METRO 2033: The Gospel According to Artyom. by Dmitry Glukhovsky

Dmitry Glukhovsky
     
     
     
    THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ARTYOM
     
     
     
    The previously unpublished epilogue
    of Metro 2033
     
     
     
    Metro2033.com
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
                 
    A couple of white plastic bags borne by the wind stick to my face.
     
    I take them off my mask's visor and release them – the bags, re-united with the wind, float away like jellyfish.
     
    No actual animal lives here – not the regular ones, nor the radiation-adjusted mutants.
     
    Not a single living blade of grass or a leaf for kilometers around… It's just soot and melted iron, ashes and concrete rubble around here. S hould the wind bring any seeds here , th ey , after falling onto this cursed soil, would simply wither and never even get a chance to sprout.
     
    Even the plastic bags stopping here for a bit of rest don't stay long and soon continue their aimless migration.
     
    I come here every day and I've long since lost count of the days I spent here.
     
    I don a heavy hazard suit, put on my gas mask, take my weapon and start my climb up the escalator. At first people used to see me off with unusual stares, a mix of condescension, admiration and mockery. They got used to it soon, and now they pay me no attention at all. I like it better this way.
     
    I don't even know what am I looking for here myself. I might not even be looking for anything in particular at all. A fter all, they do say that the murderers are for some reason drawn towards the place where they carried out their crime, so might it just be an acute case of that?
     
    One thing I know for certain – I'm not going to find any forgiveness or hope here.
    I rabble the dirt with my boot, rummage through the melted iron bars.
     
    I only find soot instead of forgiveness and ashes instead of hope.
     
    And I will be coming here until my legs give.
     
    *               *               *
     
    They gave me a hero's welcome.
     
    They were ragged, they were tattered, bloodied and burned. I came down from a bomb-crippled concrete broadcast tower, but the look in their eyes told me I might as well be coming down from heaven in a shiny chariot.
     
    All I wanted was to die, so I ripped the gas mask off my face. The air, the polluted and poisoned air , which I wanted to taste for so long, filled my lungs. Yet I felt nothing.
     
    I stumbled along the street hoping something would just eat me before I got back to the Metro. But the monsters that were quite recently longing for my blood had apparently developed disgust towards it now.
     
    And when I reached the Metro, a crowd was already waiting for me there.
     
    They came topside despite the taboo , to see the ground I won back for their children from the demons. And when they saw me breathe surface's frosty air some of them started removing their masks , too. It seemed to them that my victory had already given their long lost world right back to them. What they didn't know was that I'd just destroyed their last chance for salvation. And I never told them.
     
    I saw a woman with a child among those who came to welcome me back. Didn't she fear for the boy's life? She probably did. Yet, just a few hours before she knew for sure she was going to die. Everybody here, all these worn-out people , until quite recently were ready to die. They stayed at a besieged stat ion for they had nowhere to run. T hey stayed to defend their home until the end, which was absolutely sure to follow soon. Would people , granted pardon mere moments before their execution , be afraid of catching a cold? They wouldn't be afraid of anything.
     
    They had no idea their execution was simply replaced with a life sentence.
    The boy being held by his mother had already taken off his improvised gas mask and was waving towards me.
     
    –         Look, Artyom! Look! It's snowing!
     
    Grey flakes were slowly falling down, covering the brown dirt and the black cracked asphalt. I caught some