Norman steel
Dead Towns
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience." Teilhard de Chardin
"Sometimes, when I see the serious consequences of small things, I'm inclined to think... that they don't exist." Bruce Barton
"Sometimes, when I see the serious consequences of small things, I'm inclined to think... that they don't exist." Bruce Barton
Part 2. Chapter 3. GHOSTS OF THE PAST
"War is not a battle with a monster. War is a mirror in which you see your own reflection, distorted beyond recognition."
From the diary of Lieutenant Eric Shaw
Dmitry Zakharov read a bulky, tattered notebook, covered in incomprehensible stains. It had been discovered three days ago during reconnaissance at a destroyed outpost. A foreign outpost! An enemy outpost! – twenty kilometers southeast of the City.
The notebook lay next to a man in disarray, his uniform gnawed, his skull fractured. The last entry was dated the current week.
He took a sip of the murky, technically purified water and immersed himself in the reading. This wasn't just a diary. It was a voice from the other side. The voice of a lieutenant in the enemy army, Eric, who, like him, was trying to survive in the hell they had created. He started from the very beginning:
March 14, 2032
The first month after the end of the nuclear war. Vladivostok is a solid barricade. Our aircraft carrier Alabama is moored in the bay. The main battery guns are trained on the city. Freaks. They act as if we don't know they're almost out of ammunition. It's just a show. How are they planning to cover us?
Zakharov chuckled grimly. He'd seen those reports. "Enemy strongholds are demonstrating astonishing resilience." The cynical language of staff rats, behind which mountains of corpses were hidden.
March 17, 2032
Admiral David Wide spoke of the "mission" again. "Bringing the light of civilization to the wild lands."
We brought them death. First we "established contact," then we "protected our interests," and in the end we took everything that was lying around. They didn't want our "light." They were declared sick. And when they resisted, we came. With bombs and napalm.
We couldn't advance even an inch further. So, fucking soldiers of a fucking army – are you afraid? But I don't care. Something snapped inside me that day when we wiped that first village off the face of the earth...
Yes, Admiral, you of all people surely remember giving the order to use cluster munitions against civilians. You say, "They're dangerous!" – of course! After you ordered all the food to be taken and the elderly and children to die. Ha! You old paranoid! As if you wouldn't be dangerous after that? What am I saying – I'd go after those "brave soldiers" with stones and sticks myself. Which is exactly what those poor bastards did...
Senseless cruelty in a world where it seems there are only thousands of people left...
Zakharov leaned back in his chair. Those words were like a blow to the face from a rifle butt. He looked at the dim lamp in his office and saw not it, but the hot African sun. He heard not the voice of an unfamiliar lieutenant, but his own thoughts, ones he'd been pushing away for years. "We establish order." "We ensure stability." How familiar, damn it. He and this diarist had been on opposite sides of the barricade. And they'd come to the same conclusion—ruins.
May 20, 2032
Finally, we're leaving for the ship. Rumor has it that they took everything valuable from some Russian museum last night. Admiral, you're a connoisseur. Aren't Paris and Berlin enough? Who needs your art in this hell? It would be better to eat some proper food.
…
May 25, 2033
We're sailing. It's been a year already. Where to—I don't know. Today, the slaves revolted in the holds. Seven were shot. The Admiral calls it "maintaining discipline." I call it murder. Zakharov leafed through the diary further.
August 17, 2037
My men ask, "Lieutenant, when will we return?" And I don't know what to say. Colonel Sydney Miles, the admiral's daughter, remains silent. I hate her. She's as much of a wretch as her admiral father.
…
July 15, 2042
Today, one more of us is gone. So you're dead, "President." It's because of old bastards like you that the war started...
…
November 27, 2047
Water. Water. Always water. Years of wandering! Everything that survived is contaminated. Our aircraft carrier is mired in filth and malice. It's been 15 years since the Admiral set out in search of clean land. No land. No home.
