It was as if they had pulled a rod out of him. His legs went weak and he slid down to the floor, placing the picture in the moonlight falling from the window. Why did the smile of the woman in the photograph seem so familiar to him, so like his own? Why had he begun to feel suffocated as soon as he saw her?
More than ten million people had been living in it before this city perished. Artyom is not the most widely used name, but there had to have been several tens of thousands of children with such a name in a megapolis of many millions. It was as if they called all the present inhabitants of the metro the same. The chance was so small that it simply made no sense to consider it. But why then did the smile of the woman in the photograph seem so familiar to him?
He tried to recall scraps of memories about his childhood that sometimes flashed before his mind’s eye. A comfortable small room, soft lighting, a woman reading a book… A wide ottoman. He leapt up, passing through the rooms like a whirlwind, trying to find in one of them furniture similar to that of which he had dreamed. It seemed to him in an instant that the furniture in one of the rooms was arranged the same as in his memories. The couch looked a bit different, and a window was not there, but this picture may have left something of a distorted imprint on the consciousness of a three-year-old child…
Three years old? The age on the photograph was different, but this too meant nothing. There was no date with the inscription. It could have been taken at any time, it didn’t have to be several days before the residents of the apartment had to leave it forever. The photo may have been taken half a year, even a year before this, he convinced himself. Then the age of the boy in the hat in the picture would coincide with his own… Then the probability that he himself was portrayed in the picture… and his mother… would be much greater. ‘But the photograph could have been taken three or five years before this,’ an alien voice coldly stated inside him. Could have.
Suddenly another thought entered his head. Flinging open the door to the bathroom, he glanced around and almost missed what he was looking for: the mirror was covered with such a layer of dust that it didn’t even reflect the light from his flashlight. Artyom removed a towel left by the apartment’s owners from its hook and wiped off the mirror. The area he cleared revealed his reflection in gas mask and helmet. He illuminated himself with the flashlight and looked into the mirror.
His drawn, emaciated face was not entirely visible beneath the plastic visor of the gas mask, but the look of the deeply sunken dark eyes barely making its way back from the mirror suddenly seemed to him similar to the look of the boy in the photograph. Artyom brought the photograph to his face, looked intently at the boy’s tiny face, and then looked at the mirror. Again he held the light on the picture and again he looked at his own face beneath the gas mask, trying to recall how it looked the last time he saw his reflection. When was that? Not long before he had left VDNKh, but it was impossible to say how much time had passed since then. Judging by the man he saw in the mirror now, several years… If only he could pull off this damned mask and compare himself with the child in the photo! Of course, people now and then become unrecognizable while growing up, but something remains in the face of everyone that reminds one of their distant childhood.
There was one possibility: when he returned to VDNKh, he could ask Sukhoi if the woman smiling at him now from the piece of paper looked like the woman, condemned to be devoured by the rats, who had handed the child’s life over to him at the station. Looked like his mother. Though her face was then distorted in a grimace of despair and supplication, Sukhoi would recognize her. He had a fine memory, he would be able to say precisely who was in the photo. Was it her or not?
Artyom examined the picture again, then with an unaccustomed tenderness, he stroked the woman’s image, carefully put the photograph into the little book out of which it had fallen and put it away into his rucksack. It was strange, he thought, only several hours ago he was in the largest storehouse of knowledge on the continent, where he could take for himself any of the millions of very different volumes, many of which were simply invaluable. But he had left them gathering dust on the shelves, and the thought never even crossed him mind to profit from the riches of the Library. Instead, he was taking a cheap children’s book with unpretentious drawings and yet he felt as if he had gained the greatest of the world’s treasures.
Artyom returned to the hall, intending to leaf through the remaining books from the shelf, and perhaps even look into the cupboards in search of photograph albums. But, lifting his eyes towards the window, he felt the almost imperceptible changes there. An uneasiness seized him: something wasn’t right. Approaching nearer, he understood what was wrong: the night’s colour was changing, and yellowish-rose tints had appeared in it. It was getting light.
The beasts were sitting next to the entrance, hesitating to go inside. The dead body of their companion was nowhere to be seen, but whether the winged giant had carried it away or they had torn it to pieces themselves was unclear. Artyom didn’t understand what kept them from taking the apartment by storm, but for the time being it suited him.
Would he manage to reach Smolenskaya before sunrise? More importantly, would he be able to get away from his pursuers? It was possible to remain in the barricaded apartment, hide from the rays of the sun in the bathroom, wait until they chased away these predatory creatures, and set out when darkness fell. But how long would the protective suit last? How long was his gas-mask filter estimated to last? What would Melnik undertake, not finding him in the agreed place at the agreed time?
Artyom approached the door leading to the stairwell and listened. Silence. He carefully moved the cabinet away and slowly opened the door a little. There was no one there, but, having illuminated the staircase with his flashlight, Artyom noticed something he had not seen earlier.
A thick, transparent slime coated the steps. It looked as if someing had just crawled down them, leaving a trail behind. The trail had not approached the apartment door where he had spent all this time, but this didn’t console Artyom. Did it mean the abandoned houses were not as empty as they had seemed?
Now he no longer wanted to stay in the apartment, let alone sleep here. There was only one possibility: to drive away the beasts and to try to run to Smolenskaya. And to do it before the sun burnt his eyes and the unseen monsters awoke.
This time he aimed not as carefully, but tried to damage the predatory beasts as much as possible. Two of them roared and tumbled to the ground and the others disappeared into the alleys. It seemed the road was clear.
Artyom ran down, carefully, concerned about an ambush, looked out of the entrance and rushed with all his strength toward Sadovoye Koltso. What a nightmarish thicket must be there, in the gardens on this ring, he thought, if even the thin strips of trees on the boulevards had, after all these years, been converted to dark labyrinths… Not to mention the Botanical Gardens and what must be growing there.
His pursuers had given him a head start while gathering into a pack and he was able to reach almost the very end of the avenue. It was becoming ever more light, but the sun’s rays, apparently, did not daunt these beasts at all: breaking into two groups, they rushed along, shortening with every passing second the distance separating them from Artyom. Here, in the open space, the advantage was with them: Artyom was unable to stop to fire. At the same time, they were shifting to all fours, and their silhouettes did not rise more than a metre above the ground. They almost merged with the road. No matter how fast Artyom tried to run, the protective suit, rucksack, two machine guns and fatigue, accumulated during the seemingly endless night, were making themselves felt.