In that moment a dirty and young soldier stepped through the crowd, pressed himself passed the not moving black rows, grabbed the radio on its iron construction and yelled something into it (yes, that was meant to be Artyom, good thing that Metro 2034 isn’t the story of Last Light. Now we can ignore his death entirely and say that it is not canon).
Immediately a suppressor made a clicking sound and the soldier fell to the ground. The crowd smelled the blood and growled angrily.
Again the musician started to play his instrument but in the next moment the magic disappeared. Somebody shot at him, the flute fell out of his hands and he reached for his stomach.
The ends of the flamethrower spat out small flames.
Sasha stormed to Leonid and didn’t care for the crowd. The phalanx was now only made out off the barrels of an uncountable amount of guns. The made a step forward.
“No!” She screamed. She stood alone against hundredths of terrible creatures … Against a legion of killers … Against the whole world. “I want a miracle!”
Suddenly distant thunder sounded. The tomb shook itself; the crowd shivered and even the formation of fighters made one step back. Thin streams started to flow over the ground, from the ceiling the first drops fell, louder and louder the river rushed to them …
“A break in!” Screamed someone.
The fighters retreated hastily out of the station and to the hermetic gate. Homer ran with them but again and again he turned around for Sasha who wasn’t moving.
She put her hands and face under the water which fell onto her and … Laughed. “That’s rain!” She yelled “It’s going to wash everything clean! We can start again!”
The black battalion was already standing behind the gate and Homer had made it in time too. Some of the fighters pressed themselves against the gate to close the Tulskaya and tried to keep the water back.
The door started to give in slowly. When Homer started to realize that he started running to get Sasha who was still standing in the middle of the station but somebody held him back and threw him to the ground.
Then one of the fighters jumped to the door, put his hand threw the narrower and narrower getting slit and yelled at the girl: “Here! I need you!”
The water was already at their knees. Suddenly Sasha’s blond hair went under the water and disappeared.
The fighter retracted his hand and the door closed.
The door didn’t open. The tunnel was shaking and on the other side the echo of an explosion was beating against the steel plate. Then it distanced itself again.
Denis Michailovitsch put his ear against the door, listed for a while and looked surprised at the wet ceiling.
“We turn back!” he ordered. “Everything is done here”
Epilogue
Homer sighed and turned the page. It was only a little bit of space left in his book, only a few pages. What should he write on them, what was he willing to sacrifice? He put his hand to the fire, to warm his cold fingers and to calm them down.
The old man had asked to be transferred to the southern guard post. Here, viewing the tunnel he could work better than at home at the Sevastopolskaya between all the dead newspapers. Even Yelena was letting him come to rest.
Homer looked up. The brigadier sat apart from the other guards, at the furthest border of light and darkness. Why had he chosen the Sevastopolskaya out of all stations?
Something had to be special about this station …
Hunter had never told him what had happened at the Polyanka back then. But Homer knew no It hadn’t been a prophecy but a warning.
After a week the water at the Tulskaya had gradually retreated. The last rests had been pumped away by the giant pumps of the ring line and Homer had volunteered immediately to enter the station with the recon team of the station.
This catastrophe had claimed almost three hundredth victims. While Homer turned over corpses he didn’t feel disgust. He didn’t feel anything. He was just searching for her, searched for her again and again …
After that he had sat at the same place for a long time where he had last seen the girl. When he had hesitated, instead of to fight, to run to her. To rescue her or to go down with her.
A never ending stream of sick and healthy wandered past him, into the direction of the Sevastopolskaya and to the healing tunnel of the Kachovskaya line. The musician hadn’t lied: Radiation really stopped the sickness.
And who knows: Maybe he hadn’t lied at all.
Maybe the emerald city existed somewhere and you just had to find the gate. Maybe he had stood often enough in front of it and just not deserved that to be let in.
Now he wouldn’t see it anymore till “the water retreated”.
But the emerald city wasn’t an ark; the true ark was the metro itself. The last refuge that had kept Noah and Sem and Ham from the dark towering water, the righteous and the villains at the same time. Of every kind a pair. Everybody who still had a score to settle. Believer or sinner.
They were too many. That was apparent, not all could be in this novel. The notebook of the old man had almost no empty pages anymore. It wasn’t an ark but a small boat out of paper; it wouldn’t be able to take all humans on board. But still, Homer felt that he had done it, with careful lines he had brought something important onto those pages.
Not about the humans. About the humans.
The memories of all who had died before us didn’t disappear, he thought. When our world is woven out of deeds and thoughts of other people, so if we’re made out of uncountable mosaic stones which we inherited from thousands of our ancestors, they must have left a trail in us. We must have received a small part of their souls when we were born. You just had to look closely enough.
Even Homer’s little boat, folded out of paper, out of thoughts and memories would swim along for eternity along the ocean of time, until somebody picked it up again, looked at it and realized that the humanity had never changed, yes it had even stayed true to themselves after the end of the world. The heavenly fire we had once received fought against the wind but hadn’t been extinguished yet.
Homer’s score had been settled.
He closed his eyes and found himself in the flickering, from bright white light flooded station again. On the platform were thousands of people. They were wearing elegant dresses like out of that time where nobody had thought to call him Homer. But this time there weren’t just people under them who had lived in the metro. Nobody knew who the others were there. Something connected all of them …
They waited and looked worried at the dark tunnel.
And suddenly Homer recognized their faces. It was his wife and his children, his colleagues, classmates, his neighbors, his best friends, Achmed and his favorite actors.
All that he remembered where there.
And suddenly the tunnel was lit by a silent metro train that drove into the station, whith bright shining windows, polished walls and oiled wheels. The operator cabin was empty, only a fresh cleaned uniform and a white t-shirt were hanging in it.
That is my uniform, thought Homer. And my place.
He entered the cabin, opened the doors of the wagon and gave the signal. The crowd pushed themselves into the train and separated themselves onto the seats. All passengers found a seat and smiled calmly. And Homer was smiling as well.
He kne When he put the last dot of his book onto the paper this shimmering train would leave the Sevastopolsaya full of happy people, into eternity.
Suddenly something ripped him from his magical dream. Not far from him he heard a dump, almost unnatural croaking. He winched and reached for his rifle …
It was the brigadier who had made the sound. Homer stood up and already wanted to go to the brigadier, but he croaked again, this time a bit higher … And again … A bit lower.
Homer listened and suddenly he started to shiver. He didn’t believe his ears.
Huskily and stumbling the brigadier tried to search for a melody. He stopped, returned to the beginning and repeated it patien
tly until it was finally right. He sang it almost silent, like some kind of song that would put you to sleep.
It was Leonid’s nameless song.
Homer hadn’t found Sasha’s body at the Tulskaya.
What else?
(Closing comments of the translator)
I did like this book, not as much as 2033 but it was alright.
It has been translated into a few languages, that was in 2010. Even now there are no plans for an English translation. It there may never be an official one. I think Artyom’s death could be responsible for it. That was the only part that I hated and I am happy that Metro Last Light won’t follow the story of Metro 2034. Artyom isn’t just the protagonist of the book and the games; he is us – the reader or the player – venturing into the darkness and uncertainty of the Moscow metro. I hope that you still enjoyed this fan translation, please let me know if you did. Because I enjoyed translating it for you (well most of the time )
See you around on Youtube and the internet.
METRO2033Artjom
July 14 2012
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