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Hello everyone. So I decided that I wanted to try writing something somewhat unique. The stories aren't set in any pre established universe, they aren't based off real things, etc. They are however based somewhat heavily on the Metro series of books (and games) by Dimitry Glukhovsky, a bit of 1984 by George Orwell (and my theories on said book), and various pieces of Russian media and stories. I have finished the first part/chapter/thing and have started making outlines for a few more. I don't know how regularly I'm going to be writing them but I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to critique and comment. It's always appreciated.

(I'll add a glossary underneath this post. And my apologies for the odd set-up but I figured it would be best to give the first chapter its own post seeing as how it's 2,565 words)

GLOSSARY (Please don't reply to this)

St. Petersburg Metro Map (English)-https://imgur.com/a/9yXdgIA

Balalaika- A Russian string instrument with a triangular body and three strings (often called a "Russian guitar")

Ushanka- Russian fur hat with flaps to cover the ears; literally translates as "ear flap hat"

Babushka- Common Russian term for old lady or grandmother

DShK- A World War 2/Cold War era heavy machine gun that is still used by many nations today (stands for Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokaliberny)

Kalash- Russian slang for the Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK) line of rifles

Chuvak- Russian slang word that is a mix between calling somebody "dude" and "pal" Usually reserved for close friends

Slava- Russian word meaning "Glory" in the context presented in this story

Part 1: Pushkinskaya Station

Darkness surrounds me. Cold, oppressive, unending darkness. I cannot scream. I cannot move. But I can hear. I can hear their voices whisper in my ear. Their horrible, terrifying voices. But soon the whispering stops, replaced by a voice reverberating throughout the void.

“Why? Why do you hide from us? We wish to understand you. We wish to help you. Let us understand. Let us help.”

A sharp pain permeates through my head. It’s as though my very brain is being torn out of my skull. Memories flash before me in an instant. Some memories mundane, some life changing. The pain continues to increase as the memories are torn from my mind until I can no longer take it. I pray to whoever might listen to make it stop. And it does. But the voice remains.

“We wish to understand you. We wish to help you.”

Suddenly my eyes burst open. I sit up quickly and look around. Stone walls covered with pictures and drawings. A small desk with a few books sitting atop it. A scratched balalaika sitting in the corner with a rifle lying next to it. An old army jacket and helmet hanging on a makeshift coat rack. Back in my room. Well, my utility closet I guess. I sigh with relief as I look at the familiar room, despite it’s cramped interior. Space in Pushkinskaya station was always at a premium. And while its white arched ceilings may be fading, its beautiful stone floors cracking, and its once spacious halls filled with makeshift buildings and tents, it’s our home. For over a century the station has been our refuge from the horrors above. Whatever those horrors might be. The rustling of keys takes me out of my thoughts. My door opens slowly as a figure peers inside. Once they see me they open the door fully and flip the light switch, the lone lightbulb brightening up the room substantially. I quickly wince and close my eyes.

“Dimitri? Are you alright? I tried knocking but I didn’t hear an answer. Oh, you look terrible…”

I slowly open my eyes. I look over at the voice and see a girl about three years my younger staring at me with concern plastered on her freckled face. A deep scar runs down the side of her face, partially hidden by messy red hair and an old wool cap. A light knitted sweater hugs her slender frame and faded camouflage pants about two sizes too large are tucked into a pair of tattered work boots. Samara Fedorov, my best friend and partner. She begins to shift self consciously at my inspection so I bring my attention back to her eyes.

“You’re here early, Samara. We don’t head out for a few more hours. What’s wrong?”

“Actually, I was headed to the market and was wondering if you wanted to tag along. My parents need me to pick up a few supplies, you know how it goes. And you didn’t answer my question. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I just didn’t get much sleep.”

“Nightmares again?”

“Something like that. Forget about it. Let’s head to the market before it gets too crowded. It’ll be good to get moving.”

“Okay, but take it slow alright? You aren’t looking so great.”

I smile at her and slowly stand up, Samara’s eyes watching me closely. Satisfied that I’m not about to drop dead she gives a quick nod and starts to walk outside with me right behind her. The bright lights in the hallway sting my eyes for a moment, but they soon adjust. The stone walls and floors have become cracked with age, but still shine in the light. Courtesy of the stations “Labor Battalion”, which is just a fancy title for supervised prisoners who weren’t bad enough to get the noose. As we walk towards the market, the walls become more and more cluttered with posters. The stations leadership calls them “reminders” but I know propaganda when I see it. A picture of the station’s surface gate partially open with black tendrils creeping in, the words “Constant vigilance keeps The Surface out!” in bold letters at the bottom. A station militiamen holding a torch up to the darkness with the words, “Keep the darkness at bay, join the militia today!” along the sides. And the newest poster, a horribly disfigured man with a red star painted on his forehead gnawing on a dead infant, the words “Keep the mutant Reds away from our children!” emblazoned on the top and “Join the White Army now!” on the bottom. I stare at that last poster for a bit longer before continuing the walk to the marketplace. A few station guards nod at Samara and I as we walk up to the markets entrance, waving us inside without a second glance.

The market was brightly lit and filled with stalls, shelves, boxes, all packed with various goods and trinkets. The area it is located in was a large and rectangular room, well maintained if a bit cluttered. Despite the general clutter, the market was separated into sections. Clothes, furniture and food were located along the western wall. Tools, electronics and survival gear along the east. Livestock pens were set up on the northern end. And finally, the middle contained stalls filled with trinkets, toys, and other miscellaneous items. Armed guards occupy strategic positions around the marketplace, deterring any would-be troublemakers. Despite the early hour there are already a few people perusing the various stalls and shops. Samara begins walking towards a shop on the western wall, a small store with a painted sign reading “Babushka’s Pantry”. The old lady at the counter smiles as the two of us approach.

“Samara, dear, it’s wonderful to see you. And you must be that boy Samara’s always talking about. Dimitri is it?”

“Yes ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss…” I say, smiling at Samara’s increasingly reddening face.

“Oh my, so polite. Please, just call me Babushka. Everyone does. You hold on to this one Samara. Now, I’m sure you young folks have things to do. I wrapped up what you asked for and I have it right here. Tell your parents I said hello, dear. And Dimitri, it was a pleasure to meet you finally.” Babushka says, placing a box of food on the counter.

“Wait, what about payment?” Samara asks, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Don’t worry about that, sweetheart. Just come back when you have some free time and you can help me with a few small chores. These old bones aren’t what they used to be.” She says with a chuckle.

“Thank you. God be with you.”

“Thank you dear. You as well.”

I pick up the box of food and am caught of guard by its weight. I shoot a quick glance towards Babushka who merely smiles at me sweetly. She’s stronger than she lets on. With the supplies in hand we begin walking towards the exit, only for Samara to stop dead in her tracks. I look around and eventually catch sight of what she is staring at. Viktor Chernov, a member of the Labor Battalion and all around pain in the ass. When he notices us, his face turns into a predatory grin and he begins to walk towards us.

“Well, well, fancy seeing you here Scarface.” He says, causing Samara to visibly wince and look towards the ground.

“What do you want Chernov?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“Well, what I really want is for Scarface to show me what her tits look like without that ratty ass sweater on. But I guess I’ll settle with that box you're carrying.”

“You really want to try that? Even if you could take it from me, thieves are given a slow hanging. They’ll find you, they’ll beat you, and they’ll hang you slowly. Hell, one word to the guards and they might hang you just for suggesting it.”

“Woah, woah, we’re all just joking around. No need for that kind of talk.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see two guards running over. Chernov turns towards them just as one guard slams the butt of his rifle into his stomach. Chernov falls to his knees as the second guard restrains his hands. The first guard looks at the two of us and says, “Sorry about this, citizens. This worker is supposed to be stationed in the agricultural sector. We’ll make sure he gets to where he needs to go.” Samara and I quickly nod as Chernov is dragged away by the two guards.

“What do you think will happen to him?” Samara asks quietly.

“I’m guessing the hangman’s noose. The Labor Battalion was his last chance. I’d say he just blew it.” I say with a small shrug.

“Then I’ll pray for his soul. May God grant him more mercy than Pushkinskaya did.”

The walk back to Samara’s parents is turning out to be much less eventful than the marketplace. Foot traffic in the halls has increased, the sound of our footsteps are drowned out by dozens of voices all talking at once. As we turn a corner we notice a small crowd forming around an old man standing on a bench. He wears a long jacket with a raised hood, appearing reminiscent of the Orthodox monks of old. We approach the old man and listen to him speak.

“The corrupt leaders of this station have been lying! Lying to us all! They tell us to fear the surface. To treat it not as our ancestral home but as a malevolent entity! They speak of the horrors that lie up above! The great evils of the world above! But I have been to the world above! I have been to the surface! And let me tell you, dear friends, there was no horror! I saw blue skies! Green grass! I smelled flowers and felt the warmth of the sun on my skin! And then, they spoke to me! The angels! They told me that they wished to help us! To understand us!”

“Okay, that’s enough. Lets go before we get arrested with this nut job.” I say and begin to walk away.

“You there, young man!” I stop dead in my tracks. “You have heard the angels! I can tell! Please, tell the people of their message! How they wish to help and understand!”

As I open my mouth I hear footsteps running down the hall. I turn my head and see a squad of heavily armed guards running towards the group. They grab the old man and throw him to the ground and slam the butt of their rifle into his skull. The sergeant steps towards the crowd and shouts, “Disperse immediately! Loiterers will be detained! Disperse!” Samara and I run down the hall without looking back.

We reach Samara’s home without further incident. It is a decent sized home by station standards, located in an old office. As Samara opens the door we are immediately set upon by her mother. It’s clear even from a glance that Samara and her are related. They share nearly identical features, from hair color to height. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 15 years Samara looks just like her mother does now. Her father on the other hand shares little resemblance with his daughter. A stern faced man with a square jaw and hair that is beginning to gray. An old soldier through and through. He listens to Samara’s recollection of the days event’s with a steady expression, nodding at certain points and frowning at others. When she’s finished speaking he excuses himself and walks out of the door, nodding to me as he passes. Her mother on the other hand has a fit. After about 15 minutes of assuring her we are alright we go back to Samara’s room. It is about the size of my home, albeit a bit more decorated and bright. I look at my watch. Only 45 minutes until we head out. I look up from my watch to see Samara staring at me.

“What’s up? Something wrong?”

She slowly walks up and wraps her arms around me. I tense up at first, unsure of what to do. I tentatively reach my arms around her and hug her back. It is an unfamiliar experience, but not an unwelcome one. We stand like that for a few minutes until the beeping of my watch signals that it’s time to get moving. Samara looks at me with a small smile and red cheeks.

“Thank you for that. And for, well, everything. I’m so happy that you’re my friend.”

“I don't know what to say. We've always been a team, and we always will. No matter what. You and me.”

Samara's face reddens as she grabs the rest of her gear and follows me back to my house. I grab my backpack, throw on my jacket and ushanka, and pick up my rifle. With all of our gear together we begin walking along the eastern tracks towards the barricade that leads to the tunnels. When we finally arrive a sense of uneasiness washes over me. The bright lights of the station are replaced by fire barrels and lanterns. The marble walls and stone floors are now concrete walls and dirt flooring. The barricade itself, however, is an impressive structure. Metal walls stretch from floor to ceiling with firing ports cut at regular intervals. A large metal gate stands in the middle of the barricade and is currently closed and locked down. On the other side scrap metal spikes and fortified emplacements deter those foolish enough to attack Pushkinskaya.

We reach the captain of the militia stationed at the barricade, a grizzly looking man named Ivan. He looks the two of us over for a minute before taking a long drag on his cigarette. He slowly exhales the smoke as the alarm on both of our watches goes off.

“Good, you’re here. Cutting it a bit close this time aren’t we?”

“We were a bit busy. It won’t happen again.”

“Relax kid. I’m just busting your balls. Command tell you what’s going on? What am I talking about, of course they didn’t. Okay, here’s the situation. A few days ago we lost contact with Vladimirskaya Station to the east. Last we heard there were some Reds poking around.”

“This far west?” Samara asks, concerned.

“That’s what we heard. Anyways, Vladimirskaya is a critical junction between the red and orange lines. If this really is those fucking mutants then they need to be cleared out. But the militia can handle that. You just need to find out why our guys stopped calling back. It should be a pretty straight line from here to Vladimirskaya, but be prepared for anything. Our reports say there are some weird sounds in those tunnels. Alright, I’m opening the gates. Good luck out there.”

As the militia begin to open the gates I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head.

“We wish to understand you. To help you. Why do you hide from us?

I look over at Samara, her eyes shut and hands clasped in silent prayer. When she finishes she looks to me with a smile and the pain seems to dull, the voice fading.  We turn on our headlamps and step into the darkness together as we have so many times before

That was fantastic! Really interesting and well written. I definitely hope you continue with it. Have you thought of possibly turning this plot into a story game? I think it could work really well. ^_^

Glad you explained some of the Russian words beforehand. I'm interested to read part 2 since this is a ton of build up. I sort of interpreted the voices as an evil wanting to manifest its power in Dimitri. Then again it could be a way of displaying the internal effect of propaganda. It's always interesting to read things written in first person on this site and I think you've definitely got a wonderful start to whatever you make the story into.

This is great stuff, glad we've got two continuing series thingies this good going now, between you and DarkSpawn.

Samara is already so likeable that I worry there might be some future gut punch moment planned for her. But that last line was perfect at setting the tone for the potential part two.

Once again, thanks for sharing.

Thank you for the comments, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Avery_Moore - Thank you very much for the kind words. I truly do appreciate it. I haven't really thought of making it into a story game, no. Partially because I'm still a bit, well, intimidated at the prospect of making a story game. And partly because I'm really just not sure how long or short I'm going to make this. I suppose I could always make a game with other characters in this world. But for the moment I think I'm just going to keep doing this. I haven't really written any stories other than those in my other thread and these are the first that I'm creating from scratch. I am happy people are enjoying it so far though.

ninjapitka - Yeah, I kind of learned from my other thread that it's easier to write a glossary. I'll keep expanding to it as I write the stories, but if I miss anything or you need something explained please don't hesitate to ask. I also wanted to provide a map of the metro to give people an idea of the station locations. I used to ride these lines a lot so it's pretty much all memory for me but it could be helpful for you guys. As for what the voice is, well, that would probably be spoiling things. With regards to the first person perspective, it is one I am at least somewhat familiar with writing. There's also another reason, but it has to do with some stuff I'm planning later on so forgive me for not going into much detail about it. Thank you for the kind words and I'm very happy you are enjoying it so far.

Mizal - Thank you very much for your kind words. I honestly didn't think I'd start writing again, much less do something like this. I certainly didn't think I'd be sharing it with anyone. I'm just happy that people found enjoyment out of reading it. As for Samara, I'm honestly not sure (I only have completed outlines for about one chapter ahead at a time). I adore her as a character so I don't think anything too bad will happen. But she does have a reason for her scar that I'll most likely get into later. And it's a pretty awful life in the metro. Anyway, thank you again for the support.