December 28, 2051
I have to write this down! Luck! We found it! The submarine "Indigo." It washed up on the rocks during a nuclear storm. The hull is cracked. The entire area around it is contaminated, but further... further—clean! The background is normal!
Nearby lies another wrecked ship, similar in appearance to our research station "Emmy White" (its signal was lost with the start of the War).
The skeletons of some large animals are everywhere. It looks like the ship was a menagerie. The animals from the station survived and mutated. Doctor Jacques Lien says this is where the mutants' source originated. The evolutionary cycle accelerated and took 20 years. The animals were born, died, born, died, and were born again. They became... perfect predators. He calls them the "living shields" of this planet.
01/01/2052
The Admiral ordered a reconnaissance of the area. Landing. To the left of the wreck. Let's climb the rocks and take a look around.
02.01.2052
I'm in the infirmary. My arm is lacerated. Yesterday... God.
Damn the Admiral! He skimped on sending a plane to scout. He was saving fuel, the bastard!
At first, everything went according to plan. We climbed the cliffs and saw the valley. It was swarming with these creatures. It looked like a nest!
They spotted us. The whole valley froze for a second, and a creaking sound came from it, like a broken mechanism. Then were rushing towards us. Horde.
"How are you guys?" the colonel's voice shouts cheerfully over the radio...
The machine guns are choking. The monsters are tearing into our ranks. I was saved only thanks to Sergeant Dani. He fired until the machine gun ran out of ammo...
It's a shame I can't convey in writing the horror of hordes of "those" rushing through our bullets, clawing their way through with their teeth and the giant claw growing where a neck should be. Moving on all fours, these disgusting creatures reach considerable speed. I remember Lee running to the boat, with hundreds of those damn "human shields" rushing behind him... He was truly fast, and if he hadn't tripped, he would have survived...
Of the hundred scouts, only thirty survived. Some were torn apart, others were crushed while descending the cliffs. God, it was terrible...
Zakharov remembered his first battle in the jungle. The ambush. The screams. The same animal rage and the same bone-chilling fear. He understood this lieutenant like a brother. He ran his hand over his face. Another problem. Not divine punishment, not a product of war, but the result of human negligence. A chain of cause and effect. They themselves, and nature, have created new killers. "Human shields"... Almost poetic.
February 10, 2052
Today they gave me new fighters and promoted me to captain. They want to make amends. I became a captain, walking over the corpses of my men.
March 13, 2052
I attended my first "meeting." The admiral had gone crazy.
While I was in the hospital, he surveyed the area from above in a plane. (Surprisingly, even he seems capable of learning from his mistakes.) He says we won't find more spacious land. It's a huge island! He's picked out a bay for us to dock at.
"We'll land and build a base. We'll crush the monsters and their lairs into dust."
Fool! He wasn't there when people were torn to pieces!
And there it is. The root of the problem. The blind rage of an old man sitting on an armored throne. Zakharov, too, was painfully familiar with it.
April 16, 2052
Today, I was tasked with recounting the aircraft carrier's population. Result: 32,597 slaves and 2,461 soldiers. Numbers that mean nothing. We're all just meat.
May 13, 2052
We've been sailing along the coast for the past few days. Today, we came across the convenient harbor the Admiral mentioned. We dropped anchor.
May 14, 2052
We spent the entire day erecting barricades, cutting off our bay from the rest of the mainland. Those bastards aren't in sight...
June 15, 2052
Monsters periodically storm the port. Strange creatures. Mutants. No fear, no tactics. Just the goal—to reach and kill. We're sitting there like we're at a shooting gallery.
June 25, 2052
The base is completely ready. And the slaves even dug a meter of sand from a field the size of our aircraft carrier and planted wheat. Only three died. The guards are great...
June 21, 2052
...today we intercepted an enemy radio message. Their leader, a certain Zakharov, was addressing his people. He said he would build a new City, that he would revive civilization.
Zakharov's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed. His fingers gripped the edge of the table.
