Author's note: I figured posting just one other story I've been working on (instead of uploading The Snork) couldn't do harm. :3 So here, have 3 chapters in a row!
I hope you enjoy.
The Monolith was gone.
His presence was no longer felt, His voice no longer heard.
Many took their own lives, unable to go on without a leader. Many more remained, defending their territory, doing everything they could so that the Monolith would come back and bestow His grace upon them again. Some left, lost and confused, claiming they were going in a Crusade to find the Monolith.
The Crusaders were never seen again.
Others, like Blade, remained. Even if they were simply empty shells, shadows of their former selves. Like automats, they moved, talked, aimed and shot. But their willpower was gone, and so was the fight in them, and they were found curled on the ground and crying with alarming frequency, like abandoned children.
The Monolith was all those men knew. The Monolith was all Blade knew.
His absence was ghastly felt. In a moment, He was there, guiding them, protecting them… and in the other there was emptiness; no divine presence to reassure them, no voice taming their fears and telling them what to do. With the Monolith gone, so were the promises of a better life, of a reward for their loyal behaviour and faithful services. With the Monolith gone, they had to deal with the uncertainty of life, with the silent streets and dark corners, with horrid mutants and waves of intruders trying to take their home away from them.
Blade was a leader, but by no means such a good leader like the Monolith. He did his best to keep his men's spirits, keep them fighting and believing in their cause. Yet they could feel the fight leaving him as well, and his willpower and charisma dropped day by day.
In the end, Blade was the last man standing protecting the entrance to Pripyat. His men were either dead or lost to themselves. All of his brothers' lives depended on him, and him alone.
Blade himself was no better than his men. Besides having to fight his own empty and scared mind, he was starting to feel pain again, and tiredness, and cold. He wasn't young and had fought many battles, so those were weaknesses he could not afford. He could not be weak. He had to keep fighting for the Monolith, he had to prove himself worthy of serving Him.
He had to give the Monolith a reason to return.
So one night, when he was standing guard in the tunnel that allowed a passage from Pripyat to the outside Zone, pacing back and forth with silent steps, he was treacherously attacked by the back. Blade did his best to fight off his attacker and took advantage of the hand-to-hand combat to make good use of his hunting knives.
He was good with knives, hence his brothers referring to him as Blade. With time, that became his name, and Blade knew no other name for himself.
But he wasn't insensitive to pain and fatigue anymore, and his opponent was a fighter as good as he.
Ultimately, Blade suffered a blow from the right, a blow he had failed to see. The blow itself wasn't strong enough to put him down, just left him with a slight headache. No, what made him freeze and kneel, slowly, finally giving up, was the fact that he had not seen.
Blade's right eye had been covered in mist since Blade could remember. Yet the Monolith, pleased with his service, had granted him the ability to see again from his blind eye.
Now, that he couldn't see anymore, Blade was sure of it.
The Monolith had abandoned him.
There was nothing left for him worth fighting for. Not even his own life, because without the Monolith there was no life.
"Hammer? Man, you there?"
"Yeah. You made it!"
"'course I did! Hatchet's going to be proud of us!"
Hammer signaled him it was safe to leave the tunnel, so the mercenary – Blue – happily trotted out of tunnel pushing his prisoner along. Blue and Hammer had done something no one ever had: capture a Monolithian alive and take him to interrogation:
"Come on, this place is full of dogs," Hammer grumbled, motioning with his head the several dead dogs scattered around his hiding-place, where he had been guarding the entrance to the underground level to assure his comrade's safety. "What took you so long?"
Pushing the Monolithian forwards with the muzzle of his rifle, Blue used his other hand to open the closed cycle breathing system -or «aquarium», as Hammer called it- and took a moment to enjoy the feeling of fresh air against his flushed cheeks. Hammer found a way to fit the expensive gear inside Blue's overloaded backpack, while urging his comrade to put on his usual gas mask again and get the hell out of that place:
"You know damn well there's gas and mutants in that tunnel," Blue said, and when he finally resolved he had had enough of fresh air and put on his gas mask, both mercenaries strode out of the Jupiter Factory, dragging their prisoner along. They almost made it undisturbed, but a pack of bling dogs leaded by a massive pseudodog began to chase them when they were still inside the factory complex and followed them outside, through the vegetation.
The mercenaries didn't want to waste ammo and time with the mutants, so they opted for running the faster they could. Their prisoner had no other choice than running along, with his hands firmly tied with rope behind his back and his shoulder under the iron grip of Blue.
They ran down the road, with the canal of water at their right and the dogs behind them. Fortunately, the dogs decided to leave them alone once the men reached the swampy area that kept the canal next to the road full of water.
