Having finished eating and putting the earthen bowl aside, Artyom calmly looked around. Two men still sat at the neighbouring table, speaking quietly. While they were dressed in conventional quilted jackets, there was something in their appearance that caused him to imagine them in full protective suits and with automatic rifles at the ready.

Artyom caught the look one of them exchanged with Melnik. Not a word was spoken aloud. The man in the quilted jacket examined Artyom casually and returned to his leisurely conversation.

Several more minutes slipped by in silence. Artyom attempted to speak once more with him about the station, but Melnik answered reluctantly and curtly.

Then the man in the quilted jacket stood up from his seat, walked to their table and, leaning towards Melnik, said, ‘What will we do with Kievskaya? It’s coming to a head…’

‘OK, Artyom, go have a rest,’ the stalker said. ‘The third tent from here is for guests. The bed has already been made up. I made the arrangements. I’m going to stay here for a while, I have to talk to these guys.’

With a familiar unpleasant feeling as if they had sent him away so that he couldn’t overhear adult conversations, Artyom obediently stood up and pushed off towards the exit. At least he’d be able to study the station alone, he consoled himself.

Now, when he was able to take a closer more attentive look, Artyom discovered several more small peculiarities. The hall had been perfectly cleared, and the assorted junk with which the majority of the inhabited stations in the metro were unavoidably filled was completely missing here. And Smolenskaya was larger and did not give the appearance of an inhabited station. It suddenly reminded him of a picture from a history book in which a military encampment of Roman legionnaires was depicted. Correctly and symmetrically organized space, which faced in all directions, nothing of excess, sentries placed everywhere and reinforced entrances and exits…

He didn’t manage to walk around the station for very long. Having been confronted by the frankly suspicious glances of its inhabitants, Artyom understood after only several minutes that they were watching him, and so he preferred to retreat to the guest tent.

A made-up cot really did await him there, and in a corner stood a plastic bag with his name on it.

Artyom sunk into the springs of the squeaking cot and opened the bag. Inside were the things that he had left in the rucksack. Digging in it for a second, he drew from the bag the children’s book he had brought from the surface. He wondered if they had checked his little treasure with a Geiger counter. Certainly the dosimeter would have begun to click nervously near the book, but Artyom preferred not to think about it. He leafed through a few pages, making out the slightly faded pictures on the yellowed paper, delaying the moment when he would find his own photograph between the next pages.

Would it be his?

Whatever happened to him now, to the VDNKh, and to the whole metro, first he must return to his own station in order to ask Sukhoi, ‘Who’s in this photo? Is it my mother or not?’ Artyom pressed his lips to the picture, then again laid it between the pages and concealed the book back into the rucksack. For a second it had shown to him that something in his life was gradually falling into place. And a moment later, he was asleep.

When Artyom opened his eyes and left the tent, he didn’t even consider how much the station had changed. Fewer than ten complete housing units remained there. The rest had been broken or burned. The walls were covered with soot and pocked by bullets, the plaster was crumbling from the ceiling and lay on the floor in large pieces. Around the edges of the platform flowed ominous black rivulets, the precursors of a coming flood. There was hardly anyone in the hall, only a small girl playing with toys alongside one of the tents. From the other platform, where the staircase of a new exit from the station went, muffled screams were heard. Only two surviving emergency lighting lamps dispelled the darkness in the hall.

The submachine gun that Artyom had left at the head of the cot, had disappeared somewhere. Searching the whole stall in vain, he resigned himself to the fact that he had to go unarmed.

Just what had happened here? Artyom would have liked to question the little girl who was playing, but she, having just seen him, desperately broke into tears so that to get anything from her proved to be impossible.

Leaving the little girl choking in her tears, Artyom carefully passed through the arch and glanced at the path. The first thing that caught his glance was the three bronze letters screwed to the marble facing: ‘V..NKh.’ Where the ‘D’ should have been only a dark trace was visible. A deep crack went across the whole inscription along the marble.

He had to check what was happening in the tunnels. If someone had captured the stations, then, before going back for assistance, he had to explore the situation in order to explain exactly to his allies from the south what danger threatened them.

Immediately after the entrance to the line, there was such an impenetrable darkness that Artyom could see no further than the elbow of his own arm. Something was uttering strange, chomping sounds in the depth of the tunnel, and it was insane to go there unarmed. When the sounds stopped for a short while, he began to hear the water babbling along the floor, flowing round his boots and rushing back, towards VDNKh.

His legs shook and refused to step forward. The voice in his head warned over and over again that it was dangerous to go on, that the risk was too great and he would not be able to discern anything in such darkness anyhow. But another part of him, not paying any attention to all those sensible arguments, was pulling him deeper, into the darkness. And, having surrendered himself, he, like a wind-up toy, made one more step ahead.

The darkness surrounding him became total and nothing was visible. A strange sensation arose in Artyom, as if his body had disappeared. Only the rumour of his former self remained and he depended wholly on his mind.

Artyom moved forward for some time more, but the sounds from the direction he was heading did not get nearer. Then others were heard. The rustle of steps, the exact duplicate of those he had been hearing earlier, in the same darkness, but he was unable to recall where exactly and under what circumstances. And with every new step reaching him from the unseen depth of the tunnel, Artyom felt as if a black, cold horror was seeping, drop by drop, into his heart.

In several moments he, not being able to endure it, turned and broke headlong for the station, but, not seeing the cross-ties in the darkness, tripped over one of them and fell, knowing that now the inevitable end had come.

He broke out in a sweat and didn’t even consider immediately that he had fallen out the cot during a dream. His head was unusually heavy, a dull pain pulsed in his temples, and Artyom spent another few minutes on the floor, until he finally came to, but even then he was unable to lift himself to his feet.

But at that moment, when his head had cleared a little, the remnants of the nightmare completely vanished, and he was no longer able even to recall approximately just what he had dreamed. Lifting the curtain, he glanced outside. Besides some sentries, there was no one – evidently, it was now night. Deeply inhaling and exhaling the customary damp air several times, Artyom returned to the tent, stretched out on the cot and slept like a log without any dreams.

Melnik woke him. Dressed in a dark insulated jacket with turned-up collar and military trousers with pockets, he looked as if he intended to leave the station any minute now. He had on his head that very same old black field cap, and two large bags, which seemed familiar to Artyom, stood at his feet.