Bill_Ingersoll - Thank you for reading it. I really appreciate it.  

I can't believe I missed this gem. It's very well written and makes me want to read more. I know you're nervous about writing a CYOA, but I hope you end up writing one anyway some day.

Was this influenced by 2033?

Yes actually. I was quite heavily influenced by the Metro games and books. I have all the books in Russian and still read them over from time to time. All the games too. The metro tends to be a big part of Russian lives and we have lots of stories, legends, and rumors about them. So I have a lot of different influences, but the Metro series is definitely my biggest with these.

I'm very happy you are enjoying them. I'm currently about 1700 words into part 2 and have a basic outline for part 3. Unfortunately I have been very busy (and have pink eye) so finding time to write has been a bit hard. Hopefully part two will be done very soon though so you won't have to wait to long to read more. Thank you again for your kind words.

That's awesome. I've loved the Metro games. I've never been able to find an English copy of any of the Metro books. The few times I've tried to learn Russian I'd get stumped trying to find a Cyrillic keyboard or app that I could use. Then I'd end up struggling with how the Russian language does the same thing that Latin does where you change the word a little bit and it changes the context of the sentence. Long story short I still can't speak, read, or write Russian.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the story and hope you feel better soon. Eye infections are no fun.

Yes, we do have quite the odd language. Like Greek and Proto-Slavic had a baby and it was raised by a drunk Latin. I do enjoy it though. And Cyrillic is a fun alphabet to use. But yeah, it's a hard language where a single word can change the meaning of a whole sentence. It's very hard to learn, especially if you didn't grow up around it.

As for finding a copy of Metro 2033 in English, I always found that hard as well. The books were popular in Russia but not so much in the west. If you can find one you should definitely pick it up. It's crazy how different it is from the games. 

And thank you very much for the kind words. I truly appreciate it.

Part 2: Stepping Into Darkness

The heavy metal gates slam closed behind us with a loud bang. Ivan shouts a muffled “Good luck” from the other side of the barricade. As my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, I scan the area around me. And what I see makes me grow more concerned by the second. The tunnels are darker than usual, the lanterns lining the walls sit unlit. Only a few emergency lights and the spotlight from the barricades DShK prevent the tunnel from falling into complete darkness. It also becomes immediately clear that the barricade is much less fortified than it should be. There are no guards posted out here. Fortifications lie unoccupied, but still hold the occasional bottle or cigarette butt. No ammo boxes or supplies remain. It’s as though the militia decided to just abandon the tunnel. A light tap on my shoulder brings me out of my thoughts. I look over at Samara who gives me a small smile.

“Trying to solve life’s big mysteries?”

“More like trying to figure out where the hell everyone is.”

“Well, dad said a lot of militia got moved elsewhere after Vladimirskaya joined with us. He said the tunnel between our stations was safer than ever. He also said they recently moved some guys to the southern barricade. Something about Zvenigorodskaya having problems. I think. Maybe that’s where everyones gone?”

“Maybe. But I doubt we’ll get any answers standing around. Let’s get this over with.”

“Right behind you.”

We begin our walk through the tunnels, our footsteps echoing through the corridors. The humming of the emergency lights and dripping of the pipes are almost a comforting sound at this point. The occasional rats scurry by, disappearing into cracks in the walls. Samara hums softly as she cradles her submachine gun in her arms, occasionally going silent as pipes creak and moan, only to start right up again once they’ve stopped. I keep my rifle low and at the ready, scanning the darkness for any sign of trouble. After around ten minutes of walking the two of us come across something that makes us stop dead in our tracks. An old train car sits derailed by the side of the tracks, its hull covered in rust and dirt. As we approach the car, I feel a light throbbing in the back of my head. I feel an unexplained urge to enter this relic of the past. I need to. I sling my rifle onto my shoulder and grab the handle to the door. Just before I pull it open a firm hand grasps my shoulder. I turn towards it and see Samara looking at me with confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to take a look around. What’s the problem?”

“Maybe we should leave it alone.”

“Why?”

“There’s something…wrong about it. I just really think we should leave it alone.”

“If there is something wrong with it then it's our job to find out what.”

“I won’t stop you from going in. Just…please be careful. Please.”

I nod and grab the door handle with both hands as Samara raises her submachine gun towards the door. With a swift motion I slide the door open and raise my rifle. My light shines inside as I hear Samara gasp in horror. Skeletons litter the train car. But not just any skeletons. Little skeletons. Judging by the tattered scraps of clothing that have yet to decay, these kids must have been soldiers. At least, their clothes resembled rather impractical uniforms. Slowly I look over at Samara who leans against the wall mouthing a prayer with tears forming in her eyes. As I begin to step over to her a sound from the train car catches my ear. It sounds like children giggling. I quickly glance at Samara who doesn’t seem to notice the noise before making my way up to the door, the throbbing in my head increasing with every step. The sound grows louder as I approach, stopping just as I reach the door. After a quick look inside I begin to turn around, only to hear children screaming inside the train car. I quickly hoist myself inside and begin running deeper, the screams and throbbing intensifying with every step. The pain becomes too much and I fall to my knees, eyes clenched shut in a pained grimace. Suddenly the screams stop, the pain dulled to a light throbbing. I slowly open my eyes and find myself surrounded by children. The train car, once old and rusted appears new and shiny. I slowly stand up, looking at the children who seem not to notice me. They giggle and smile, straightening their odd uniforms while looking out the windows. The tunnels look bright and…moving. I continue to look outside the window, marveling at the beauty outside when a voice speaks out. A horrible, terrifying voice.

“We do not understand. The little ones, they were innocent. Pure. Why were they killed? What did they do wrong?”

I turn towards the voice, backing up in horror as the train car transforms around me. The bright lights grow dim. The children, once playful and loud, sit silently. Their faces appear gaunt, their eyes all trained on me. And at the far end of the train car a silhouette stands unmoving in the darkness. Its limbs are long and gangly, humanoid in appearance. Despite having no discernible eyes, I can feel the silhouette looking at me. Fear grips my body as I look at the creature in front of me. I open my mouth only to find no words come out. What do you want? I think, Why can’t you leave me alone? To my surprise, the children begin to speak in unison, all bearing the silhouettes voice.

“We wish to understand you. We wish to help you. You hear us. You understand us. You can help us, and we can help you. Help us understand.”

The silhouette slowly points its arm towards the children, the lighting from the window showing a clawed hand with tar black skin that seems to reflect the light. The children’s gaunt faces become increasingly skeletal until there is nothing left but bones in tattered rags.

“The little ones. Why were they killed? What did they do wrong?”

I don’t know! I think, looking in horror as the children’s skeletons continue to stare at me, They must have been killed during the apocalypse!

“We…do not understand. What apocalypse?”

A sharp pain enters my head, forcing me to close my eyes. When I open them, relief floods my body. Samara looks down at me, my head lying cradled in her lap. When she sees me looking up at her she wipes the tears from her eyes with a gloved hand and smiles comfortingly at me.

“What happened?” I ask, raising my head slightly to look around. The train car lies a few yards away, its door still open. The tunnel lies empty with only the dripping pipes and our breathing making noise.

“You went inside that train car. You looked…distressed. I went after you as soon as I saw you heading inside. When I got to you you were lying on the floor. You were shaking, and you looked like you were in pain. I thought you might be having a seizure or something. I dragged you out of the car but you wouldn’t stop shaking. You didn’t wake up. I didn’t know what to do, so I just held you and prayed. It seemed to work I think. You stopped shaking. Are you okay?”

“You didn’t hear the voices? You didn’t see the creature?”

“Dimitri, there weren’t any voices. No creatures. Just bones and rust. I’m worried about you. First you get these awful nightmares and now this.”

“I’m fine Samara.”

“No you aren’t!” Samara shouts, catching me off guard. “You never get any sleep. You think I don’t see how tired you look? And now, now you’re hearing things. Seeing things. Every morning and every night I pray for you. Praying that the nightmares won’t come back. Praying that you are okay. And every day you just look worse. I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help you.”

Tears now fall from Samara’s eyes, landing on my face. I slowly begin to sit up, positioning myself next to her. Placing my arm over her shoulder I pull her close to me. We sit like that for a few minutes, the sound of her crying dying down to the occasional sniffle. Seeing her like this is heartbreaking. The two of us have always looked out for one another. I think about what I would do if the roles were reversed. If I was helpless to stop her suffering. And I just don’t know what else I could do but be there for her. She wipes her nose with a small washcloth, her makeshift handkerchief, before looking into my eyes.

“Thank you. I…um, didn’t mean to yell at you. So, should we head back to Pushkinskaya?”

“Not yet. We still have a job to do, remember?”

“But…”

“I know you’re worried. But I really do feel alright. It’s only a short walk to Vladimirskaya from here. We’ll get there, take a look around, then head back.”

“Fine, but no more running into derelict train cars.”

“Deal.”

The two of us stand up and grab our gear. The walk through the tunnel is once again largely quiet and uneventful, with Samara occasionally looking over at me. No doubt ensuring my well being. After a couple minutes of walking in silence we come across an unexpected sight. A hastily erected barricade blocks the way to Vladimirskaya. It seems to have been hastily erected out of scrap wood and various bits of debris. It wouldn’t be too difficult to clear out with the right equipment, but the implications of its existence is what's truly worrying.

“Do you think they’re trying to keep us out?” Samara asks, scratching her chin.

“This isn’t much of a barricade. If they are trying to keep something out, it isn’t us.”

“Well, what else is out here?” Asks Samara, her grip tightening on her submachine gun.

“I don’t know. I guess we can ask them when we get over there. Come on, I saw a maintenance tunnel a few meters back with the door open. Maybe we can use it to get past this.”

Samara nods as the two of us walk to the maintenance tunnel. The door lies open a few inches. I place my hand on the door and look over at Samara who raises her weapon and gives me a quick nod. I push and the door opens the rest of the way with a loud creak. I hear a scurrying sound from inside the tunnel. Rats no doubt. With my rifle raised I step inside the peer into the tunnel, looking to the left. The lighting in the tunnel has long since died leaving the passage ahead shrouded in darkness. A torch hangs on the wall unlit so I grab it and quickly light it up, surrounding the two of us in an orange glow. The occasional noise can be heard from deeper in the tunnel. Almost like a scurrying sound. I signal for Samara to stay right behind me and begin walking through the tunnel. There isn’t much room to maneuver in here. Nothing like to open tunnels outside. As we walk it feels like something is watching us. The occasional noise, almost a hissing, seems to come out of the cracks in the wall. I turn to look at the walls when suddenly something sticky bumps into my face. I stumble backwards, raising my light and my rifle at whatever it was. A shape around the size of my foot lies wrapped in webs, suspended in the air from a thin tendril of webs. I take out my knife and cut away some of the webbing, uncovering a large rat. Fear grips me. I turn to Samara who looks at me wide eyed and say, “We have to move. Now!”

The two of us begin jogging down the tunnels as the hissing noises grow louder. Bones cover the floor the deeper we go in. Most from rats, some from larger prey. The occasional sound of scurrying can be heard behind us but quickly retreats when one of our headlamps catches a glimpse of it. Spindly legs, the flash of fangs, multiple white eyes. Then they crawl back into the walls. The webbing seems to increase in volume as we go further into the tunnel. The creatures also begin to increase in their attacks, becoming more bold. Soon it becomes clear why. An old office sits to the right, likely a security room or break room. Now it is a nest. Fleshy mounds of eggs lie pulsating along the floors. Webbing hangs from the ceiling which contains wrapped prey of various sizes. Some are too large to be rats. And inside the middle of this all lies a disgusting sight. A spider nearly five feet in length lies on the floor. Its body is a sickening grey, pale under the light of my headlamp. Its long arms are splayed across the floor and are feeling at the numerous egg clutches that lie around it. And its eyes have a milky white coloration to them. When the light from my headlamp reaches the spiders eyes it begins to hiss furiously, its long legs flailing in an attempt to back away. The cacophony of spiders seems to grow even louder at this and Samara and I begin to sprint as the sound of scurrying increases in volume. Seeing the end of the tunnel up ahead I yell to Samara.

“The door is up ahead! Keep them off of me!”

“How am I supposed to do that?!”

“Shine your light on them and shoot them!”

We reach the end of the tunnels with the spiders not far behind. Just as I had expected there was a door back into the tunnels from here. I toss my torch in front of Samara causing a few spiders to back away. These spiders are all much smaller than the one in the nest. Maybe two feet or so in length. I focus back on the door as Samara fires off a few rounds from her submachine gun. The door was an old lock wheel type door. I begin to turn the rusty wheel and am met with a loud squeaking sound as it begins to move. Samara continues to fire off shots as the wheel slowly turns. The fire from the torch begins to fade and the sound of gunshots is increasing in intensity. With a final pull, and an audible groan, I manage to turn the wheel enough to open the door, pushing it open with haste. I grab Samara’s backpack and all but toss her out of that tunnel before pushing the door shut. I close my eyes with a sigh only to hear Samara panicking.

“Get it off! Get it off!”

I turn around and look at Samara and see her pushing back against a large spider sprawled across her chest. I run over and grab the spiders abdomen and pull it off of her. I toss the spider a few feet away and watch as it backs up and raises its front arms in a warning. I unsling my rifle from my shoulder and prepare to fire at it only to see Samara walking past me with a knife in hand. She shines her light directly into the spiders eyes, forcing it to cower in pain and proceeds to stab it through with the knife. The spider stops moving instantly. Samara proceeds to put her foot onto the spiders abdomen and use it as leverage to pull her knife out of its head. I look at her quizzically and she simply looks back at the dead spider.

“All creatures on this Earth are God’s creations. They should be loved and cherished as befits any creation of the Lord’s. But now we lie beneath the Earth. And that thing? That is the Devils work.”

With a final look at the broken creature the two of begin to walk towards Vladimirskaya station, hopeful that the worst has past us and the rest of the mission will be easy. I shake my head at my own fleeting naivety.

It’s never easy.

Hey everybody, I hope you enjoy Part 2 of Colored Lines. It's a bit longer than the first part at 2,751 words. I know it's a bit more dialogue heavy than usual. If you guys aren't a fan of that let me know and I can try to avoid that in the future. I'll probably start working on part 3 this weekend maybe? Maybe before that? I'm not quite sure. Anyway I hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks.

This was great. Giant spiders are a creepy classic. Dialogue builds character. I'm looking forward to part three.

Looking forward to it. I really enjoy this so far. Hope it does get made into a story game.

Apologies for not responding sooner. I've been rather busy. 