The Admiral is furious. He's preparing a counterattack. He says he'll lure them out, provoke them. He wants to take their city, their bunker, their technology, their slaves. He doesn't understand... or doesn't want to understand. We're all trapped. Trapped in the same nightmare. And I... I can't take it anymore.
June 23, 2052
Moved to the checkpoint. Repulsing the monster attacks.
The next entry was written in a different, hasty, halting handwriting. The ink was brown, as if it had been diluted with blood.
The squad is broken. Locked in the bunker. Another day.
Notch. Notch. Notch—those damn notches stretch across the walls. I'll run out of paper soon. What then? Madness, like James and Catherine? Or will I become like Jack, devouring filth and attacking people? No. Better a bullet to the temple.
The last page was covered with the same word, scrawled with desperate force: "MIRROR... MIRROR... MIRROR..."
Here the diary ended.
Zakharov sat in silence, a terrible, inescapable picture forming in his mind. He understood this man. He understood his rage, his despair. They were enemies. But now he saw—they were reflections. Soldiers of two armies fighting the same war, on opposite sides of the same mirror.
And they had a common enemy.
And perhaps a common goal—survival.
Their world was doomed. And their only chance was to shatter this mirror.
He approached the map hanging on the wall. Now it marked not only their City and bunker, but also the approximate location of the "foreigners'" base. Two islands of humanity in a sea of death, ready to finish each other off at the command of their insane commanders.
Clouds were gathering over the desert. But these weren't rain clouds. They were darkness, and they carried not water, but blood and steel.
From the diary of Lieutenant Eric Shaw
Dmitry Zakharov read a bulky, tattered notebook, covered in incomprehensible stains. It had been discovered three days ago during reconnaissance at a destroyed outpost. A foreign outpost! An enemy outpost! – twenty kilometers southeast of the City.
The notebook lay next to a man in disarray, his uniform gnawed, his skull fractured. The last entry was dated the current week.
He took a sip of the murky, technically purified water and immersed himself in the reading. This wasn't just a diary. It was a voice from the other side. The voice of a lieutenant in the enemy army, Eric, who, like him, was trying to survive in the hell they had created. He started from the very beginning:
March 14, 2032
The first month after the end of the nuclear war. Vladivostok is a solid barricade. Our aircraft carrier Alabama is moored in the bay. The main battery guns are trained on the city. Freaks. They act as if we don't know they're almost out of ammunition. It's just a show. How are they planning to cover us?
Zakharov chuckled grimly. He'd seen those reports. "Enemy strongholds are demonstrating astonishing resilience." The cynical language of staff rats, behind which mountains of corpses were hidden.
March 17, 2032
Admiral David Wide spoke of the "mission" again. "Bringing the light of civilization to the wild lands."
We brought them death. First we "established contact," then we "protected our interests," and in the end we took everything that was lying around. They didn't want our "light." They were declared sick. And when they resisted, we came. With bombs and napalm.
We couldn't advance even an inch further. So, fucking soldiers of a fucking army – are you afraid? But I don't care. Something snapped inside me that day when we wiped that first village off the face of the earth...
Yes, Admiral, you of all people surely remember giving the order to use cluster munitions against civilians. You say, "They're dangerous!" – of course! After you ordered all the food to be taken and the elderly and children to die. Ha! You old paranoid! As if you wouldn't be dangerous after that? What am I saying – I'd go after those "brave soldiers" with stones and sticks myself. Which is exactly what those poor bastards did...
Senseless cruelty in a world where it seems there are only thousands of people left...
Zakharov leaned back in his chair. Those words were like a blow to the face from a rifle butt. He looked at the dim lamp in his office and saw not it, but the hot African sun. He heard not the voice of an unfamiliar lieutenant, but his own thoughts, ones he'd been pushing away for years. "We establish order." "We ensure stability." How familiar, damn it. He and this diarist had been on opposite sides of the barricade. And they'd come to the same conclusion—ruins.
