The beast of steel tore through the heaps of corpses as if they were nothing but mud.Unstoppable. Unyielding. Unconquerable.
It churned through the charred black bodies, pushing them ahead like a grotesque snowplow, barking death and fire at the same time.
With a metallic hiss, the monstrosity spat bolts from its permanently welded cannon. Each hurried, roaring shot was a rabid tooth of steel.
The projectiles slammed into the fortifications.Concrete shattered. Steel bent. Sandbags burst as if invisible fists tore them apart.The harsh glare of the searchlights gleamed on the bolts like flying knives.
The defenders' MG fire bounced uselessly off the tank itself.Bullets ricocheted from the frontal plates like rain. Sparks burst outward.
The colossus had once been an ancient automobile — but improvised steel plates, scarred by weld seams like sutured wounds, had turned it into a monster no one could stop in a narrow tunnel.
David lay on the ground, rigid, half atop Gabriel's body, shielding him from the fire.He heard the bolts howl overhead.He heard impacts.He heard screams.
And yet… not a single round struck him.
He understood why only when the smell reached him.Metallic. Warm. Sweet.
He lifted his gaze — just enough to see the MG gunner.
Or rather: what remained of him.
The man who moments earlier had shouted "Password!" now lay mutilated on the ground.Shredded.Torn apart.Crushed.
Three large-caliber rounds had severed him at the hips.His upper body hung crooked over the sandbags, his face frozen in an expression of shock — maybe pain, maybe not even that.
Guts spilled from the open torso.A steaming, warmly glistening heap that stained the floor.
His intestines slid slowly from the body, as if gravity itself were watching in disgust.
David swallowed.He had thought himself spared.
In truth, someone else had been hit.In his place.For him.
Gabriel gasped beneath him, blood seeping through the bandage.
The beast of steel drew closer.Metal shrieked.Light flickered.
This thing would reach the barricade.And then… everyone would die.
Only thanks to the pioneers did the improvised wall hold — a chaotic structure of welded rebar, old rails, and twisted beams — stopping the monster for a moment longer.
But only a moment.
Once enemy infantry advanced and cleared the obstruction, the path would be open.The tank now stood in the right tunnel, a black tumor of steel in the poison-green chlorine haze, mowing down anyone who dared lift their head even a hand's breadth.
A gaping wound in the defense.A wound that bled.A wound that would tear open and swallow them at any second.
But David didn't care.
He couldn't think about the tank.Not about the enemy.Not about death.
He had to save his friend.
With effort, he forced himself to his feet, grabbed Gabriel by the collar, and dragged him across the blood-wet concrete — step by step, breath by breath.
"Soldier Degen!" the political officer shouted through the chaos."What are you doing?! The enemy is directly in front of you!"
Either he hadn't realized Gabriel was still alive —or worse:he had already written him off.
Panting, his voice hoarse, David shouted back:"Comrade Commissar — he's wounded! I'm taking him to the infirmary!"
Projectiles shrieked past his head in dense streams.But David did not dare look away.He had to see the answer.Had to know whether the commissar understood.
If he didn't, David would be hanging from the next support beam — like every other "deserter" or "coward."
The hard, clouded gaze of the political officer pierced the yellow fog.Then — barely perceptible — it softened.A single, brief nod.
The order:He may.He should.He must.
"Achmed!" the commissar roared. "Cover him!"
Achmed reacted instantly, unleashing full bursts into the black tunnel, his drum magazine rattling against the metallic beast.
With a sharp hand gesture, the officer pointed at two other soldiers:"You two — incendiary grenades on the tank! We hold them until reinforcements arrive!"
He turned."Radio operator! Connection to—"
The words died in his throat.
The radio operator lay dead on the ground.A clean shot through the neck.
Cursing, the commissar threw himself onto the field telephone, yanked up the receiver, tried to raise a line — nothing.
The device clicked, hummed...and went dead.
A crackle of static — then silence.
The political officer spun around, his face distorted behind the gas mask."David! Tell them—" He broke off, gasping, coughing violently.
Then he bellowed, so loudly that even through the filter the words snapped like whip lashes:
"TELL THEM WE ARE HOLDING THE POSITION!WE NEED THE TANK COMPANY!WITH GRENADIERS!IN THE NAME OF THE CONSUL AND HUMANITY — WE HOLD THE LINE!!"