DerPrussen- Thank you for your kind words. I honestly was not sure about the spiders. It was one of those things that seemed better in an outline than in the story itself. I was actually thinking of making them wild dogs at first. The metro's (and cities) of Russia have many wild dogs in them and it makes sense to have them as a hazard in the metro. However, I figured the foot and rail traffic between Pushkinskaya and Vladimirskaya would be heavy enough that dogs wouldn't hang around for fear of becoming food, or target practice (but they will no doubt occupy some lesser used tunnels). So, I figured what's scary and can live in the walls? Spiders. They won't really be too much of a common occurrence I don't think though. It's one of those things you tend to kill with fire as soon as you find where they are. But their reason for being so large will most likely be talked about. Thank you again for your kind words and continued support.

Serpent- Thank you very much for your kind words Serpent. I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I plan on keeping this particular story contained in the thread, but I might revisit the world in a story game. Thank you again for your comment and time.

Giant spiders are, in my opinion, a good choice for a creepy fauna option in a post apocalyptic setting. They are an ambush predator though, the only ones I know that don't set traps are the giant ones in the jungle that jump and snatch birds out of the air. So chasing the characters seemed odd, but hey. There's been enough chemical, biological, and nuclear nonsense happening in your world that some mutant version can definitely find a different role in the subterranean ecology. Dogs would make sense for getting chased by, but don't have the creepy factor that arthropods bring. Also once you learn how to fight dogs, they aren't that scary anymore. Creatures that have exoskeletons have trouble just existing after they get into the dachshund size of animal, but no writer in books, movies, or video games pays any attention to that bit of information. Besides, if giant spiders were good enough for Tolkien, why wouldn't they work here?

I heard a story about someone who brought a duffel bag back from Iraq that one of those camel spiders had layed eggs in. They hatched between Iraq and the US. The county Sherif was very understanding when he arrived in response to the gunfire report because the soldiers spouse had unloaded a pump action shotgun into the bag. The military has soldiers gear sit in a conex out in the weather for a few weeks since then, after returning from deployments.

Here's a picture of a camel spider in case you didn't want pleasant dreams tonight. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/77687162292393051/ There's some more creepy things on that page too, if you're interested.

I don't think you can find a dog that scares more people than that. Like I said before, I'm looking forward to the next installment of this story.

I can go into a bit more detail about the spiders since I didn't explain too well in the story. I envisioned them as being ambush predators for the most part. At least when dealing with larger prey. Hence why they hid in the walls as Dimitri and Samara passed by, only exiting when they had their back turned. They became more aggressive and bold the closer Dimitri got to the eggs. Since we only saw from Dimitri's perspective, their attack on Samara wasn't very well described (This is one of those times Samara's perspective is probably more interesting). I pictured it as being less of a horde of spiders rushing her and more like a terrifying game of whack a mole. Spiders were crawling into the walls as her light shined on them, and coming out when Samara's light was pointed elsewhere. Those that got too close were the ones she shot at. As the torch light dimmed the spiders were able to move closer. But if they had been rushing Samara she probably would have been overwhelmed. The spider at the end managed to jump on her while Dimitri yanked her out. Her light wouldn't have been focused on them. Also, I did think about the exoskeleton problem actually. And I plan to answer that a bit down the line. I know, kind of sounds like a cop out, but I actually have quite a few notes on this world. And the spiders are one of the more fleshed out ones so far. 

Yeah, those camel spiders are terrifying. I saw them in an insectarium back home in Russia. Apparently they were common sights to our soldiers back when our troops were in Afghanistan. I think a few of our more southern CIS countries (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) have them too. Freaky things.  

Thank you for your comment. I really enjoyed reading it and I always enjoy hearing feedback. 

I suppose it was more dialogue heavy, but overall the dialogue level feels on the lower side. That's not a bad thing for the type of story this is. I definitely prefer the deep level of detail put into this story as opposed to making it dialogue heavy. It feels like it's driven more on Dimitri describing his experiences rather than us sitting back and letting our minds be entertained by cheap and witty dialogue. In fact when I was going through part II, I was on the edge of my seat, almost in a studious manner. The amount of world-building and descriptions had me intrigued enough to meaningfully read every word. I don't really have any criticisms. Samara's breakdown felt a little out of character, although I don't know her too well. My initial impression of her was that she's the strong one. A paragraph (when investigating the car) seemed like the break could be earlier and that's just being nitpicky. I think part II builds excellently from the first one and you've got my attention for the third.

I'm happy to hear the dialogue wasn't overbearing or anything. I certainly wasn't planning on it being so much but I felt like it could be interesting. Plus, there's only so much you can say about a metro tunnel before it starts sounding boring. I'm also happy to hear you are enjoying the first person perspective. Honestly, I chose it because I am most comfortable with it. But I am trying to do some interesting things with it. After all, we only know what Dimitri does. So maybe not everything is how it seems. I mean, there was certainly something a bit off about how Dimitri labeled those children's skeletons. I think something like that is fun. 

As for Samara being out of character, that wasn't really my intention. In the first part, she alludes to Dimitri's nightmares being rather frequent and having an adverse effect on him, claiming he looks awful and watching him to make sure he's okay. And Dimitri kind of just shrugs it off. I tried to imply that she care's for Dimitri more than Dimitri cares for himself (at least from her perspective). All her prayers aren't working and she feels powerless to help someone she cares a lot about. And when that person just brushed off collapsing and (from her perspective) having a seizure after seeing and hearing things, she kind of snapped. Granted, I'm sure I could have done a better job with the portrayal but I hope this made sense.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I always enjoy reading it and I'm very happy you are enjoying the story. I'm finishing up the outline for part 3 tonight and I'll probably start writing this weekend. Thank you again for reading.

That was super creepy... I love it! Is there anything creepier then little laughing ghost children? ... Well I suppose one might argue the giant spiders, but I was never really scared of spiders (and after watching Lucas the Spider, I kind of find the idea of a 2 foot spider adorable) Anyway, I really like Samara. I think it's super cute how protective she is over Dimitri. Can't wait to read more ^_^

Ah, I really appreciate your kind words. It really does mean a lot. 

Yes, skeletal laughing ghost children are rather terrifying. Kind of a fun trivia fact, parts of that scene were actually inspired by a recurring nightmare of mine after coming back from deployment. Okay, I guess that's not a fun fact but it's a fact. 

And I'm happy you like Samara. She's been pretty fun to write. 

I finished the outline for part 3 so hopefully the writing should go smoothly and I'll have it finished within a reasonable time. Thank you very much for reading.

Apologies for the slow pace on part 3. I've written around 2,200 words in the last day or so but have become very conflicted over a scene near the beginning. I am currently debating whether to rewrite the beginning and several later parts that reference it, or leave it as is. It's kind of killing my motivation to write further, to be honest. So sorry again.

If you guys happen to read this, I hope you all are having wonderful days/nights.

Part 3: The Devil’s Work

The ground beneath our feet crunches lightly as we walk towards Vladimirskaya. The tunnel is fairly well lit. Lanterns line the walls, flickering softly and casting long shadows against the walls. I glance over at Samara who walks beside me in silence. Webs from the spiders lair stick to her hair and clothes, although she seems not to notice. She looks into the tunnels ahead with a distant look in her eyes. She turns her head towards me and looks a bit startled at my gaze before giving a small smile and moving closer to me.

“So, any guesses as to what we’ll find at the station?” Samara asks, half-whispering.

“I don’t know. Hopefully it’s just a communications issue. Phone lines are down or something.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Ivan said the Reds were poking around. Maybe the station got hit.”

“What if those spiders did something?” Samara asks, turning to look behind her.

“I don’t think so. The barricade was probably meant to stop them. They were probably coming out of that open door. The one we entered through.”

“Couldn’t they have just closed the door?”

“Maybe they didn’t know they were coming from there. We certainly didn’t.”

Sounds from up ahead cut our conversation short. Samara and I slowly make our way against the wall with our weapons raised. Three distinct voices make their way down the tunnel. Two men and one woman. Laughter from the men echo throughout the tunnel, almost drowning out the pained sobs of the woman.  I signal for Samara to stay put as I take off my backpack and place it against the wall. I pull out an old rifle scope and begin crawling forwards. Once I manage to get a clear line of sight I put the scope up to my eye and survey the scene. 

The rounded walls of the tunnel soon make way to open platforms. It seems to be the loading area for Vladimirskaya station. The power appears to have been turned off to this part of the station, despite its importance. Or maybe because of it. Fire barrels and lanterns manage to keep the area relatively well lit however, giving a good view of the platform. The security station seems to be empty. The rail cars that ferry supplies and people between Vladimirskaya and Pushkinskaya sit abandoned on the tracks. I move the scope back up to the platform towards the voices. Two men are on the platform. They wear civilian clothes and have rifles slung over their shoulders. Both men have a strip of red fabric tied around their right bicep. Reds. Fucking Reds. One of the men is smoking a cigarette while the other appears to be on his knees, his hips thrusting quickly. I shift my position slightly and manage to catch a glimpse of a woman in a torn militia uniform on her hands and knees. My blood begins to boil and I slowly begin to make my way back to Samara. She looks at me with concern upon my return.

“Loading dock up ahead. Two Reds on the platform. They have one of ours. We need to take them out.” I say through clenched teeth.

“Reds? But…shouldn’t we go back to Pushkinskaya and get help?” Samara says, fear on her face.

“How? The tunnel has a barricade we can’t get through, and the only way around that is through a spider nest. We need to get to a radio. And that means we have to go into the station. Which means we have to go through those fucking Reds.”

A load groan and a pained scream echo down the tunnel. I look over at Samara’s worried face.

“We go. Now.”

With a quick nod the two of us slowly make our along the tracks. Once we reach the platform I begin to climb onto it, instructing Samara to continue making her way along the tracks. I look through my scope at the people up ahead. The two Reds are now laughing and sharing a bottle of alcohol. The militia woman lies curled up on the ground and is sobbing. As I creep closer, their voices become clear.

“Ah, that was good. You want another go at ‘er?” The first one asks, buckling his belt.

“Nah, I’d say this whore’s all used up. Besides, I ain’t fuckin’ something after you fucked it.” The second one says, taking another drag from his cigarette.

“Pussy. But I think yer right. Sorry pretty lady, but like he said, yer all used up.”

The second one takes a small knife out of his boot and grabs the militia woman by the hair. A weak “Please…” escapes her lips before the man slits her throat. He lets go of her hair and her head drops to the platform with a thud. With this, I begin rushing forward with my own knife in hand. I spare a quick glance to the side and notice Samara climbing onto the platform as well. I quickly close in on the closest Red who manages to let out a quick “Oh fuck!” before being stabbed in the throat with my knife. The second Red begins fumbling with his rifle as Samara makes her way behind him. She covers his mouth with her hand and stabs him in the back, his eyes wide from pain and surprise. He falls to his knees and I quickly walk over and stab him in the chest, twisting my knife as the light fades from his eyes. He drops to the floor with a thud. I quickly glance at the dead Reds then make my way over to the militia woman. Her clothes have been torn or cut open and she’s bruised in numerous places. Stains cover her tattered uniform and a look of fear is etched on her lifeless face. I look away from the body and make my way over to the dead Reds. I begin to unload their weapons, taking the ammunition for myself. I empty their pockets, taking what little money and valuables they carried. I look over at Samara who is kneeling over the dead militia woman in prayer. She stands up and makes the sign of the cross before walking over to me. She spares a quick glance at the two dead men before quickly making the sign of the cross and walking past them to the station entrance, with me right behind her. 

Vladimirskaya station is smaller than home. Its corridors are crowded with makeshift buildings and narrow corridors. Like on the loading platform, the power seems to have been cut to most of the area. Emergency lights and assorted lanterns bathe the area in a hellish red. The empty buildings and occasional scream only add to the sense of being in Hell. Somewhere a record player is playing, the last few seconds of an unfamiliar song play before skipping and playing those last seconds over again. Bodies occasionally lie on the floor or against a building with bullet holes dotting them. Some are militia. Some are Reds. And some were caught in the crossfire. I brush aside some brass casings and scan the empty buildings for any signs of life. I sweep the left side and then the right. My eyes stop on a market stall to my right. A black silhouette is kneeling behind the stall, looking at something. A sharp pain enters my head as the silhouette stands up and turn’s towards me.

“The red ones. They killed so many. Innocents. Little ones. Why? Why must you fight? Why must you kill? We don’t understand.”

I quickly turn my light on and shine it at the stall. Nothing. I make my way forward and look behind the stall. A mother is holding her child, a bullet hole through them both. I quickly look away and walk back to Samara who give me a puzzled look.

“I…thought I saw something.” I say, giving a quick glance back at the stall. I turn back to Samara only to hear an unfamiliar voice and the distinct sound of a guns charging handle being pulled back.

“You have three seconds to drop your weapons or I drop you. And I count quickly.”

I look over at Samara and quickly drop my rifle. She does the same with her submachine gun. Suddenly, heavily armed men begin coming out of the buildings. I give a small sigh when I see the militia uniforms they wear. The men surround us and quickly grab our weapons before retreating a few steps away. A middle aged man with a slight limp begins to walk towards us. He has a fairly impressive collection of scars and the other men seem to look to him for their orders. He must be the one in charge. He looks at me from head to toe before doing the same for Samara. He takes a step back and crosses his arms.

“Too well equipped to be Reds. Too poorly equipped to be militia. You clearly aren’t civilians. So who the hell are you?”

“I’m Dimitri Koslov. That’s my partner, Samara Fedorov. Pushkinskaya station sent us to see why you ceased contact.”

“You’re stalkers?” the man asks, and I quickly nod. “Well, I’m guessing you can tell why we haven’t been answering your stations calls.”

“The Reds.” I say quietly.

“Yeah,” a gunshot rings out in the distance, “Lets head somewhere quieter and we can talk.”

Part 3: The Devil's Work (b)

Samara and I follow the man through the narrow passages of the station. We manage to avoid the patrolling Reds, eventually making it to a large fortified building. Militiamen are posted outside in makeshift fortifications. A few heavy machine guns are set up in abandoned buildings nearby and are trained on the path we just came from. A large sign with the words “ARMORY” hang over the door. The guards out front salute to our guide and eye us with suspicion as we walk inside. The sign outside didn’t lie. The majority of the building is filled with various crates and boxes. Ammunition and armor lie scattered around and numerous firearms sit on top of tables or in racks. There are even a few boxes labeled “GRENADES” with several warning signs. I look over at our guide who simply shrugs.

“It’s an armory, kid. What did you expect?”

“Not…this.”

“This is the frontier kid. Never know when this stuff could come in handy.”

“Like now?”

“Exactly. I don’t think I ever introduced myself. I’m Kuzmich, Quartermaster for the militia.”

“Quartermaster?” I ask shaking his outstretched hand, “What happened to the Commander? Or the Guard Captains?”

“Killed in the early hours of the “revolution”. I’m the highest ranking militia member left.”

“What happened here?” Samara asks, with a concerned expression.

Kuzmich sighs and takes a quick swig from his flask.