May 20, 2032
Finally, we're leaving for the ship. Rumor has it that they took everything valuable from some Russian museum last night. Admiral, you're a connoisseur. Aren't Paris and Berlin enough? Who needs your art in this hell? It would be better to eat some proper food.
…
May 25, 2033
We're sailing. It's been a year already. Where to—I don't know. Today, the slaves revolted in the holds. Seven were shot. The Admiral calls it "maintaining discipline." I call it murder. Zakharov leafed through the diary further.
August 17, 2037
My men ask, "Lieutenant, when will we return?" And I don't know what to say. Colonel Sydney Miles, the admiral's daughter, remains silent. I hate her. She's as much of a wretch as her admiral father.
…
July 15, 2042
Today, one more of us is gone. So you're dead, "President." It's because of old bastards like you that the war started...
…
November 27, 2047
Water. Water. Always water. Years of wandering! Everything that survived is contaminated. Our aircraft carrier is mired in filth and malice. It's been 15 years since the Admiral set out in search of clean land. No land. No home.
December 28, 2051
I have to write this down! Luck! We found it! The submarine "Indigo." It washed up on the rocks during a nuclear storm. The hull is cracked. The entire area around it is contaminated, but further... further—clean! The background is normal!
Nearby lies another wrecked ship, similar in appearance to our research station "Emmy White" (its signal was lost with the start of the War).
The skeletons of some large animals are everywhere. It looks like the ship was a menagerie. The animals from the station survived and mutated. Doctor Jacques Lien says this is where the mutants' source originated. The evolutionary cycle accelerated and took 20 years. The animals were born, died, born, died, and were born again. They became... perfect predators. He calls them the "living shields" of this planet.
01/01/2052
The Admiral ordered a reconnaissance of the area. Landing. To the left of the wreck. Let's climb the rocks and take a look around.
02.01.2052
I'm in the infirmary. My arm is lacerated. Yesterday... God.
Damn the Admiral! He skimped on sending a plane to scout. He was saving fuel, the bastard!
At first, everything went according to plan. We climbed the cliffs and saw the valley. It was swarming with these creatures. It looked like a nest!
They spotted us. The whole valley froze for a second, and a creaking sound came from it, like a broken mechanism. Then were rushing towards us. Horde.
"How are you guys?" the colonel's voice shouts cheerfully over the radio...
The machine guns are choking. The monsters are tearing into our ranks. I was saved only thanks to Sergeant Dani. He fired until the machine gun ran out of ammo...
It's a shame I can't convey in writing the horror of hordes of "those" rushing through our bullets, clawing their way through with their teeth and the giant claw growing where a neck should be. Moving on all fours, these disgusting creatures reach considerable speed. I remember Lee running to the boat, with hundreds of those damn "human shields" rushing behind him... He was truly fast, and if he hadn't tripped, he would have survived...
Of the hundred scouts, only thirty survived. Some were torn apart, others were crushed while descending the cliffs. God, it was terrible...
Zakharov remembered his first battle in the jungle. The ambush. The screams. The same animal rage and the same bone-chilling fear. He understood this lieutenant like a brother. He ran his hand over his face. Another problem. Not divine punishment, not a product of war, but the result of human negligence. A chain of cause and effect. They themselves, and nature, have created new killers. "Human shields"... Almost poetic.
February 10, 2052
Today they gave me new fighters and promoted me to captain. They want to make amends. I became a captain, walking over the corpses of my men.
March 13, 2052
I attended my first "meeting." The admiral had gone crazy.
While I was in the hospital, he surveyed the area from above in a plane. (Surprisingly, even he seems capable of learning from his mistakes.) He says we won't find more spacious land. It's a huge island! He's picked out a bay for us to dock at.
"We'll land and build a base. We'll crush the monsters and their lairs into dust."
Fool! He wasn't there when people were torn to pieces!
And there it is. The root of the problem. The blind rage of an old man sitting on an armored throne. Zakharov, too, was painfully familiar with it.