His shout rolled over the MG fire, drowned out the clatter of SMGs, the moans of the dying, the hiss of incendiary grenades.
An unnatural wave of courage, despair, and raw defiance surged through the entire line, as if everyone were screaming at once:
We hold.Whatever the cost.
David dragged Gabriel onward.A bloody trail followed them like a red thread through the tunnel.
He panted, drenched in sweat, shaking, fingers numb with panic's cold film.Blood clung to his uniform, his hands, his mask.The tunnel stank of metal, gas, and torn flesh.
Just a little farther.Just a little farther.His mantra.His prayer —addressed to a god long dead… if one had ever existed at all.
1,200 meters to the station.An endless distance in the labyrinth of concrete, steel, and corpses.
He stumbled. Something hard struck his leg.David pitched forward, slamming flat onto the ground.
Knees and elbows burned hot and sharp, as if the concrete itself had teeth.
"Fuck…" he rasped."What idiot architect puts a goddamn step here…?"
Gritting his teeth, he hauled himself up, dragged Gabriel with him again.The battle raged somewhere behind him — a distant, thunderous hell.
He must not look back.Must not stop.
Forward.Only forward.No matter what.
He hoisted his friend again, gripped him under the arms, and heaved him up the three steps. With each movement, his bones groaned like rust-eaten girders under too much load.Gabriel's blood ran in thin rivulets down David's coat, pooling behind his knees, dripping toward his heels — warm, sticky, far too much.
"Come on… come on…" David murmured, not realizing he was speaking.
Gabriel groaned. No clear sound — just fragile, dissolving noises near David's ear.Out of the corner of his eye, David saw his friend's lips move: trembling, quivering, trying to shape words and failing.
What did he want to say?
A prayer? Unlikely — they were comrades, raised to believe gods were relics, opiates, superstition.
So what, then?
A confession?A last scrap of hope spoken in fever?Or a farewell — to the world, to the few people who mattered to him… to himself?
David didn't know.He didn't want to know.
All that mattered was to keep moving, step by step, not to let the warm, bleeding body fall.
The tunnel echoed with distant explosions, mutant shrieks, the pounding of the tank.But all of it slid off David like water off steel.
Only one thing he truly heard:
Gabriel's fragile, dying murmur.Like a spark that refused to go out.
"What are you saying…?" David's voice echoed between the cold walls."You need to speak louder."
A heartbeat later, he regretted the words. Gabriel's chest fluttered like torn fabric."Save your strength… don't—"
"H… h-heroes…"Barely more than a rasp.
David bent closer. Gabriel drooled blood and saliva, forcing his mouth to form words it could no longer carry.
"S… sacrifice…"A gurgle."…heroes…"
David swallowed hard. Something tugged at his chest like an invisible hook. His steps quickened.Ahead — the airlock.Not far. Not much farther.
"We…" Gabriel gasped, fingers clawing into David's coat,"…we heroes… are sacrifices… f-for… Consul…"He swallowed blood."…for humanity… we give…"
David understood.
Through all the brokenness, the thought shone clear:They were sacrifices — from which heroes were made.
"Yes," David whispered, his throat constricted."Yes. We are heroes. Soldiers of the motherland. For the Consul… for humanity."
Gabriel smiled. A red, shattered, painfully human smile.Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, dripping over David's fingers.
It felt like an eternity dragging him through the side tunnel.Half an hour?An hour?Or just minutes stretched into infinity?
How many breaths since he'd left the position?Were the others even still alive?
A distant, muffled volley answered that question.Yes. Still fighting. Still.
At last he reached the Heretic Airlock —two massive iron doors set in sequence, with a small decontamination chamber between them.Improvised, fitted with homemade activated-carbon filters, but effective enough to tear gas and radioactive dust from the air.
An underground bastion of rusted steel and desperate engineering.
He slammed his fist against the door:three long, three short, three long.
A crackling loudspeaker came to life.
"Password!"
Panting, nearly choking, David forced out:"F… Falcon!"
With a groaning roar, the door opened —like a titan waking from ancient sleep, irritated by the small humans daring to disturb it.