“Lingovsky Prospekt fell to the Reds about a month back. The refugees started coming soon after. Men, women, children. All of them went flocking to Dostoevskaya. A lot of them found work there. Helping with the renovations and other tasks. The children and some of the women were brought to Vladimirskaya. We found them jobs and made some shelters for them to stay. But then things started going on. We would get reports about worker strikes. Some Red propaganda showing up in the marketplace. We made a few arrests but that seemed too have just made things worse. People began protesting in the markets. Lot’s of people. Women started going off about “The Holy Lenin” or some shit. People were getting angry. They started demanding we open the prison and let the “oppressed proletariats” out. I don’t know what the hell a proletariat is, but I do know half the bastards locked up were slated for execution. Hardcore offenders. Anyways the Commander went down to try to disperse them. The protesters killed him and his men then busted open the holding cells. People started fighting each other in the street. We lost contact with the barricade between here and Dostoevskaya. Now we have criminals running through the streets, Reds controlling our means of communication, and the only people from the Commonwealth that have showed up are two kids.”

Kuzmich takes a deep swig from his flask and lets out a deep sigh.

“So kid, that’s what happened here. If you have any ideas on how fix this shitstorm I’m all ears.”

“We need to contact Pushkinskaya station.”

“No shit kid. How do you propose we do that? Walk back the way you came? The Reds will be crawling all over the route to Pushkinskaya. Besides, we already tried that. Sent a scout this morning. Clearly she didn’t make it if you’re all they sent.”

“That was your scout at the loading platform?” 

“Yeah, Katya. Wait you saw her? What happened? Where is she?” Kuzmich asks, concerned.

“She didn’t make it. Reds got to her.” I say, looking over at Samara who in turn looks down at the table.

“Goddamn it. Fucking Reds.” Kuzmich says, taking another swig from his flask.

“Look, we need to get to a radio, or something similar. Something to contact Pushkinskaya. If we can contact them, they can send help.”

“The communications post. Thats the only place I know that still has a working radio. Reds busted the rest. But the Reds have that building locked down tight. No way we can break through.”

“What about a diversion?” Samara asks thoughtfully.

“Yeah, we draw them to the armory, then when the bulk of their forces are fighting here a small team goes in. We call for help and the militia relieves us.” I say excitedly.

“It could work.” Kuzmich muses, “But if the strike team fails, then that’s it for Vladimirskaya. You sure we should take the risk?”

“Better than waiting here to die.” I say, looking at Samara who slowly nods.

“Alright then. Gear up. You two are joining the strike team. Feel free to grab what you need from the armory. Not like there’s any requisition forms anymore. I’ll go tell the men to dig in for an attack.” 

I nod to Kuzmich and stand up. I walk over to the numerous boxes and weapons, a certain giddiness overcoming me despite the fear of impending battle. I look over at Samara and see a slight smile on her face as she gently rifles through the gear. I turn my attention towards an armored vest and pick it up. It’s made of metal plates sown between two thick pieces of leather with belts to tighten it. Holes in the leather from previous gunshot damage show that the metal was dented upon impact, but not penetrated. I take off my ushanka and pull the vest over my head. It’s heavy, but not prohibitively so. I tighten the belts on the vest and pick up a helmet. A metal visor is attached to it to provide protection to the face, sacrificing visibility for protection. I put it on and flip the visor up and down to ensure it works. I put on some knee pads and grab a pair of old military issue boots that look about my size. After gearing up I walk over to the weapon racks and pick out an old rifle. It was simple but well made, with scratched wood furnishings and a strong metal barrel and reciever. Clearly not from the metro. Its receiver had numbers stamped into it. Some were scratched off from use but four numbers were clear: “1984”. I pulled the charging handle back a few times and hear Kuzmich snicker, having recently come back inside.

“That’s a kalash, kid. You’ve probably seen them in the old posters. Maybe even in the hands of some troops heading to the frontlines. If you’re worried about her working, don’t be. Going to take a lot more than sitting in the metro for a hundred years to break her.”

I nod my head and shoulder the rifle, grabbing a few curved magazines from a box in the corner. I look over at Samara and see she has finished gearing up. She now wears a thick padded jacket over her sweater along with knee and elbow pads and a helmet over her wool hat. A bandolier with full ammunition pouches lies across her chest and a new submachine gun lies in her hands. Clearly made in the metro, but well made. Kuzmich looks over at the weapon and nods. 

“Good choice. Just got a shipment of those before things went to shit. The boys call them “Peacekeepers” because we gave them out to guard patrols. Rugged and accurate for a submachine gun.”

I give a quick nod to Samara who nods back. After indicating that the two of us are ready we make our way outside. The troops outside have fortified their positions even further and are busy checking their weapons and armor. A few salute Kuzmich as he passes before going back to their work. We make our way towards a group of three heavily armored men. Two carry rather nasty looking shotguns while the third carries a machine gun that looks like a larger version of my kalash. Kuzmich introduces them as the rest of the strike team that will be helping us take the communications post. Movement catches my eye as I see a man in civilian clothes running up to us. Red fabric on his arm identifies him as an enemy and I begin to take out my pistol when Kuzmich stops me.

“He’s one of ours. Report.”

“I gave them the armory’s location like you asked sir. They're sending pretty much everything they have.” The man says after catching his breath.

“Good. Get geared up and get to cover. Strike team, we move now.”

The six of us begin moving through the station towards the communications post. The Reds are crawling through the streets like rats. Concern washes over me as we avoid another group. They are all heading towards the armory. Towards our allies. Samara must have been thinking the same thing because she glances at me with a concerned look. Before I can say anything Kuzmich whispers, “Communications post dead ahead.” We hold up behind some makeshift buildings. I peek my head around the corner and look ahead, see  a flight of stairs leading to another section of the station. I’d guess it’s where most of the administrative offices were held. The open are before the stairs is covered half eaten meals and makeshift bedding. Hastily built fortifications lie empty. Clearly the area was emptied in a hurry. They really did send pretty much everything. Two men stand at the bottom of the stairs, looking around nervously. I look to Kuzmich who lays out the plan.

“The communications post is up those stairs, second door on the right. The rest of the rooms are mostly just bureaucrat nests. Offices and the like. But there could still be Reds inside. After we kill the guards down here one of my men will hold the stairs, killing any rat that tries to run. The other two will clear the rooms and then head to the stairs as well. Us three will head straight for the comms. We call Pushkinskaya then head back to the armory. Understand?”

Everyone nods. Kuzmich gives a slight nod, takes a swig from his flask, then says, “Go!”. Two of the men turn the corners and fire their shotguns nearly in unison, blowing holes in the surprised Reds chests. The men advance up to the makeshift fortifications as the third militiamen begins walking forward with his machine gun raised. A few reds come down the stairs with their rifles in hand and are promptly cut down by the machine guns heavy fire. Kuzmich begins running forward, and Samara and I follow. The two shotgun wielding militiamen are already making their way up the stairs. We give a quick nod to the third militiamen who has taken position at the bottom of the stairs before heading after the others. Gunshots and screaming can be heard as we climb the stairs. The shotgunners are walking down opposite ends of the hall, kicking in the doors and firing at the people inside. A few Reds lie dead on the floor already.

The three of us make our way to the communications post, its door having been left untouched by the militiamen. Must not want to damage the radio. We stop outside the door and Kuzmich kicks it in swiftly. I step inside the room with my rifle raised and notice two figures inside. Both have their hands raised and look to be no older than 16. One of them looks at me with tears in his eyes and says, “Please! Don’t kill us! We surrender!” I start pulling the trigger, feeling nothing but hatred towards them. But something causes me to hesitate. I look these kids in the eyes and I just can’t do it. I begin to lower my rifle when I hear two gunshots ring out, and watch as the two kids drop to the ground. I look over towards Kuzmich who simply shrugs and says, “They’re Reds.” before walking towards the radio. Samara makes her way over to me, looking at the two dead Reds with me. She grabs my hand and gives it a light squeeze before making the sign of the cross and giving a quick prayer. I feel many emotions in quick succession. Anger, sadness, confusion. Then numbness. Kuzmich’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. 

“I’ve got a Commander Fedorov on the line.” Kuzmich says, turning towards us. Samara looks surprised for a moment then makes her way over to the radio and takes the headset, and begins talking to her father.

“Yes, Reds. A lot. As many as you can send. Okay, there’s a barricade in the tunnel but its pretty weak. No! Don’t go through there! Because it’s a spiders nest! Yes. Okay. I understand. Thank you.” 

Samara puts down the headset and tells us that the militia is on the way. I give a nod and look over at Kuzmich who gives a brief smile before frowning and beginning to walk out the door. I give Samara a puzzled glance and follow him outside. Kuzmich calls the rest of the strike team to our position before speaking. 

“Okay men, the boys from Pushkinskaya are on the way. But it isn’t over yet. We have to head back to the armory and assist them in any way we can. Let’s go!”

The six of us begin to make our way back to the armory. Sounds of gunfire get louder as we get closer. When we finally arrive the scene is chaos. Dead bodies litter the area. Most of them are Reds, but a few militia lie fallen as well. Screams and commands echo throughout the area and the rattle of machine gun fire is almost deafening. We make our way over to a militiaman who seems to have taken charge in Kuzmich’s absence. The two of them talk as Samara and I take positions behind cover and begin to fire on the Reds. Their attacks were mostly disorganized, taking a few shots then retreating. But they were clearly wearing the militia down. We couldn’t keep this up for much longer. I look towards Samara during a short break in the fighting. The Reds were probably regrouping for a final assault. And by the looks of things, the militia wouldn’t hold. We wouldn’t hold. I hold out my hand and she does the same. Our fingers intertwine and I smile sadly at her. There are worse ways to die than dying beside your best friend. I look at her and open my mouth to say something. Anything. But a sound cuts through the air. A whistle from the Red positions. I quickly let go of Samara’s hand and raise my rifle, waiting for the Reds to push forward. But nobody comes. We wait for what seems like hours. And still nobody comes. The militiamen begin to murmur amongst themselves and Kuzmich looks completely confused. I look at Samara who simply shrugs slightly. Suddenly a voice calls out from the path ahead. “Friendlies! Don’t shoot!” A man in a militia uniform and a white armband comes out from behind a building with his hands up. And the whole armory begins to erupt in cheers.

It seems the troops from Pushkinskaya had showed up just in time. The whistle had been a call for retreat from the Reds. Samara and I have been asked to make our way back to the loading dock and were given a militia escort, with Kuzmich coming along to send us off. The trip was rather uneventful. Militiamen were making their way through the streets in patrols, clearing out any Reds they found. When we got back to the loading dock we saw the bodies had been cleaned up, although the bloodstains still remained. I fell a pang of hatred as I look at the spot where those animals died. Hatred and…remorse. Remorse for not being quicker. For not saving Katya. I shake my head and walk towards the edge of the platform. A rail car sits on the tracks with a young militiamen sitting inside. He tips his hat and yells, “All aboard!”, earning quite a few annoyed glances from surrounding militiamen. I begin to step onto the rail car when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see Kuzmich holding out his hand to us. I firmly grasp and shake it, earning a smile from him.

“You guys did a fine job. Damn fine. Keep the gear, you more than earned it. And if you’re ever back in Vladimirskaya, the first rounds on me.”

“Thanks Kuzmich. If you ever need anything, just let us know.”

“Will do, stalker. Will do.”

Kuzmich gives the two of us a crisp salute as we begin climbing in the rail car. The trip back home wouldn’t take long. But for the first time in what seemed like years, we were safe. I close my eyes and sit back. The rail car begins to move, and I begin to feel a slight breeze on my face. I smile slightly and open my eyes. I look over at the militiamen who smiles brightly.

“Next stop, Pushkinskaya Station!” 

My apologies, TB, for taking so long to read Part 3. I really am enjoying the story! Perhaps is because we’re several thousand words deep at this point, but it’s so easy for me to imagine the scenery. It feels like I’m in the tunnel next to Dimitri and Samara. For whatever reason, I’m imagining the many tunnels that you travel through in Fallout 3. Anyways, things are certainly darker in this part and I’m not just talking about the lack of light underground. The entire setting of the story is solidified during Part 3, in my opinion. There are glimpses of the poor, severe setting in the earlier sections, but this one is where it feels set in stone. I gotta say, I completely assumed you would rescue the woman, which only adds to my earlier point.

Couple questions:

I was thinking Dimitri and Samara were brother and sister. Is that not the case? Their last names are different.

I’m a bit confused on where the “stalkers” come into play. Are they part of the Militia?

Honestly, reading the first two parts, my assumption was that you’d be wandering the tunnels and experiencing supernatural stuff. Part 3 puts the entire story on a much more grand stage. Being part of a strike team fighting the Reds is definitely a cool part and I was pleasantly surprised in the direction you went. Can’t wait to uncover more of the supernatural side and learn what’s behind the voices and visions. Great work, TB.

Hey, thank you for the review. I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed Part 3. Yeah, the Fallout 3 tunnels are a good visualization for the tunnels. I had hoped to make Part 3 into something that showed some of the darker aspects of the metro, and I'm happy to see it worked. It was a bit of a struggle to find the balance between impactful and needlessly edgy. I'm hoping to put some more subtle dark themes in Part 4. Hopefully I'll have it done soon, but I haven't been doing exceptionally well lately and it has been really getting in the way of writing. But I'll certainly answer your questions:

-Dimitri and Samara aren't related. They have known each other since they were very young though. I'm hoping to go into a bit more about Dimitri's past in the next part actually, since they'll be back in Pushkinskaya, so I won't say too much now. But I hope it cleared things up a bit.

-Stalkers are a bit unique. So, "stalker" is something of an informal name for them. The Commonwealth (the "nation" our protagonists are from) officially calls them "Pathfinders" and uses them to scout and scavenge the maze of tunnels, service routes, and undiscovered stations in the metro. They are not Militia members, however they are sometimes used by the militia as scouts due to their skill and relative expendability. That was what Dimitri and Samara were doing in Parts 2&3. The Militia HQ is also where the Pathfinders go to pick up jobs. I hope this explained things.

Yeah, I tried to allude to some bigger conflicts with the propaganda in the first part. But then again, it's propaganda. Who knows what's true? Other than me I guess. But yeah, I enjoyed writing the combat scenes and the story of Vladimirskaya. Not all the parts will be like that, but it's fun to make some action packed parts every once in awhile.

Thanks for your nice comment. It means a lot to me. And I'm happy to see that people are still interested in this story. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get the next part out.

Hey guys, I hope you like part 3 of Colored Lines. This was by far the longest thing I've written at 4,402 words. I split it up into two posts so hopefully you guys aren't too overwhelmed. I tried to split them in a way that felt natural, but it was pretty difficult. Also, I'd like to thank Avery_Moore for helping me with this. She assisted in reading a certain part (you can probably guess which) and letting me know if it was okay. Without her help, I most likely would not have finished this. Also, I'd like to thank Mizal and Zake for giving me the idea to split the story. I'd probably still be worrying and not posting it if not for them. You guys are awesome. So let me know what you think (if you don't mind) and as always, thank you for reading.