April 16, 2052
Today, I was tasked with recounting the aircraft carrier's population. Result: 32,597 slaves and 2,461 soldiers. Numbers that mean nothing. We're all just meat.
May 13, 2052
We've been sailing along the coast for the past few days. Today, we came across the convenient harbor the Admiral mentioned. We dropped anchor.
May 14, 2052
We spent the entire day erecting barricades, cutting off our bay from the rest of the mainland. Those bastards aren't in sight...
June 15, 2052
Monsters periodically storm the port. Strange creatures. Mutants. No fear, no tactics. Just the goal—to reach and kill. We're sitting there like we're at a shooting gallery.
June 25, 2052
The base is completely ready. And the slaves even dug a meter of sand from a field the size of our aircraft carrier and planted wheat. Only three died. The guards are great...
June 21, 2052
...today we intercepted an enemy radio message. Their leader, a certain Zakharov, was addressing his people. He said he would build a new City, that he would revive civilization.
Zakharov's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed. His fingers gripped the edge of the table.
The Admiral is furious. He's preparing a counterattack. He says he'll lure them out, provoke them. He wants to take their city, their bunker, their technology, their slaves. He doesn't understand... or doesn't want to understand. We're all trapped. Trapped in the same nightmare. And I... I can't take it anymore.
June 23, 2052
Moved to the checkpoint. Repulsing the monster attacks.
The next entry was written in a different, hasty, halting handwriting. The ink was brown, as if it had been diluted with blood.
The squad is broken. Locked in the bunker. Another day.
Notch. Notch. Notch—those damn notches stretch across the walls. I'll run out of paper soon. What then? Madness, like James and Catherine? Or will I become like Jack, devouring filth and attacking people? No. Better a bullet to the temple.
The last page was covered with the same word, scrawled with desperate force: "MIRROR... MIRROR... MIRROR..."
Here the diary ended.
Zakharov sat in silence, a terrible, inescapable picture forming in his mind. He understood this man. He understood his rage, his despair. They were enemies. But now he saw—they were reflections. Soldiers of two armies fighting the same war, on opposite sides of the same mirror.
And they had a common enemy.
And perhaps a common goal—survival.
Their world was doomed. And their only chance was to shatter this mirror.
He approached the map hanging on the wall. Now it marked not only their City and bunker, but also the approximate location of the "foreigners'" base. Two islands of humanity in a sea of death, ready to finish each other off at the command of their insane commanders.
Clouds were gathering over the desert. But these weren't rain clouds. They were darkness, and they carried not water, but blood and steel.
Part 2. Chapter 6. SOMEONE ELSE'S DIARY
"War is not a battle with a monster. War is a mirror in which you see your own reflection, distorted beyond recognition."
From the diary of Lieutenant Eric Shaw
Dmitry Zakharov read a bulky, tattered notebook, covered in incomprehensible stains. It had been discovered three days ago during reconnaissance at a destroyed outpost. A foreign outpost! An enemy outpost! – twenty kilometers southeast of the City.
The notebook lay next to a man in disarray, his uniform gnawed, his skull fractured. The last entry was dated the current week.
He took a sip of the murky, technically purified water and immersed himself in the reading. This wasn't just a diary. It was a voice from the other side. The voice of a lieutenant in the enemy army, Eric, who, like him, was trying to survive in the hell they had created. He started from the very beginning:
March 14, 2032
The first month after the end of the nuclear war. Vladivostok is a solid barricade. Our aircraft carrier Alabama is moored in the bay. The main battery guns are trained on the city. Freaks. They act as if we don't know they're almost out of ammunition. It's just a show. How are they planning to cover us?
Zakharov chuckled grimly. He'd seen those reports. "Enemy strongholds are demonstrating astonishing resilience." The cynical language of staff rats, behind which mountains of corpses were hidden.
March 17, 2032
Admiral David Wide spoke of the "mission" again. "Bringing the light of civilization to the wild lands."