Three figures emerged from the titan's belly.Clad in the same monotonous gear as David.Gas masks hanging at their necks, rifles raised.
He tried to speak, but what spilled from him was a bleeding torrent of words —like a gaping wound where language flowed instead of blood:
"Tank… gas…"He gulped air."We need the tank company… and grenadiers… the front— it's collapsing. We need reinforcements… now."
A woman stepped forward.Red beret. Severe face.Political commissar.
Why here? Why not at the front?
The answer hit instantly.The radio operator… the first report… it had gotten through.
And the reinforcements?Of course — they'd taken the main tunnel.Straight into the meat grinder.
The airlock sealed behind them.Metal thundered, then the screaming pull of the filters.
Finally, an interrogation speaker croaked:
"Decontamination complete."
With metallic shrieking, the steel gate began to rise — slowly, tooth by tooth, lifted by a massive rack whose motion filled the chamber with the station's dull pulse.
When the opening was wide enough, the muzzle of an MG grinned directly at them.
The checkpoint was thinly manned.Only five soldiers in the supply tunnel — a single squad.Judging by their nervous looks, fresh recruits.Maybe even volunteers, drawn from the far reaches of the Unionto "safeguard the future of humanity."
Free of tradition.Free of ignorance.Free of inequality.At least according to the speeches.
"Take the comrade off him," the commissar ordered, pointing at Gabriel, who still clung like a wet, bleeding shadow to David's back.
A miracle he was still breathing.A being between two worlds —no longer fully among the living,but not yet in the realm of the dead.
Two of the young soldiers eased Gabriel from David's shoulders.Young?Maybe two years younger than David himself.
They carried him away — toward the infirmary.Toward the human sea of blood, bandages, and screams.
Someone wordlessly handed David a canteen.He unscrewed it hastily, raised it—
—and hit the filter of his mask.
Right.He was still wearing it.
With a click, he opened the helmet seal, hooked it to his belt.Then he tore the gas mask from his face — leather, glass, metal.
It felt like peeling off his own scalp.A second, airtight skullthat had separated him from the world — and now fell away.
He inhaled.
Real air.The air of the station.Heavy.Smelling of oil, sweat, metal.
And: life.
"What's going on up there?" one of the remaining soldiers asked, studying him like an apparition from the fog.
David didn't answer immediately.He clung to the canteen like an infant to its mother's breast, pouring gulp after gulp down his throat.
Only when not a single drop remained — after shaking it violently to be sure — did he breathe again.
"The bastards are using gas," he rasped."Sent their degenerate underlings first. We wasted almost all our ammo on them."
"What? They send their own slaves forward?"The speaker's eyebrows shot up.
"Yeah," David panted."At least the lowest ones. Gen-fanatics. They throw them away like trash. Gave them only scrap weapons. Not even gas masks — just rags over mouth and nose."
The youngest clutched his VSG-3 tightly to his chest."Thank God I live in the Union and not there," he murmured, nodding toward the airlock.
Another snorted."Well… think about the poor bastards on the other side."
"What do you mean?"
"There are maybe six thousand people there. But only ten percent are 'pure-bloods.'Human high-breeding stock, as they call it.The rest are sorted like cattle.They want to breed their damned master race — immune to disease, tall, radiation-resistant…And apparently their leader, their 'Gene-Smith,' has a thing for green eyes."
"Bullshit."The MG gunner spat on the floor, wiped soot from his face.
"You know better?" the youngest asked.
"Yeah," the gunner growled. "I was a pig breeder before the draft."He tapped his temple."When you narrow a gene pool that hard, you don't get supermen.You get inbreeding.Cripples.Defects."
He shrugged."The Eastern State is too stupid to understand its own ideology."
"Well, at least despite all that stupidity, they're still making our lives hell," someone muttered.
The youngest whispered, still tense:"Living in castes…never doing anything else…born for one purpose…and condemning your children to the same misery…"
It was hard to tell whether he meant it for the others — or himself.
David only half listened. He leaned against a stack of sandbags, pressing his tired forehead into the rough fabric. His head felt leaden, his limbs like concrete-filled sacks. Thoughts flickered and died.
Only one thing mattered:
He had to know whether Gabriel was still alive.