Good work! Will see if I can think of anything to mention, but take it with a grain of salt and think about it yourself, since some things may just be general statements that might not necessarily apply.

Writing Technicalities

Dialogue Punctuation

Some people don't care much for this, as it can appear superficial or as a style choice (although it isn't, there are rules), so while you can feel free to ignore this section, at least do so with purpose. Alternatively, look into it more when you feel more so inclined.

Oh, also, a lot of people were never taught this formally, which is why so many get it wrong. Probably because it isn't an obvious thing unless you know to look for it. Anyway...

Gower's Article covering Dialogue Punctuation

2010 published thing with examples and stuff. (I link to this website often).

Basically, when writing dialogue, you are still writing sentences. This means everything needs to make sense as a sentence. As such, stuff like "I say quietly" needs to connect to the part being spoken, as it is a dialogue tag and doesn't make sense as a sentence on its own. This applies for similar things like "I shouted" or "they murmured".

“The Reds.” I say quietly.
Should be:
"The Reds," I say quietly.

Because the dialogue tag needs to be a part of the same sentence as the dialogue to make sense, you end the dialogue with a comma (and punctuate appropriately). If the dialogue ends with an exclamation or question mark, you keep them but treat it as if it were a comma for the sake of punctuation. e.g. "Never!" he shouts.

A whole sentence CAN be contained within the quotation marks, and you can have complete sentences right next to dialogue, but you can also have things where they are connected. Read Gower's article (linked above) as it explains all this pretty well (both in UK and US English!)

Adverb'ly'

I just feel obligated to mention this one, but I wouldn't say it really applies to you (as I didn't notice it sticking out, thus the reading experience wasn't marred). Anyway, when you have adverbs and they end in 'ly', you want to be careful as people can easily overuse this which ultimately brings down the writing quality.

In case I used the wrong word, here is an example: I quickly wince and close my eyes. (Quickly being the thing I'm talking about).

Again, I don't think you overused them, but I feel mentioning this is worth it as it might help someone else who does... assuming they read this. Otherwise it can help with figuring out if a sentence is good by giving something concrete to examine/consider.

Anyway, point is that in some cases, not having the adverb is the better choice. Look at this: I wince and close my eyes.

The meaning is pretty similar, if I might say so myself, and in some situations the quicker flow acquired from cutting a word, or the ambiguity provided by not overly describing things, can be immensely helpful. Heck, I'm using heaps of 'ly' words right now!

Anyway, the point is that sometimes the context surrounding the sentence is enough to imply certain things, meaning that you don't always have to specify some descriptors like 'quickly', as it is easy for the reader to assume that the action is not being done slowly. With this said, adverbs ending in 'ly' have their place, not abusing them is the main thing. There are times where having them is important and where they do really add something valuable to the sentence.

Feel free to search this page for the word 'quickly' (with ctrl+F on a Windows machine) and see if there are sentences that it could be omitted from. This is ultimately an author choice! Same for other such words.

I will also mention repetition here in passing, but it is a powerful tool and something worth keeping an eye out for as when used unintentionally it can create poorly flowing sections (such as by overusing a word for no reason). Variety is the spice life! I don't think this was a problem, because I hope it would have stuck out to me enough to make a separate section, but it ties in with adverb (over)use so figured I'd mention it.

Conclusion & Other Important Things

I'm a bit more iffy on spotting some things, and evaluating them, but only one way to improve...

The flow seems pretty good to me.

The tone feels well executed + consistent.

The story progresses at a good pace.

Very nice! I could learn a thing or two from this (or more, if we're being honest). Might need to try deconstructing it... but I don't think I'd be good at that.

Anyway, it all fits together nicely and I'm looking forward to the future parts. You've got another (albeit slow) reader now, aha.

P.S. If there is something else you'd like thoughts more in depth thoughts on, feel free to ask. I'll be sleeping soon so apologies for not going into as much depth as possible right away, but I feel that the point of feedback is to have it be something that can be used for improvement of some kind, rather than just shotgunning everything I can think of regarding writing in one mega post.

P.P.S. Spelling and grammar seemed good to me as well. There was one word (area I think) that was misspelled at one spot as a typo. Hopefully an admin fixes it (because they can edit anything!), but I guess that is something that ought to be asked as they rarely edit other peoples stuff out of the blue.

Thank you very much for the in depth advice. I'll be sure to try to edit the things that need editing and give it another look over. Thank you very much for reading and I'm happy you enjoyed it.

Awesome! Probably my favourite part of the story so far. There's so much going on, and I like seeing new characters introduced. (Also wondering if that 1984 reference was deliberate or just coincidental.) ^_^

Thank you very much for your kind words and praise. I really appreciate you reading it, and helping me out. As for the "1984" thing, it was both kind of an easter egg, kind of not. That year is important in the story (it will be brought up why a bit down the road). Also, it is meant to show that that is an AK-74 rifle. By 1984 Russia had almost completely ceased production of AK-47 and AKM rifles, focusing almost solely on the smaller caliber AK-74 assault rifle. I actually have quite a few easter eggs in this. If anyone would like, I could add an "Easter Egg" post to explain them. I was also thinking about making some "Lore" posts if anyone was interested. Anyways, thank you for reading.

Oh! (I just thought it was referring to the dystopian novel 1984) :p

This story is great. I don't have any suggestions as far as story telling goes 

 

I enjoyed how I didn't see Dmitri and Samara's relationship develop, so much as I saw how close they already are.

 

I liked how much was inferred and hinted at throughout the story. For instance how much plotting and planning would need to happen on the communist side to destabilize other metro stations before assaulting. The commander of the communist forces also was aware enough to realize that the militia was sending reinforcements and was smart enough to disengage before they arrived. He was most likely a very experienced combat leader to be able to get forces that disorganized to retreat.

 

 I also enjoyed the "Holy Lenin" reference. It appears that communism has turned into a religion in this world. The quarter master also didn't know who that was, which makes me think that any form of education has degraded, and that literacy is most likely uncommon.

 

Since the apocalypse came a hundred years ago and no one mentioned misfires with the weapons, munitions production is probably underway on both sides here. Brass can be reloaded about nine times. So it would make sense that both sides would need industrial centers to cast bullets and brass. I'm interested in what sort of culture would come out of a subterranean city like people.

 

Also the militia seemed to be very experienced soldiers. The shotgunners fired simultaneously without a verbal command, and the machine gunner eliminated his targets while walking. Both of those things are hard to do without a good bit of practice.

 

There was also what was either a date or a partial seriel number, which I think there is some significance to.

 

I really hope you keep writing this story. This is obviously very planned out, and I'd like to see where it goes.

Thank you very much for your reply DerPrussen. I was actually going to ask you guys if you would like me to make a thread for some lore on the world. Like the different factions, general world building info, etc. It could help explain things like what you are talking about (i.e. Communism being a religion, production capabilities, education, etc.). It will be pretty much entirely spoiler free and might help explain some things and maybe be fun. I'm not sure. 

But to try to answer a few points:

-Dimitri and Samara are literate, and Pushkinskaya has a somewhat rudimentary education system (As does most of the Commonwealth). However, knowledge about the events leading to life in the metro is pretty much unknown. It's a case of "if you ask three people why, you'll get three different answers". The Reds and many other independant stations are mostly illiterate however and largely lack an education system. 

-The Reds have something of an extremely rudimentary understanding of communism. They treat it a a religion (like you guessed) and what they believe is almost completely different from actual communism. But there are some similarities.

-The militia in Vladimirskaya is more akin to frontline soldiers than regular station guards. Like Kuzmich said, its the "frontier" essentially. Everything east of Vladimirskaya is either owned by the Reds or numerous other groups who aren't very friendly. The Commonwealth was trying to expand east, but when the Reds took Lingovsky Prospekt it put a damper on things. 

-Most factions have somewhat limited production capabilities. But a fun fact about the Russian metros is that many stations actually have stores of weapons and supplies. A hold over from the cold war, when the metro was meant as a refuge from nuclear war. But after 100 years the well is running a bit dry so to speak, so a few stations have become somewhat advanced production centers. Mostly places that had factories above them before the tunnels were sealed.

-Like I said to Avery, the number on the rifle was partly an easter egg, and partly important. It is a year that holds some significance in the story. But I won't spoil it yet. However, you may see it come up a few more times.

Thank you for reading. I hope these have been informative. And please let me know if you or anyone else would like me to make "Lore" posts for the story. 

It took me something like an hour to make the last post. I read the new portion during lunch and waited for a break to finish the last post I made. So I didn't see the answer to Avery's question until after I had posted mine.

 

The only lore questions I can think of is, do other people see the shadow figures, and are the shadow men regional or worldwide?

Hmm, that might be spoiling a bit. But remember how the old man in part one was ranting about the "angels" and said Dimitri heard them too? Dimitri might not be alone in this. However, Samara did not see or hear anything in the train car despite Dimitri seeing the shadow figure pretty much face to face. Same with the one in Vladimirskaya. So something is up, but I don't want to give too much away. Sorry.

As for the lore posts, I was thinking more along the lines of explaining the different factions (Reds, Commonwealth, Independent stations) and maybe some history about what's been going on in the metro (The conflict between the Reds and the Commonwealth, facts about the militia, etc.). That kind of thing.

Fair enough. I have a few questions about the factions. Are the Independet stations actually independent stations, or a faction? Are there more major factions than the reds, and the commonwealth? Are there many smaller factions? Are there factions that don't have stations? Is there much in the way of dangerous flora? Is there more tunnel fauna than spiders and dogs?

I'm a little on the fence about lore dumps, because to me that always makes it easier to just explain stuff outright and then get lazy within the story itself. Working necessary info into narrative as it develops and controlling information flow in a way that feels natural is all a pretty important part of pacing.

Then again, world building is fun, and this thread is just for fun. I tend to have lots of notes and essays written out about my settings, all stuff that might not necessarily make it into the story itself but can be interesting to chat about with others.

I'd just make sure to clearly mark lore posts so people coming through later won't have trouble following which parts are story and which are bonus material. It's hard enough as it is keeping threads coherent with our forum format.

Thank you for your response. I am very conflicted on it. I want things to feel natural and I want the world to be experienced through the eyes of the protagonist. But that is something of a double edged sword. The protagonist knows things the reader might not. And the reader might know things the protagonist doesn't. I don't want these stories to necessarily be just packed with lore dumps. And I feel like it would feel unnatural for somebody to tell the protagonist about facts the protagonist should already know. I was thinking about just some relatively short posts about things. Maybe just some background information or something. But I don't know. I'll have to think on it more.

If I knew where I wanted to end this series, I would wait until its done then give the lore dumps. But I really don't know when I want to stop these. I feel like there is a lot that can be done with this world. But that open endedness is part of the problem I guess. I suppose I haven't thought all of this through as much as I should have.

I appreciate your response Mizal. You've given me a lot to think about. 

Everything in the first paragraph is something anybody writing a novel in the first person has to figure out a way to tackle. It is difficult though, no denying that.

I feel like I've perfected this stuff in second and third, but I never ever write in first person partially for that reason, it just feels very restrictive to me in a way the other POVs don't. It's worth it for the added immersion perhaps when an author can pull it off, but it's one of those things that seems easier to get wrong than get right.

I'm probably just over complicating things. Well, writing in the first person was probably over complicating things. I'm really not sure with what I'm going to do but thank you for your help.

I'll probably just not make any lore dumps. At least not until I'm finished with this story. Whenever that is. I don't want to devalue the story by messing up a lore dump and ruining things. 

Shoot. Just don't answer my questions if you want to cover stuff in the story. If you enjoy the world, you can finish the story you want to tell with this protagonist and find another protagonist to walk a different part of the world. The fun part about that is you can bring back other characters you wanted to see more of, or a different side of with the next character.

Yeah I feel a little bad now lol, if you wanted to write them and people are wanting to read them, go for it. I have this default anti infodump policy when it comes to storygames, but this is a first draft in progress in a lot of ways and input from the thread on the setting stuff might help you refine it. And believe me I get it that world building stuff is addictive and fun.

I've enjoyed hashing out story concepts and general world building. I process better verbally, so I normally use the voice chat in the discord. It takes a bit of work because most of the introverts here don't care to talk. Also my headset broke so it's a moot point now.

Thank you for your response and suggestions. 

Hello everyone. My apologies for my relative silence over the past week or so, both with regards to this story and the forum as a whole. As some of you may be aware, I have had some familial troubles that managed to effect me pretty badly. I've also had a few other things going on that have kind of thrown a wrench into my plans.

So I guess this is just kind of an update post to let you guys know whats been up. I've finished most of the outline for part 4, but not much beyond that. Clearly staying on my one part every (roughly) week goal didn't exactly pan out. I'm still having kind of a hard time motivating myself to work on the next part. But I'll get it done sometime. Hopefully soon. 

I hope you all are well. Thanks you all for sticking with this story and reading it. I know 10,000 words is quite a lot and it means a lot to me that you've all taken the time to read and comment on this project of mine.

Real life happens. I'm personally looking forward to part 4 whenever you get it done. I've enjoyed everything you've written so far. I hope things work out for your family.

I don't think this is a surprise to anyone but this story is on an indefinite hiatus. It probably will never be finished, and I don't even know if I'm going to be working on it anymore. I'm not a writer and I tried to write something I couldn't hope to finish. And it all feels so unoriginal and uninspired now. 

I don't know. There is more going on right now with me. Maybe that is coloring my perception or maybe I really do hate this story now. But this isn't a fucking blog about my feelings and in the end it doesn't matter. I can't keep having this story and thread on my mind. It just makes me feel like shit to see how long it's been since the last part. So I might as well announce that I'm not working on it, on the off chance anybody still thought that I was.

So I'm sorry to those of you that cared. I didn't want to let this get buried without any word. I know there are those of you that cared. I still don't know what I want to do with the forum. It isn't very good for me lately. I don't think I'll be very active even if I'm around. So I'm sorry if I don't respond to anything anyone might say in the thread or on the forum in general. 

Thanks to everyone that read this story. I'm sorry it will probably never be done. I hope you all do well.

You really don't need to be beating yourself up over this. Do you have any idea how many stories have been started and abandoned around these parts? Yes I'd have liked to see it continues but only if you feel good about it and it was something you even wanted to do.

I don't know what's going on with you IRL, but I hope it gets better. You sound majorly stressed and a thread on a just for fun writing site shouldn't be one of the things contributing to that.

Hey man. If the story isn't good for you don't do it. This is a hobby site. I enjoyed the parts that you wrote. I hope you write more again.

Something to keep in mind. Most of the Lord of the Rings was ripped off of old Germanic folk tales. Star wars was made because George Lucas couldn't get rights to Flash Gordon. It's okay to pull ideas from other peoples work.

Everything you write, you learn from.  And you are still lapping everyone sitting on the couch watching TV.  Anyone who tries to write something gets my respect, because it is hard, and people who don't write don't get that.