We brought them death. First we "established contact," then we "protected our interests," and in the end we took everything that was lying around. They didn't want our "light." They were declared sick. And when they resisted, we came. With bombs and napalm.
We couldn't advance even an inch further. So, fucking soldiers of a fucking army – are you afraid? But I don't care. Something snapped inside me that day when we wiped that first village off the face of the earth...
Yes, Admiral, you of all people surely remember giving the order to use cluster munitions against civilians. You say, "They're dangerous!" – of course! After you ordered all the food to be taken and the elderly and children to die. Ha! You old paranoid! As if you wouldn't be dangerous after that? What am I saying – I'd go after those "brave soldiers" with stones and sticks myself. Which is exactly what those poor bastards did...
Senseless cruelty in a world where it seems there are only thousands of people left...
Zakharov leaned back in his chair. Those words were like a blow to the face from a rifle butt. He looked at the dim lamp in his office and saw not it, but the hot African sun. He heard not the voice of an unfamiliar lieutenant, but his own thoughts, ones he'd been pushing away for years. "We establish order." "We ensure stability." How familiar, damn it. He and this diarist had been on opposite sides of the barricade. And they'd come to the same conclusion—ruins.
May 20, 2032
Finally, we're leaving for the ship. Rumor has it that they took everything valuable from some Russian museum last night. Admiral, you're a connoisseur. Aren't Paris and Berlin enough? Who needs your art in this hell? It would be better to eat some proper food.
…
May 25, 2033
We're sailing. It's been a year already. Where to—I don't know. Today, the slaves revolted in the holds. Seven were shot. The Admiral calls it "maintaining discipline." I call it murder. Zakharov leafed through the diary further.
August 17, 2037
My men ask, "Lieutenant, when will we return?" And I don't know what to say. Colonel Sydney Miles, the admiral's daughter, remains silent. I hate her. She's as much of a wretch as her admiral father.
…
July 15, 2042
Today, one more of us is gone. So you're dead, "President." It's because of old bastards like you that the war started...
…
November 27, 2047
Water. Water. Always water. Years of wandering! Everything that survived is contaminated. Our aircraft carrier is mired in filth and malice. It's been 15 years since the Admiral set out in search of clean land. No land. No home.
December 28, 2051
I have to write this down! Luck! We found it! The submarine "Indigo." It washed up on the rocks during a nuclear storm. The hull is cracked. The entire area around it is contaminated, but further... further—clean! The background is normal!
Nearby lies another wrecked ship, similar in appearance to our research station "Emmy White" (its signal was lost with the start of the War).
The skeletons of some large animals are everywhere. It looks like the ship was a menagerie. The animals from the station survived and mutated. Doctor Jacques Lien says this is where the mutants' source originated. The evolutionary cycle accelerated and took 20 years. The animals were born, died, born, died, and were born again. They became... perfect predators. He calls them the "living shields" of this planet.
01/01/2052
The Admiral ordered a reconnaissance of the area. Landing. To the left of the wreck. Let's climb the rocks and take a look around.
02.01.2052
I'm in the infirmary. My arm is lacerated. Yesterday... God.
Damn the Admiral! He skimped on sending a plane to scout. He was saving fuel, the bastard!
At first, everything went according to plan. We climbed the cliffs and saw the valley. It was swarming with these creatures. It looked like a nest!
They spotted us. The whole valley froze for a second, and a creaking sound came from it, like a broken mechanism. Then they...
From the diary of Lieutenant Eric Shaw
Dmitry Zakharov read a bulky, tattered notebook, covered in incomprehensible stains. It had been discovered three days ago during reconnaissance at a destroyed outpost. A foreign outpost! An enemy outpost! – twenty kilometers southeast of the City.
The notebook lay next to a man in disarray, his uniform gnawed, his skull fractured. The last entry was dated the current week.
