparently my traveling partner was more famous than I had first anticipated. “And I'd given up all hope of ever seeing you alive again! Simon, look who the Snouts scared up!"

"God damn! We stepped in the shit now!" Bourbon whispered to me. "Hey, Mikhalych!” he shouted to the rail car. “What a coincidence, I was just coming to visit you!"

"You hear that, boys? Set out the good dishes-Bourbon's come to visit!"

‘Something tells me there is more going on here than I know about...’