Do you know how many unfinished stories I have lying around?  I throw them in a box, and take them out every decade or so, and every so often, I weave a little bit of one into some other story.  Nothing you write is ever really wasted.  It's all part of the apprenticeship, and the first million words are just for practice, anyway.  Really.

Also, this exact feeling that you aren't a writer and that you feel unoriginal and uninspired probably is a sign that you are a writer, I hate to tell you.  Nonwriters don't go around fretting that they aren't writers, because they don't think about it.  That annoying feeling in the pit of your stomach is the badge of our guild.

I'm thinking good thoughts at you.  You are always welcome to post anything you write, and you can be sure you'll get some friendly ears.

No worries and no surprise, TB! Not writing is part of writing, if you ask me. If you look at my profile now, you'll find seven stories that have been started and aren't finished. None are close to being finished. Oh, and that's just the stories I've got started on here, not including others that are half-written on note paper and another pile that's half-written in my head (there's some good ones there, let me tell you!). You can be a writer when and where you want to be a writer -- you get to decide. (P.S. It's ALL unoriginal. Everything's been done, writers just find another way to tell the same story. Seriously, do you know how many times Romeo and Juliet has been done?)

But yeah, if other things are going on in your life, that's going to affect your writing. Really writing is a very personal journey (in most cases, I think). Worry about life, this story will still be here. Trust me, that one really good story in my head has been there for many years now! Few good stories are written, here or elsewhere, in very short periods of time. The only stories I've written with one stream of thought have all been very short and not well-developed at all.

So hey, no apologies needed -- we writers are quite the weird bunch, and we all know it. Take some time, come back, talk about feelings, we're all good here! And we hope you are, too.

No problem at all, TB. Ultimately, writing should be your entertainment more than ours. Don't feel like you have to force yourself to finish something just because we all enjoy the story. It's the reason why it's not healthy to live and die by your story's rating. People are going to do what they want, and you can't let their choices affect you. You seem like a genuine person and that shows in your writing. I think that's clear to everyone following this thread. That's also probably part of the reason your writing drew me in; I could tell by the organizing and fully-fleshed replies to comments that you care about the story and the direction it's going. Case in point, you posted this update. Not sure what life circumstances are going on, but whether you choose to continue this story or not, thanks for putting in the time and effort to bring us a very interesting story.

You shouldn't feel bad, TB. It's always a nice bonus when other people enjoy your writing, but at the end of the day, you should write because YOU enjoy it. If you're not enjoying it anymore, or it makes you stressed, or if you have more important stuff to deal with right now, then you should definitely put it on hold.

Would be great if you did come back and finish it sometime, but again, that should only be if you actually want to write it. You're under no obligation to anyone to finish the story if you don't want to.

Either way, I really hope that things get better and you start to feel more like yourself soon. Take care. x

I think being a bit bipolar is inherent in the act of writing, especially when it comes to longer projects. Basically, when we're taking on a long and involved project, we're committing all of our creative energy to a project that is ultimately an act of self-indulgence. We're not feeding orphans, curing cancer, or rescuing beached whales; we're trying to prove ourselves in a competitive environment. No matter who we are, there is always a good deal of ego involved, and sometimes a switch is flipped inside our heads and it's impossible to see a positive outcome from our efforts.

Regardless of subject matter, a writer is someone who latches onto an idea, or a conceit, and then runs with it for weeks/months/years at a time. When we're feeling high, that's when the words flow easily and we're fully invested in developing that original concept; even when we're not physically at our laptop composing new sentences, we're coming up with new and wonderful ideas... and hoping we can remember them later. The words flow easily, and we feel like masters of the worlds we create or the ideas we shape.

But when we're low, it's outright depression. The whole enterprise is ridiculous, no one's going to read this, it's all pointless. Writing a single sentence is a struggle because we've lost the ability to care; stringing words together is a chore, and there are other things we'd rather be doing. Over the years, I've been mightily tempted to pull the plug on several of my projects.

Ultimately, though, what brings us back is a need to create something. Myself, I need to have projects in development, otherwise I feel bored and listless. But I've learned to respect the cyclical nature of the highs and the lows — when to write, and when to pour a glass of whiskey and watch a movie until I fall asleep.

So, TB, drink your vodka straight, get some good long hours of sleep, go do something distracting, and see where you are after a few days.

Part 4: Next Stop, Pushkinskaya Station

The wheels of the railcar clatter and squeak as we make our way back home. The tunnel, a dark and quiet place just a few hours ago, is nearly unrecognizable. The lanterns are now lit, bathing the tunnel in a bright orange glow. Squads of militiamen march in formation towards Vladimirskaya while singing of battles I had never heard of. Members of the Labor Battalion scurry about under constant surveillance. They hang posters and banners along the tunnel walls and carry supplies to the troops. A few of the militiamen salute the railcar as it passes and I return an informal salute back to them. An acrid smell assaults me and I turn around to find the culprit. The door leading to the spiders nest lies open ahead, an orange glow emanating from inside. The rail car slows down slightly as I watch a militiamen armed with a respirator and flamethrower give a thumbs up to another soldier and steps inside. The other militiaman quickly closes the door and takes position close by, giving the railcar a quick nod.

“Looks like we’ll be having roast spider for dinner”, our driver says to the man with a smile, “Hopefully you guys roast enough for seconds!”

Samara looks over at me and I simply shrug. I look back at the tunnels as Samara starts talking to our driver, who seems more than happy to talk to us.

“So, um, I don’t think I ever caught your name” Samara says to the young driver.

“Ah, sorry about that. My name’s Pavel…er Private Pavel Volya, sir! I mean ma’am!”

“Relax Pavel. No need to be so formal. I’m Samara and that quiet guy over there is Dimitri. I don’t think I’ve seen you around Pushkinskaya. Are you from another station?”

“Yes actually! Narvskaya, a fair bit down the line.”

“What’s it like there?”

“Oh it’s a pretty station. Whoever built it sure like hammers and, ah what’s the word, scythles? Cycles?”

“Sickles?” I ask, watching as Labor Battalion members scavenge the material from the now destroyed barricade that blocked us before. The door to the service tunnel lies closed with a soot covered militiaman leaning against it and drinking from a canteen. 

“Yeah that’s the one! Anyways those things are all over the place. Lots of fancy stuff on the walls too. I heard some guys from Tekhnologichesky Institut came by when we joined the Commonwealth and took a bunch of old papers and some of the plaques out of there. Something about “Red propaganda”. Didn’t think the Reds were ever at Narvskaya. Anyway, it isn’t a Home Station like Pushkinskaya either, so a lot of people wind up trying to join the Militia there. “Citizenship through service” and all that. Mom said I’d make a better comedian than soldier, but hey, beats shoveling shit or mushroom farming. And pushing the lever on a railcar beats getting thrown at the Reds haha!”

I turn back towards the tunnel. The derailed train car sits beside the tracks. I feel a slight pain in the back of my head. Looking towards the train car I notice little faces looking at me from the windows. A black silhouette sits atop the car, watching the people scrambling around the tunnel. As we pass by the car the silhouette looks at me and I feel a sharp pain at the back of my skull. I close my eyes for a moment, and when I open them both the silhouette and the faces are gone. 

“Hey, you all right chuvak? Man, there’s some bad mojo in that place” Pavel says, eyeing the train car.

“Tell me about it” I say quietly. 

We arrive at the barricade quickly. It appears much different than when we were here last. The once abandoned fortifications now stand occupied, with members of both the Labor Battalion and Militia bringing supplies and weaponry to them. Militiamen patrol the length of the tunnel and engineers are looking at the barricade and talking amongst themselves. A sharp whistle from up ahead catches my attention and I see Ivan waving from up ahead. He walks back through the gates and steps onto the platform ahead, with us close behind. 

“Ladies and gentleman we have arrived at our destination. Please keep your hands and feet inside of the railcar until it comes to a full stop, and make sure to remove all guns and armor from the railcar upon departure. And thank you for being such wonderful passengers on the Pavel Express!” 

Samara and I say goodbye to Pavel as we grab our gear and step onto the platform. Ivan looks over at Pavel briefly before turning towards us.

“I’ve been ordered to bring you to Commander Fedorov. He’s pissed.”

“Why?” Samara asks, confused.

“Don’t know. Guessing he’s not happy about your firefight with the Reds. I’ll have some men deliver your gear to your homes. He want’s to see you now.”

“Alright. Best to get it over with.” I say with a sigh. 

Pavel gives us a quick tip of his hat and a sympathetic look as we walk away. Samara gives him a wave and I give an informal salute as militiamen grab our gear and he begins traveling back towards Vladimirskaya. The familiar halls of Pushkinskaya are comforting after the veritable hellscape that was Vladimirskaya. We make our way through the bustling hallways towards the Militia HQ. Located in a large room in the Government Sector of the station, the HQ was often times a hectic and busy area. Maps of the metro covered the walls, both hand drawn and pre-apocalypse. Radios are set up to communicate with the rest of the stations in the Commonwealth. Secretaries and staff are constantly analyzing and filling out reports, detailing troop movements, and updating the largest map on the wall with information. Ivan leads us through the scurrying Militia members towards a door in the back of the room. The name “Commander Alexei Fedorov” is painted on the door in red letters. Ivan knocks on the door. A voice from inside calls us in.

The room was fairly spacious. Filing cabinets sat along the wall to the left, some of the drawers missing or askew. Some boxes were sitting on the right side wall as well as an old cooler. A tattered rug with faded patterns lay on the floor in the center of the room. The back wall had a large flag on it. Three bars going horizontally down the flag. The top white, center blue, and bottom red. A black symbol lies in the top left corner. What looks like an x with lines jutting out an the right sides of the lines, slightly below the end. Around it lie a black thin circle. The flag of the Commonwealth. And large desk sit near the back of the room littered with papers and pencils. Two chairs sat in front of it. And an angry man sat behind it. Commander Fedorov

“Sir, Guard Captain Ivan Petrov reporting! Dimitri Koslov and Samara Fedorova have been brought to you as ordered” Ivan says with a crisp salute.

“You are dismissed captain” Commander Fedorov says, his eyes never leaving ours. “You two. Sit.”

Ivan turns and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. Samara and I take a seat in the chairs and look at Commander Fedorov. His brown eyes look back at us and his face betrays no emotion. Samara begins to squirm in her seat a bit, clearly uncomfortable. After a few minutes Commander Fedorov breaks eye contact and looks down at his desk. He taps a piece of paper a few times before looking back at us.

“I had a very interesting conversation with Vladimirskaya’s quartermaster. A man named Kuzmich. But I suppose I don’t need to tell you that” he says with a steady voice. He picks up the paper and looks down at it. “Lets see here. ‘We found the two of them in a residential area near the loading dock.’ Hmm what else? Ah, here we are. ‘Eliminated Reds at the loading dock.’ This ones my favorite. ‘Took part in a strike team operation to take back the listening post from Red forces.’ Oh and ‘Assisted in holding off an overwhelming amount of Red soldiers at the armory until help arrived.’”

He slowly puts the paper down on his desk and taps in a few more times before looking back at us furiously.

“Would either of you kindly tell me what the fuck you were thinking?! Your orders were to scout the station and find out what the problem was! The moment you saw the Reds on that platform you should have gone back the way you came and reported back to Captain Petrov! Not go running around fighting Reds like you’re goddamn Spetsnaz operatives! Well?! Speak up!”

Samara jumps in her seat, a mix of surprise and fear on her face. I instinctively tense up, my back straightening and my hands clenching tightly. I look into Commander Fedorov’s eyes and he turns his gaze squarely on me.

“Do you have something to say about this Koslov? If so do tell.”

“We didn’t have a choice” I say quietly.

“Speak up Koslov!”

“I said we didn’t have a choice” I nearly shout, “The way we came was a service tunnel infested with spiders. A barricade blocked the tunnel. We couldn’t have gone back even if we wanted too. And the Reds on the platform were raping one of our soldiers. We couldn’t just sit there and watch. We couldn’t go back and we couldn’t sit around. So we had to go into the station. All of it was necessary.”

Samara nodded her head to my response vigorously. Commander Fedorov looked over at his daughter and she froze in place.

“You agree with him?” he asked, tilting his head towards me. “You think taking part in a strike team operation and siege defense was necessary? I expect that kind of stupidity and recklessness from Dimitri, but my own daughter?”

Samara tensed up at that last sentence, her brow slightly furrowing and biting her lower lip hard. After a moment she spoke.

“Y-yes I agree with him” she said in a voice that was both angry and frightened. “What were we supposed to do? They needed our help and we couldn’t get back home! Don’t just blame him for this! I agreed to go too. And if we just sat around or tried to head back like I suggested we would have died. Dimitri wasn’t stupid. He was brave. And he’s why I’m even alive right now.”

I look over with her with wide eyes and an open mouth. I’d never heard her talk back to her father, let alone yell at her. From the Commander’s face it would seem he was equally surprised. Samara continued to look at her father with anger etched on her face. After a moment Commander Fedorov spoke, much more subdued than before.

“It was dangerous. You could have been killed. Both of you could have been killed” he says in a much quieter voice than before. Samara keeps looking at her father, her face softening but with anger still showing.

“Everything down here is dangerous. You don’t need to be fighting Reds to get hurt. I know that plenty well” Samara says, brushing her hair aside and showing the scar on her face. Commander Fedorov looks down at this, slowly raising his eyes but still not meeting hers. “This is my job dad. This is our job. It’s dangerous, yes. But so is everything. And he’s always there to watch over me. Every day. You can’t keep treating the two of us like children.”

Commander Fedorov looks over the both of us for a few moments before lowering his eyes. He sighs quietly, his face looking resigned and tired. Only now do I see the bags under his eyes. He was worried. Probably hadn’t rested since we left. Probably before that. He looks back up at us and speaks softly.

“Kuzmich told me about the spiders nest and the barricade when we spoke the first time. I know you couldn’t come back. And you couldn’t have stayed. I still don’t believe you should have taken part in that strike team mission and defense. But I understand why you did. Samara, you’re my daughter. I never want to see you put in danger. And Dimitri, you’re like a son to me. I don’t want you to get hurt either. Every time I send the two of you back I wonder if I’ll ever see you again. And this assignment could have taken you from me. But I understand that this is your job. And I doubt either of you would stop even if I asked. So the best I can hope for is that the two of you promise me you’ll be careful. Please.”

The two of use look at him with surprise. The anger on Samara’s face is completely gone. “I promise” I say to him, the two of us looking each other in the eye. “I promise too” Samara says, wiping away tears from the corners of her eyes. Commander Fedorov nods slightly at us and straightens the papers on his desk. 

“In that case, you’ll probably be assigned a new mission in a few days. Something safer than the last one. Away from Red territory. But for know, you are dismissed. Samara, head to your mother straight away. She’s been worried sick about you. Dimitri, hold back for a second.”

