Metro 2034

Epilogue

Homer sighed and turned the page. There 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 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 now: It hadn’t been a prophecy but a warning.

After a week the water at the Tulskaya had gradually retreated. The remnants 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 hundred 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 fought, to run to her. To rescue her or to go down with her.

A never ending stream of the 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 had 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 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 left. It wasn’t an ark but a small boat made out of paper; it wouldn’t be able to take all the 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: we’re made out of countless 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 humanity had never changed, yes that it had even stayed true to itself after the end of the world. The heavenly fire that we had once received fought against the wind and hadn’t been extinguished yet.

Homer’s score had been settled.

He closed his eyes and found himself in the flickering, bright light-flooded station again. On the platform were thousands of people. They were wearing elegant dresses like those of that time where nobody had thought to call him Homer. But this time these weren’t just people who had lived in the metro. Nobody knew why the others were there. Something connected all of them…

They waited and looked worriedly 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, even Achmed, his favorite actors… All who he remembered were there.

And suddenly the tunnel was lit by a silent metro train that drove into the station, with bright shining windows, polished walls and oiled wheels. The operator cabin was empty save for a fresh uniform and a white t-shirt hanging there.

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 in to their seats. They smiled calmly. And Homer was smiling as well.

He knew: when he wrote the last dot of his book onto the paper this shimmering train full of happy people would leave the Sevastopolsaya, into eternity.

Suddenly something ripped him from his magical dream. Not far from him he heard a dull, almost unnatural croaking. He winced and reached for his rifle…

It was the brigadier who had made the sound. Homer stood up and hesitated 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, stumbling, the brigadier tried to search for the melody. He stopped, returned to the beginning and repeated it patiently until it was finally right. He sang it almost silently, like some kind of song to fall asleep to, a lullaby.

It was Leonid’s nameless song.

Homer hadn’t found Sasha’s body at the Tulskaya.

What else?