Upon realising they weren't being chased anymore, the mercenaries left the road and decided to stop a bit by the waterside and catch their breath. Hammer, after avidly emptying a can of energy drink, studied their prisoner for a moment; an average-sized, yet sturdy, man wearing a Monolith suit with the typical splinter pattern urban camo, though the tactical vest and the carrying pouches were missing. The man's face was bony and heavily scarred, with what appeared to be shrapnel scars crossing the right side of his face all the way down his forehead, across his eye and down to the corner of his mouth. In fact, the Monolithian's right eye was misty and lifeless, unmoving, with the eyelid slightly drooped and barely able to move and blink. His nose was crooked, having been broken several times, and both his head and face were completely shaved. The Monolithian had the gait of a dead man standing and his other eye, green, stared unmoving to the horizon. Hammer frowned:
"If there's gas in the tunnel, how the fuck did you manage to make him go through it without headgear?" he asked his comrade. Blue, checking the ropes around the prisoner's wrists, shrugged:
"He was simply standing at the other end of the tunnel with just a balaclava covering his face. I don't know, I heard Pripyat's a pretty toxic place, maybe this guy's so used to it that gas won't make nothing to him…" Satisfied, he let go of the ropes, held the Monolithian by the shoulder and pushed him forwards again. "The bastard's a pretty good fighter, though. And you should have seen all the knives I found on him! For a moment I thought I wouldn't make it, but then puf!, he gave up and just sunk to his knees and didn't resist anymore! A miracle, I dare to say! Now come on, we have to go!"
Hammer nodded and stood up from the rock where he had taken a sit. Stretching lazily, he nearly lost his balance when Blue threw his heavy backpack against him:
"You did nothing all day, the least you can do is carrying that for me," Blue said, grinning inside his gas mask. Though Hammer had a gas mask as well, Blue knew his comrade was mimicking his face:
"I kept your back safe! I made sure no more mutants or something else was getting in that place while you were there! Such a great friend you are, Blue!" Hammer replied with mock offense. He grabbed his comrade's backpack nonetheless, and followed Blue and the prisoner.
Their objective was the Yanov Station. Duty had hired Hatchet to get them a Monolithian they could interrogate, obtain useful information from and then launch a powerful attack on Pripyat and take control of the city. Despite not wanting anything else to do with the Zone, Hatchet had laughed, claiming no one would ever be able to obtain information from a Monolithian, but had decided to help Duty anyway. Blue and Hammer, his best dynamic duo, had been assigned for the job.
And Blue and Hammer had made it, and things were going nice and smooth. The Monolithian was alive and eerily cooperative, not putting up fights or attempting to suicide to avoid capture, like the two mercenaries thought would be the logical reaction from the guy. For Blue and Hammer, this had everything to work out.
That, of course, if that bloodsucker hadn't materialised out of nowhere and getting hold of Hammer.
A minute was all it took. Hammer screamed in pain when the mutant attacked him from behind, clawing at him and biting his neck. Blue, startled by his comrade, was momently frozen and when he realised what was happening, lost precious seconds trying to figure out what to do: let go of the prisoner for a moment or drag him along while trying to stab the bloodsucker.
Blade was left alone for a moment, as Blue attacked the bloodsucker with a knife and tried to make it release Hammer.
The Monolithian observed the commotion with his green eye, his blank and lethargic mind coming to life slowly. What if that mutant had been sent by the Monolith to distract the mercenaries and allow him to escape? Or was it just luck? Or simply meant nothing? Should Blade run? Should Blade stay? Would he manage to escape, with his hands tied behind his back and no weapons?
Blade spent too much time thinking and trying to figure out the meaning of the bloodsucker; Blue managed to kill it, strode to where Blade was standing, grabbed his forearm in an iron grip again and pulled him to where Hammer had fallen, clutching to his neck:
"Shit…" Blue hissed, kneeling and forcing the prisoner to kneel as well. "Shit… Hammer, hold on ok? You're going to be fine!"
"Yeah, and you're going to be rich…" Hammer replied weakly. Blood gushed between his fingers, where the bloodsucker had punctured the suit, skin, flesh and an important arteria. By the corner of his eye, he noticed Blue trying to reach one of their medkits, one-handed, while keeping hold of the Monolithian. "Go away, Blue. That's useless and you're wasting time!"
"Shut up!" Blue grumbled, trying desperately to reach the medkit through the contents of his backpack. Why had he such a stuffed backpack, anyway? And why were the necessary things precisely at the bottom of the backpack?
Hammer opened his mouth to tell his comrade to get going, when the weather began to get stormy. Blade frowned slightly; he should have run, there was a blowout coming…
Cursing at the top of his lungs, Blue gave up on the medkit and tried to pull Hammer to a sitting position and then help him to stand up. Yet the other mercenary pushed him away and smiled:
"You know that's useless… Get the hell out of here while you still can, finish the fucking mission and drink for the both of us, ok? I want you to keep my share of the money and all the crap that's in my stash... you know where it is."