Samara stands up and walks towards the door. She gives the two of us another glance before stepping out and slowly closing the door behind her. I turn back to Commander Fedorov and he looks into my eyes. 

“Dimitri, I want you to make me a promise. That you’ll do everything you can to keep Samara safe. It’s a dangerous metro. We both know that. And Samara knows that too. You’re a team out there. You help one another to survive. And to stay sane out there. This mission was dangerous. Risky. But necessary. Rely on one another. I know she’ll do everything she can to get you back home. So you make sure she comes back home.”

“Yes sir. I’ll do everything I can” I say with a nod. I’ll do whatever it takes.

“Good. Thank you. Now, you’re dismissed. No doubt we’ll see one another soon. I’m sure Sonya will want to have you over for dinner before you head out again. Head on home. I’m sure Samara will be over later. Oh, and there’s going to be an event in the market tonight. Can’t tell you what it is but be prepared. I’m sure the Guard will have you and Samara go. Dismissed.”

Part 4: Next Stop, Pushkinskaya Station (b)

I nod and head towards the door, walking back into the Militia Headquarters. Everyone is as busy as ever. I make my way towards the door quickly hoping to escape the sound of machines buzzing and people talking. Once outside I lean against the wall and put my head against it. Getting chewed out and having a heart to heart. What a combination. I wind through the narrow passages, dodging the crowds of people and Labor Battalion workers along the way. Pushkinskaya seems livelier than normal. People talk loudly and with either excitement or fear. The Guardsmen look slightly on edge, looking around frequently or fiddling with their gear. One of them catches my gaze and motions me to move along. I nod and make my way towards my home.

When I finally reach my door a wave of relief flows over me. I take out my keys and open the door. Home sweet closet. I flip on the light switch and the single hanging bulb lights up the room. The drawings and posters still hang on the wall. An old calendar hangs at the foot of my bed, with the current month having a faded picture of some place called Leningrad. A large bolded “November 1984” sits on bottom half of the calendar, above a bunch of boxes with other numbers in them. I look at my bed and see my gear placed neatly on my bed. A note sits on top of the armored vest. I pick it up and read it, smiling slightly at its contents.

“Hope the Commander didn’t bust your balls too hard kid. He’s got a way with words. You’re gear is all here, as well as a few other odds and ends your friend from Vladimirskaya had the boys put in the railcar for you. Also, hope Pavel didn’t talk your ear off. Damn comedian likes to run his mouth. Anyway, enjoy the gear and goods. 

-Ivan”

I sit on the bed and begin sorting through my gear. I pick up my old rifle and pull the bolt back making sure it’s clear. I then hang it on a long nail protruding out of the wall. Finally getting some use out of that thing. I then place my old helmet under my bed and place my backpack and armor against the wall. I hang my jacket on my makeshift coat rack and put my new helmet on top. The kalash is placed against wall right next to my bed, loaded but with the safety on. Excess magazines are tossed into the box of ammunition lying next to my desk. With that out of the way I turn my attention to a good size wooden crate sitting next to my bed. A note is nailed to it:

“From Vladimirskaya with love!”

I smile at the note and put to on my desk, planning to hang it on the wall later. I open the crate and look inside of it and am caught off guard by the contents. Ammunition, food, water, some money and even a pistol. A neatly folded Militia jacket sits neatly folded inside with a white armband sitting on top. But by far the most curious item was a potted plant. I carefully took it out and examined its green leaves stems. Little white flower buds sit on the stems. I carefully pick it up and clear a corner of my desk before gently placing it back down. Never had one of these plants before. Not really sure what to do for it. Or what it wants from me. I carefully rotate the plant, examining it carefully but not getting too close. Hesitantly, I poke one of the leaves and quickly draw back my hand. No pain or numbness occurs in my finger. Well, not poisonous at least. I turn my attention to the other contents of the crate, putting the items in their new areas and sometimes finding new items I hadn’t seen the first time. Like two grenades wrapped in cloth. Good thing they didn’t throw this crate around too much. After everything was finally put away I take a seat at my desk and open the drawer. I take out a small picture of a women in her mid 20’s with flowing brown hair and kind eyes. Her lips are curled in a smile as she looks at the camera.

“Hey mom. I hope you’re doing well. Wherever you are. We had a close call on our last assignment. Even fought some Reds and saved a station. But I don’t know. I don’t know if this would make you proud. Or if you’re proud of me at all. The headaches are getting worse. So are the visions. I almost couldn’t take it on this last mission. It was too much. But Samara saved me. Maybe you remember her. I don’t know if you do. Anyway, her father gave us an earful when we got back to the station. But it ended up being okay. I guess that’s all really. I wish I could hear how your day was. Or just hear you. But I hope your world is better than mine. Wherever that world is. Bye mom.”

I put the picture back in the drawer and put my head on my desk. I look over at the plant and stare at it. “So, what do you want? Water? Something else? Talk to me. Somebody here talk to me. Why are you all so quiet? Why is it the only fucking voice I hear in my head the one that hurts me? Talk to me, anybody! Please, just talk to me.” Tears begin to form in my eyes and drop down on to the desk.

I hear a scraping sound on the door and a rattling of keys outside my door. The lock turns and the door opens quickly. I don’t even lift my head up. Not like it could be anyone but her. I lift my eyes up for a second and see Samara in the doorway. I put my eyes back towards the plant as she begins to talk.

“Whats wrong? I heard yelling. Are you hurt? Why’s your head down? Are you upset? Can I help you? How can I help you?” She asks each question in quick succession while making her way next to me. She lightly grips my shoulder and starts looking on me for signs of injury. Apparently satisfied that I’m not at immediate risk of dying she takes a spot next to me. “Can we move to the bed please. Is that alright?” she asks softly. I pick my head up and make my way to the bed with her right behind me. I sit down on my makeshift bed and place my head against the wall. Samara takes a seat right next to me and touches my back, looking at me for any signs she’s overstepped her bounds. When none is shown she begins to rub it slowly, her body slightly turned towards me. I feel a sense of calm wash over me. Warmth. Something else I can’t put my finger on. I reach my hand over and touch hers and she quickly holds onto it.

“Can you tell me whats wrong? Please?” Samara asks softly. I sit there for a second, not sure what to say. Finally I open my mouth.

“I feel like in a station full of people I’m alone. I walk down the halls and nobody spares a greeting or a glance. I sit here in this room and there’s nothing. Monotonous activities and monotonous nights. I barely sleep anymore. Every time I sleep it talks to me. Every shadow looks like it. Every time I close my eyes I feel like they might never open again. And I don’t want them to open again. And the only one who seems to truly care is you. It’s all to much.”

Samara rests her head on my shoulder and wraps me into a hug. We rock back and forth and she closes her eyes. “It sounds like too much. You’re tired and these voices and visions are hurting you. I don’t know what to do about them. I pray but they still happen. I don’t know what’s causing them. Lack of sleep hasn’t caused them, they caused your lack of sleep. But you are right. I do care about you. So much. I…care about you” She says the last part quieter than the rest with a barely noticeable pause. “And you aren’t alone because I’m here. And I’ll be here as long as you need me to be. Even if you, you know, want me to stay over here or something.” I look down at her and notice the blush on her face. I place my head back against the wall. “That would be nice” I say quietly and feel myself starting to drift to sleep.

Banging on my door makes us both sit up quickly. “Pushkinskaya Guard. Open the door.” I look over at Samara for a moment then make my way over to the door. I unlock it and open the door a crack, seeing a familiar Guardsman standing outside. I step back and open the door the rest of the way and the Guardsman steps forward. “Hey Dimitri, everyone not working is to report to the market.” He looks behind me and sees Samara sitting on the bed. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to get you two out of bed. But I have my orders. Both of you report to the market. You can pick up where you left off when it’s finished.” He tips his hat and walks away. I look over at Samara and see her furiously blushing and looking down. “Guess we should get to the market” I say. She nods and makes her way out the door behind me. 

There is a good amount of traffic heading towards the market. And just as many leaving it. Shoppers, Labor Battalion, stall workers, and children all stream out of the market as we head in. The market isn’t as crowded as it would seem with most of the working people having left the market. What is odd is the platform sitting in the center of the market. About three feet tall and with a metal beam about five feet tall and ten feet long protruding from it. Two Commonwealth flags sit on the platform, one on the left end and one on the right. Two guardsman carry a small stair set and put it on the right side of the platform. The majority of the crowd gives confused murmurs while a few older people are stone faced. A man in a Guard Captains uniform makes his way up the small set of stairs and walks to the center of the platform. He raises his hand and the crowed slowly quiets down. I look at Samara next to me and she moves a bit closer to me. “What’s going on?” she whispers. “I don’t know but I think we’re about to find out” I whisper back.

“Ladies and gentleman, good citizens of the Commonwealth. As you all know, we are in a time of strife. War between the mutant Reds and our brave soldiers rages in the eastern stations. Vladimirskaya was almost lost to the mutants. Only the bravery of their soldiers and the work of two of our stations fine Pathfinders managed to hold off the mutants until our men could arrive. But this was but a battle in the bigger war. The Reds still control many stations. All of the Commonwealth must be united if we are to defeat this enemy. We cannot tolerate dissidents and subversive elements! We will stand united and crush the Reds like the parasites they are! Slava!”

“Slava! Slava! Slava!” the crowd roars in unison, outstretching their arms from their chest during every cry. Instinctively Samara and I do the same, holding our clenched fists over our hearts before straightening our arms at an angle and holding our hands out straight. 

“Yes, the good citizens of Pushkinskaya will always be loyal to our great Commonwealth, for we formed it with our blood and sweat. But there are those who wish to destroy our nation, both with weapons and words. Four of them are here today. Bring them to the stage!”

Samara and I look to the right as four people are brought towards the platform with bound hands and at gunpoint. Cloth gags are in there mouths, likely to keep them from speaking. They slowly walk to the stage and line up underneath the metal bar. Samara tugs at my hand and points to the stage. “Look, its that preacher guy. And Chernov. What are they doing here?” she whispers to me. I simply shrug and look back at the stage. Two other people stand up there with them. One looks odd, with thin eyes and darker skin than the rest of us. The other couldn’t be older than 12. Tears stream down his face and a piece of red cloth is wrapped around his arm. The Captain looks at them briefly and turns back to us.

“These four individuals have attempted to harm our great nation either through physical or subversive means. They are parasites, the lot of them.” He walks to the monk first. “This one has attempted to spread lies and subversive information in our great stations halls and markets. His ramblings are those of an unrepentant madman. Any who may have been influenced by his lies are worse off for it. This man is a parasite.” He walks up to Chernov next. “This one has attempted to harm citizens of this great station through assault and petty theft. Our governments mercy game him another chance in the Labor Battalion. And despite being granted this mercy he once again assaulted two citizens of this great station. This man is a parasite.” He moves on to the odd looking man. “This one attempted to enter our great station illegally. His inferior genetics and primitive culture threaten to sully our women and pass on inferior genetics to the next generation of citizens. The safety and purity of our women and children are the highest concern. We can not allow primitives to taint them as this one no doubt planned to do. This man is a parasite.” Finally he walks to the child at the end. “This one is a Red. He was caught trying to escape Vladimirskaya with other Reds. He was the only one who surrendered. Not only is this individual an enemy of the state, a danger to our great nation, a subversive element, and a mutant. He is also a coward, unbefitting of either pity or mercy. This boy is a parasite.”

Samara grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly as four Guardsmen step onto the stage carrying ropes. They toss the ropes over the bar, giving a clear view of the noose at the end. Another four Guardsman then place the noose around each mans neck before taking their place next to the one holding the rope. Tears run down the faces of the child and odd looking one. Chernov eyes the crowd with utter hatred. And the preacher looks almost serene. The Captain looks back at the prisoners for a moment before returning his gaze to the crowd.

“These four individuals are nothing more than parasites eating away at our great nation. And like all parasites, they can’t change their nature. They lack the ability to help or improve our station and our nation as a whole. There is only one cure for a parasite. So we can only do one thing. Kill the parasite.”

Part 4: Next Stop, Pushkinskaya Station (c)

With that he turns towards the Guardsmen and gives them a nod. The Guardsman pull the ropes slowly until the men hang about two feet off the ground. They then tie the bottom of the rope to a loop at the back of the platform and step back. Samara looks away, tightening her grip on my hand even harder. I continue to stare at the bodies dangling from the ropes emotionlessly. Members of the crowd scream and jeer at the hanging men. Others are giving a salute, shouting “Slava” as they watch them hang. The guards in front of the crowed stand unmoving and expressionless, facing the crowd with little emotion. The hanging men writhe in the air with bulging eyes and a panicked expression. Tears stream down some of their faces and a few of them empty their bladders and bowels judging by the smell. After some time the writhing stops and their eyes roll back. They gently sway back and forth, their limbs dangling loosely in the air. The Captain makes his way back to the center of the platform and raises his hand, the noise from the crowd dying down quickly. 

“These parasites could not help what they are. But Pushkinskaya, and indeed the entire Commonwealth, will not tolerate their existence in our stations and nation. All of us must play our part in combating these. As long as Pushkinskaya remains united, we will never fall victim to these parasites” he says the last part while pointing at the hanging men, “We will not fall. We will not falter. We will be victorious. Glory to Pushinskaya, and glory to our great Commonwealth! Slava!”

The crowd once again salutes in unison, shouting “Slava” towards the platform. I spare a glance at Samara and see her saluting. But the vigor is gone from it, her eyes looking towards the ground. Once the saluting was finished the two of us make our way out of the market. Samara continues to look at her feet during the walk, the two of us staying silent. Once we got back to my home I unlocked the door quickly and opened it wide. I open my mouth to ask Samara if she wants to come in but she walks into my home before I could speak. She makes her way over to the bed and sits down, still looking down at her feet. I close the door slowly and lock it. After a moment looking at her I begin to slowly move towards the bed. I carefully sit down about a foot away from her, unsure of what I should do. I start clenching and unclenching my hands and look down too while occasionally taking a quick glance at her. We sat silently for a few minutes before she starts to speak.

“They hung those people. And everyone cheered. They watched a child have the life slowly drained from him. And they cheered” she says, sadness dripping from each word. 

“Yeah” I say quietly, unsure how to respond.

“I just stood there. I didn’t say a thing. I just stood by as people died. People we knew. What’s happened to us? All of us down here? Is this truly what we are now? Murderers, rapists, thieves. Where does it end?” she says while still looking down at her feet. 

I don’t know what to say. Maybe there’s nothing I can say. I slide next to her and tentatively put my hand on her back, remembering what she did for me. I begin to rub her back awkwardly but she doesn’t seem to mind. She closes her eyes and puts her head on my shoulder, sliding a bit closer to me until we’re touching. I freeze for a moment before starting to awkwardly rubbing her back again. We sit like that for what feels like hours. Not talking but just sitting together. I feel her breathing begin to slow and her eyes begin to open. She looks at me for a few moments, her blue eyes looking into mine with an expression I can’t discern. She’s given the look to me a few times though. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly with a slight smile on her lips, “Sometimes I feel like we’re the only sane people here” she states with a short and joyless laugh. I look at her a bit surprised. She thinks I’m sane? The guy who hallucinates and hears voices in his head? And who begs a plant to talk to him? I shake the thought away and look at her. I find comfort in seeing the smile on her face, however small it might be. After a moment she breaks eye contact, a slight pink color on her cheeks. 