But his body resisted.He could lie down now — just collapse on the cold floor and sleep. Sleep like the dead.
Everything in him screamed for it.
But he couldn't.
With a jerk, he lifted his head.There it was — the black, furry mold clinging like a tumor to the gray tunnel wall, creeping along a thin crack from which water dripped at regular intervals.
Drip.Drip.Drip.
A quiet, merciless rhythm more torturous than any machine-gun fire.
Nothing grew younger.Steel became brittle.Concrete cracked.Pipes rotted.
The metro was dying — slowly, inexorably.
Could humanity really endure here another hundred years?Five generations?Ten?
Or would the tomb eventually collapse and bury them all?
And even if they survived — would they ever return to the surface?If the world even wanted them anymore?
David tore his gaze away and looked at the recruits.
They all looked the same — not in face, but in equipment.Standard Union issue: same helmet, same coat, same carbine, same stoic façade.
And yet something felt… wrong.
Like a cut whose pain only comes once you see the blood.
Then it hit him like falling rubble:
The commissar was gone.
A minute ago she'd stood there — the red-bereted political eye of the Union — and now she was gone.Probably moved on, to the main line, an inspection, wherever the fighting raged hottest.
David straightened.His knees creaked like rusted steel.But he stood.
He had to reach the infirmary.He had to see if Gabriel was still alive.
No sleep.No rest.Not now.
He staggered toward the infirmary, step by step.Past smoking forge furnaces, nailed-together living quarters of wood and sheet metal, across the compressed floor of the station. Every breath hurt. Every muscle burned.
The sight was familiar — too familiar.
Bodies lay scattered across the tiled platform. A vile slurry of blood, vomit, and urine seeped over the edge. Some corpses were already covered with white sheets, a red X sprayed on them.
Triage rejects.The hopeless ones.Those for whom the effort was not worth the victory.
The medical staff swarmed like ants, searching for survivors — for those worth saving. Capacity had limits.
A military doctor amputated in rhythm — an assembly line of mutilation. Beside him, a medic in what had once been a white apron, now stiff with dried blood, tied off limbs with hemp rope and injected some synthetic opioid. It barely helped.
Wooden blocks were shoved between patients' teeth.So they wouldn't bite through their tongues.So the scream had somewhere to go.
The bone saw screamed.Flesh, bone, tendons — everything gave way. Everything had to.
The patient writhed, cursed fate, screamed his soul out. Before the severed arm even hit the filthy floor, the doctor had already turned to the next.
Behind him, an assistant pressed a glowing orange metal plate — a makeshift cautery — onto the fresh stump. The hiss of burning flesh merged with the scream until it dissolved into choking gurgles.
Soldiers with chemical burns were wrapped like pharaohs in layers of bandages. Minor surgeries were performed outside the hospital.
The stench was unbearable: blood, burned flesh, sweat, old metal, urine.
David forced himself to stay awake.
His body wanted to quit.To lie down.To sink.
But he had to keep going.
He had to find Gabriel.
A company marched past at a jog — exhausted faces, gray uniforms, bayonets bobbing in rhythm. More human material thrown into the grinder. More blood for victory.
And then David saw him.
Gabriel lay there, half covered by a cloth.A red X had been roughly painted on it, beside a black "3."
The mark of someone written off.Not dead — but already sentenced to die.
David stopped as if his legs had been cut from under him.
Had they simply sorted him out?Had everything been for nothing?
Dragging him through gas and fire — for nothing?
He swallowed hard. Maybe a medic could still do something. Maybe there was hope. A spark.
A medic was changing the dressing on a soldier with a leg wound. David approached carefully.
"Excuse me, comrade," he rasped. "What about the man over there?"
No response.
"Comrade?" more urgently.
The medic snapped: "Can't you see I'm busy?"
David clenched his fists, forced calm."I do. But I need to know what's happening with him."
The medic sighed without looking up:"He's Class Three."
"And that means?"
"It means he'll be treated once all acute cases are done."He glanced up briefly, exhaustion shadowing his eyes."If he's still alive by then."
Something in David gave way.
Not screaming.Not anger.
Worse.
Silence.Cold.
They hadn't abandoned him.
They had decided his life was lower priority.
They had sorted Gabriel.