Blue clenched his jaw apprehensively. He didn't want to leave Hammer behind; Hammer had welcomed him into Hatchet's group, had helped him during his rookie years and had become a friend. With an angry snarl, he pulled the gas mask off Hammer's face and was greeted by a weak smile and his face ashen with the life slowly draining out of him. Deep down, Blue knew Hammer would die before they made it to a shelter, and probably brining his dying friend would make it impossible for him and the prisoner to find shelter and survive the emission.
Taking a deep breath and with a steady hand, Blue took his Kora 919 from its holster and aimed at Hammer's head:
"Farewell, friend," he mumbled. Hammer nodded:
"Farewell, friend."
Avoiding the swampy area, Blue forced Blade to run at maximum speed. The sky was reddening and the world trembled with unleashed energy and the sound of thunder.
Blade was busier thinking than running, much for Blue's dismay, who had to keep towing the Monolithian.
Blade wondered if the bloodsucker, and now the blowout, were signs of the Monolith. Now there was only one captor, and even though he tried to hide it Blade could sense he was emotionally disturbed and the stress of having to find shelter wasn't helping. Maybe this was his chance to get away. Or was this just coincidence, and he was imagining things?
Finally, after running for what felt like ages, they reached the north-western tunnel. Not the brightest of choices, Blue knew, but it would have to do. They made it safely into the end of the tunnel right on time; the world trembled with more violence and turned red.
In a fit of rage, Blue pushed his prisoner against the wall and yelled, his voice muffled by the gas mask.
Blade broke free from the lethargic state he was in; he could take advantage of that sudden distress. Maybe this whole situation was indeed the Monolith's doing, maybe He wanted Blade to prove himself capable of surviving and, therefore, assure his worthiness of serving Him. The Monolithian's green eye, that had been so static and lifeless until the moment, sparked to life and started to follow all of Blue's movements. He watched as the mercenary paced around nervously, distracted, and waited. He had to wait for the blowout to pass, and for the perfect opportunity to escape.
Blue didn't take long to calm down, though, and he returned to where he had pushed the Monolithian, grabbed his shoulder in an iron grip again and looked ahead, to the far entry of the tunnel, watching the blowout outside.
The world rumbled and trembled for a while, the sound of thunder filled the air and red flashed every now and then. But, slowly, everything calmed down.
And just when Blue was about to sigh and push Blade forwards, he heard steps approaching them and the unmistakable babbling and moaning of zombified stalkers. He couldn't see them yet, but soon they would be close enough to open fire:
"Shit…" Blue cursed sadly and pushed Blade forwards. They had to get out of there; Blue couldn't risk getting his prisoner killed… nor himself.
But as they approached the end of the tunnel, the zombified stalkers began to shoot, and the mercenary though it would be wise to shoot back, even if just to create a distraction, lest the zombified stalkers follow them.
And, as he let go of Blade, just enough time to position his rifle, aim, and shoot, the Monolithian lost no time overthinking things. This had to be the Monolith coming to his aid, providing him the means to escape, go back to Pripyat and fight for what was right. Upon reaching the safety of Pripyat, Blade would be able to assure his brothers that they had not been forsaken.
Blade ran with surprising ease and agility for someone who had his hands tied behind his back:
"What-SHIT!" Screw the zombified stalkers, Blue sprinted after the Monolithian with bullets flying next to his head. "STOP OR I'LL SHOOT YOU IN THE FUCKING LEG!"
Blade couldn't care less; the Monolith would help him! The Monolith would guide him! All he had to do was to follow his heart, that told him to go north. Running through vegetation, he had the advantage of not having an overloaded backpack, a gas mask and a rifle. As long as he kept running in a straight like on perfectly horizontal ground, the hands tied behind his back wouldn't disturb his balance.
He would return to the Monolith. He would give his brothers the good news. They would reorganize themselves, find a way to destroy that blasted underground entry and seal once and for all the only entrance that allowed the enemies of the Monolith to invade their territory.
Blade was so busy thinking about the glory of the Monolith that he didn't notice he had started to climb a small elevation in the terrain… nor that Blue was getting close. And when Blade noticed this, he also realised that, even though his heart told him to go north… his legs had taken him south!
The Monolithian stopped abruptly on the top of the small elevation, in a panic; where was he? He looked around, observing the unknown surroundings with his widened green eye, but the mere seconds he had before Blue accidentally collided with him, sending them both rolling down the abrupt slope after the small elevation, was not enough for Blade to find out where he was and where to go.