“So, did you name him?” she asks while looking at my desk.

“Name who?” I ask confused.

“Your plant. Every plant needs a good name. So what are you going to name him?”

“I don’t know,” I say with a slight shrug. “Plant I guess.”

“That is the saddest name for a plant I’ve ever heard. Okay, I’ll help. What about Paul. Like the apostle? He was probably the second most important person in the church’s history.”

“Seems a bit plain don’t you think? Paul the plant. Doesn’t really sound right.”

“Well, what about Alexander? Like Saint Alexander Nevsky. He was a Russian hero.”

“We’ll keep that in the ‘maybe’ pile.”

She sighs slightly. “Okay, Lazarus. Like Lazarus of Bethany. He rose from the dead four days after his death due to a miracle being performed.”

My eyes go wide at this. “Hold on. There was somebody named Lazarus? And he rose from the dead? Like, dead dead?”

Samara gives me a small smile, seeming happy with my excitement. “Yes there was. Do you like that name?”

“Yeah I like it! Lazarus already sounds great. But naming it after a guy who did that? That’s awesome.”

“Well I guess his name is Lazarus then. Maybe we can borrow something to write his name on the pot.”

I look at the plant and give a slight nod. Samara begins to stand up and I do the same. She looks at me and wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into a tight hug. I instinctively tense up, my body still not sure how to respond despite the fact that getting hugs from her and her mother is a fairly regular occurrence. After a moment she breaks away from the hug and gives me a small smile. 

“So, um, do you still want me to stay over tonight? I have this old cot at home that I can bring over. We don’t ever use it anyway. If we move your desk a bit it could probably fit right next to your bed. You could even keep it here if you want. That way you won’t fall out of your bed if you roll over. But I guess if you don’t want me to stay then all that talking was kind of pointless. Or not. I can still bring the cot over I guess. So, um, yeah. It’s up to you. I’ll do anything you want. With the sleeping over here or not I mean. So, um, please answer before I ramble more.”

I’m taken a bit aback by the speed of the words coming out of her mouth. After a moment to process everything I slowly begin to speak. “I’d like you to stay tonight if you’d be so kind. I think we both need some time where we aren’t alone. I’ll get everything in order here while you go get your cot and stuff. Or I can help you if you want. It’s up to you.”

Her eyes seem to light up while also looking a bit surprised. After a moment she smiles. “No, that’s okay. I’ll get the stuff and be right back. I’ll have to tell mom where I’m going too. I don’t think she’ll mind. So, okay. I’ll be back soon.”

“And I’ll be here” I say with a small smile. Damnit. Her smile is infectious or something. Have to get vaccinated. She smiles and unlocks the door with her keys and heads out. I begin to move the desk a foot or two to the right, being careful not to knock Lazarus on his side. I move the kalash next to my coat rack. I place the box of ammunition underneath my desk and shuffle a few boxes around to make the room a bit more presentable. Finally, I take my jeans and shirt off, replacing them with a fairly large long sleeved shirt and a pair of faded and slightly worn out pajama bottoms. I sit down on my bed, absentmindedly looking at the various decorations on the walls. A light knock on the door brings me back into focus. I make my way over to the door quickly and open it. I’m greeted with a cot standing up vertically speaking in Samara’s voice.

“Hey Dimitri. I brought the cot. It was kind of hard to walk around with it. So, do you think you can give me a hand with this?”

The cot slowly moves backwards and I step out of the doorway. Samara is standing behind the cot with a small smile and shakes the cot a bit side to side.

“So, how are we going to get this inside?” Samara asks, looking like a person trying to solve a particularly complex puzzle.

“We’ll figure it out” I say slowly, eyeing up the cot as well.

After a fair bit of maneuvering, and a good amount of frustration, we managed to set the cot up next to my bed. It was a tight fit, but it fit nonetheless. Samara scratched her forehead a bit and said she’d be right back. I got out a few bits of food and put it on the desk next to the cot. I then took a seat on the cot, testing its strength and seeing how it felt. It was sturdy despite it’s age. Well made. It was a bit lacking in comfort though. At least compared to the padded bench I slept on. But it was nice nonetheless. There’s a slight knock on the door and the handle turns and opens. Samara is standing there with a large blanket and a pattern covered pillow I recognize as being from her bed. She puts the blanket and the pillow down on the cot and takes a seat.

“So, I guess I should, um, change I guess” Samara says with a bit of a red face.

“I’ll look away” I say and begin turning my head away.

“No. I mean, it’s alright. It will only be a second” She says with a deeper shade of red on her face.

First she bends over and unties her boots, taking them off and putting them neatly to the side. She slips off her socks and puts them on her boots. She then unbuckles her belt and begins to unbutton her pants. With a bit of shimmying and pushing her pants go down around her knees revealing a pair of faded blue shorts which end a few inches above her knees. She folds up her pants and places them beside her boots. Samara pulls off her sweater slowly, trying to make sure the shirt under it doesn’t come off too. It’s a loose white shirt with short sleeves that has a few holes in it. After folding her sweater and putting it with her pants she finally takes off her wool hat, revealing a head of messy red hair which she proceeds to shake a bit until the hair from where her hat sat is no longer pressed down.

She looks at me with a blush and puts her arms slightly out to the side. “Well. this is what I usually wear to bed. Not really that great looking. Or ‘flattering’ as mom would say. But it’s comfortable I guess. So, um, what do you think?

“I think it looks great. Perfect for one of those old fashion magazine. ‘Styles from the Bedroom’ or something like that” I say with a smile. 

“Oh, shut up. Anyway, what should we do first? It will be a bit before we should go to sleep. So we can do some fun stuff until then. Like when we used to have sleepovers when we were kids. Remember those?”

“I remember your bed being bigger than mine is” I say with a smile, earning a slight roll of the eyes from Samara. “How about we eat a bit. I already have some stuff on the desk.”

“That sounds great” Samara says. 

The two of us went on to eat the little bits of food I had on the desk. We talked to one another, from good memories like our sleepovers when we were young, to bad memories like past assignments that went wrong. I played my balalaika and she sat crosslegged, watching my hands intently. I gave her the instrument and let her play a bit. It produced some interesting noises. Finally, the two of us started to yawn and decided to go to bed for the night.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sleep in my bed?” I ask Samara for about the third time.

“Yes I’m sure. Now lay down and put your blanket on.”

“What blanket?” I asked while lying down causing Samara’s eyes go wide.

“Wait, you don’t have a blanket?” she asks seemingly appalled at my lack of adequate bed coverings. I simply shake my head. “I mean, I never saw you use one. But I always just assumed you put it away somewhere.” she says with genuine worry in her voice. “Where would I put it away in here? Not a whole lot of room for me to hide it from you” I say with a shrug. But Samara doesn’t seem to hear it. “No, this won’t do. What if you get sick? And there’s no way that would be comfortable” she seems to be saying more to herself then to me. “Okay, we’re sharing the blanket tonight. It’ll be big enough for us both. Then tomorrow morning we’re going to the market and buying you a blanket. A nice one.” She nods to herself, seemingly deciding for the both of us that this will happen. I sigh and don’t try to protest or argue. She always ends up winning them. 

Samara picks up the blanket and drapes it over me, looking at me to no doubt ensure I don’t try to take it off. She gives an approving nod before making her way to the light switch and turning it off. The room is plunged into complete darkness. I listen to Samara’s feet slowly make their way over to the cot before lying down in it. She adjusts her pillow and places the blanket over her body. I hear her say a quick prayer and then lies on her side facing me.

“Good night Dimitri” Samara whispers next to me.

“Good night Samara” I whisper back.

I feel her shift a bit closer to me. I listen to her breathing, finding it to be surprisingly soothing. I can feel the heat from her body and it covers me in a warmth that makes me feel calm. And for once I feel comfortable on this bed. Happy almost. I close my eyes and drift into darkness with a smile on my face.

Nice to see you back and continuing these!

That's nice of you. I only wrote this because I was angry and wanted to prove a point to myself. I don't think I'll be back. Not yet at least.

Did you ever read those Metro books you bought?

I'm not familiar with that series except for random mentions of it around here, but if it's inspiring stuff like this thread then I may have to look into it at some point.

I guess it's like the way everything Coins tries to write is a homage to Fallout, except Turnip actually writes. It'd be cool if this stuff was worked into a storygame someday.

I highly recommend the series, the writing style is rather similar to Dune, wich wich i reccomend as well. I would even add Roadside picnic, tho it felt a bit slow for me.

Thank you.

Glad to see you back and writing again. Random Russian question. What does skaya mean? It seems to be a part of the names for most of the stations like they were compound words.

It turns a noun into a feminine adjective. Broadly speaking you can consider it to mean "belonging to". 

Pushkinskaya Station- Station belonging to Pushkin

Admiralteyskaya Station- Station belonging to Admiralty building

Moskovskaya Station- Station belonging to Moskovskaya district 

Thanks. I appreciate the clarification. Love the new chapters by the way.

I don't know why I keep writing stuff for this. Or why I even come back here at all anymore. I don't feel any joy when writing these. No sense of accomplishment or feeling like for once I've done something that I can be proud of. In fact I hate what I've written. For so many reasons. So I don't know why I bother anymore. A feeling of obligation I guess. I don't know. I don't know why I'm even posting this here. I've said before that this wasn't some fucking blog and I meant it. So I don't know. I don't know when or if I'll be back. I don't know when or if I'll continue these. And I don't know why I'm writing this in the first place. Maybe it's some kind of fucked up goodbye to all of you. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself not to keep working on something that causes me so much aggravation when I'm already basically at my breaking point. So I don't know. Thank you all who went and read this. I appreciate it. And I hope you all are well and continue to do well. I don't know if this is goodbye. But if it is thank you all for what you've done. 

I loved the disjointed memory of a chaotic time getting interrupted by an awkward conversation that's not fully followed. Getting another perspective of the world even if it was just of a family situation was also great. I know you don't like writing these, and it aggravates you but I've loved everything you've wrote so far.

Well I didn't respond fast enough to the original post. If you hate the story you've written so far I wouldn't blame you for discontinuing it. I hope you stick around the site though. Best wishes no matter what you decide to do. If you need to get help for what you're going through I strongly recommend doing so. It sucks to go through rougher parts of life without something or someone to help manage it.

Writing is a hobby, it's something you do because you enjoy it or at least feel some sense of accomplishment. It's better to just stop if it's neither, whether that means just shelving this story or taking a break altogether. As always your mental health should be coming first, it's just there's nothing anyone here can tell you except that this and other posts you've made seem like pretty clear indicators you need to look into treatment. You sound genuinely miserable all the time and it makes me sad you seem to have just normalized and accepted that as a way to live without doing anything to try and get better. Or maybe there's more going on, I don't know. Right now is a stressful time for everyone, I just hope things improve for you. But severe PTSD doesn't really get better on its own.

Don't feel obligated on our behalf. You don't owe us anything. I, for one, enjoy the thread, but if you don't like it, then no need to keep going. You're clearly very talented in both writing and reviewing, and we're happy to have you here, should you return. Wish you all the best, TB. I really mean that.

Hello everyone. It's Turnip. Hard to believe it's been half a year since I was on here. I had asked for my account to be banned on here a few months back. I’m only back on for a moment, because I have something that should be said. Less for my own benefit, but more for the benefit of somebody that I care about. But maybe it will help me out too. I’m not really sure.

When I joined the forum I didn’t expect it to ever have as much of an impact on me as it has. I met people that I doubt I’ll ever regret having the pleasure of knowing and that counts for something. It’s also brought me a lot of stress. Being on here, that is. And most of that stress stemmed from my own perception of things, and not so much from how things actually were. But I just wanted to tell the people here that I appreciated you all. And that all of you contribute to making CYS the place it is. While I doubt everyone thinks that it is a very great place, I did. So thank you all.

So onto to why I’m actually here. Some of you maybe noticed when I left back in March, I had been acting erratically and not exactly right for awhile. There was a long period of time when everything was just kind of going downhill and I reached one of the lowest points I’ve been. It’s hard to really explain things. I’m not mentally well. And over the years, that mental illness had gotten progressively worse. Trauma, a lack of proper medication and diagnosis, and other factors contributed to it worsening. And it reached the point where I had essentially lost most of my lucidity when it came to my sense of self. The identity I created to try to help me cope with things ended up becoming less of an escape, and became something that I believed. So the person I was when I was on the site isn’t really who I am. Just something I used to cope with everything else. And something that I believed was me. So, I guess that’s mostly it. I’m an American, have only been out of the US a few times, haven’t seen my father and stepmother in over 5 years due to their abusive treatment, have one sibling, a brother who lives across the country, was very close with my three cousins who lived with us for a time, was actually called Turnip Bandit by an old lady, am getting treatment now, and I don’t really know what else to say. Or what else I can clear up. I guess just assume everything I said up to this point wasn’t true. Probably just easier that way. 

So I suppose that’s it. I’d do some kind of reintroduction to who I am but I don’t really think any of us need that. But yeah, that’s what I wanted to say. I figured I’d post this in the thread I really did care about. But I doubt there will be any more from me in this thread. I threw out all my notes on Colored Lines. Same with the original written drafts. I didn’t intend to come back here, really. But I suppose there’s a lot of things I didn’t really intend to happen. I’m sorry to anybody who might have been hurt by me. Thank you all for being who you are. I appreciate you all. And I’m happy to have met you all. 

To clarify, myself and at least one other person already knew about this, but I'm glad you were able to come out with it here and I'm really glad you're getting treatment and doing better.

If you want to stick around the site I hope you will, you're perfectly welcome to. It's good to hear from you again, and no worries, we've had weirder.

(And just between you and me, no one reads the forum anyway...)

Welcome back, if you're back, or something, I'm not really sure... :)

OMG, I'm super happy to see you again, I've been so worried about you!

And, you really don't have to apologize for anything. Mental health issues are some of the hardest things that a person can go through in life. Considering I went full blown cuckoo for cocoa puffs and had to spend a few weeks in hospital, I know how fucking scary it is when you feel like you have absolutely no control over your own brain. Fucking scary shit. I'm really glad that you seem to be doing better and you're getting the help you need.

But yeah, it's super brave of you to come back and say all this. Really nice to see you again, even if you don't plan on coming back for awhile. But if you ever need to talk about anything at all, I'm always here. ^_^

Wait... so just to confirm, Avery, you're NOT cuckoo for cocoa puffs now? :)

Oh, definitely, but just my usual crazy, not three months of no sleep crazy. :p

Fair enough!

Good luck in whatever you endeavors!