He took a sip of the murky, technically purified water and immersed himself in the reading. This wasn't just a diary. It was a voice from the other side. The voice of a lieutenant in the enemy army, Eric, who, like him, was trying to survive in the hell they had created. He started from the very beginning:
March 14, 2032
The first month after the end of the nuclear war. Vladivostok is a solid barricade. Our aircraft carrier Alabama is moored in the bay. The main battery guns are trained on the city. Freaks. They act as if we don't know they're almost out of ammunition. It's just a show. How are they planning to cover us?
Zakharov chuckled grimly. He'd seen those reports. "Enemy strongholds are demonstrating astonishing resilience." The cynical language of staff rats, behind which mountains of corpses were hidden.
March 17, 2032
Admiral David Wide spoke of the "mission" again. "Bringing the light of civilization to the wild lands."
We brought them death. First we "established contact," then we "protected our interests," and in the end we took everything that was lying around. They didn't want our "light." They were declared sick. And when they resisted, we came. With bombs and napalm.
We couldn't advance even an inch further. So, fucking soldiers of a fucking army – are you afraid? But I don't care. Something snapped inside me that day when we wiped that first village off the face of the earth...
Yes, Admiral, you of all people surely remember giving the order to use cluster munitions against civilians. You say, "They're dangerous!" – of course! After you ordered all the food to be taken and the elderly and children to die. Ha! You old paranoid! As if you wouldn't be dangerous after that? What am I saying – I'd go after those "brave soldiers" with stones and sticks myself. Which is exactly what those poor bastards did...
Senseless cruelty in a world where it seems there are only thousands of people left...
Zakharov leaned back in his chair. Those words were like a blow to the face from a rifle butt. He looked at the dim lamp in his office and saw not it, but the hot African sun. He heard not the voice of an unfamiliar lieutenant, but his own thoughts, ones he'd been pushing away for years. "We establish order." "We ensure stability." How familiar, damn it. He and this diarist had been on opposite sides of the barricade. And they'd come to the same conclusion—ruins.
May 20, 2032
Finally, we're leaving for the ship. Rumor has it that they took everything valuable from some Russian museum last night. Admiral, you're a connoisseur. Aren't Paris and Berlin enough? Who needs your art in this hell? It would be better to eat some proper food.
…
May 25, 2033
We're sailing. It's been a year already. Where to—I don't know. Today, the slaves revolted in the holds. Seven were shot. The Admiral calls it "maintaining discipline." I call it murder. Zakharov leafed through the diary further.
August 17, 2037
My men ask, "Lieutenant, when will we return?" And I don't know what to say. Colonel Sydney Miles, the admiral's daughter, remains silent. I hate her. She's as much of a wretch as her admiral father.
…
July 15, 2042
Today, one more of us is gone. So you're dead, "President." It's because of old bastards like you that the war started...
…
November 27, 2047
Water. Water. Always water. Years of wandering! Everything that survived is contaminated. Our aircraft carrier is mired in filth and malice. It's been 15 years since the Admiral set out in search of clean land. No land. No home.
December 28, 2051
I have to write this down! Luck! We found it! The submarine "Indigo." It washed up on the rocks during a nuclear storm. The hull is cracked. The entire area around it is contaminated, but further... further—clean! The background is normal!
Nearby lies another wrecked ship, similar in appearance to our research station "Emmy White" (its signal was lost with the start of the War).
The skeletons of some large animals are everywhere. It looks like the ship was a menagerie. The animals from the station survived and mutated. Doctor Jacques Lien says this is where the mutants' source originated. The evolutionary cycle accelerated and took 20 years. The animals were born, died, born, died, and were born again. They became... perfect predators. He calls them the "living shields" of this planet.
01/01/2052
The Admiral ordered a reconnaissance of the area. Landing. To the left of the wreck. Let's climb the rocks and take a look around.
02.01.2052
I'm in the infirmary. My arm is lacerated. Yesterday... God.
Damn the Admiral! He skimped on sending a plane to scout. He was saving fuel, the bastard!
At first, everything went according to plan. We climbed the cliffs and saw the valley. It was swarming with these creatures. It looked like a nest!
They spotted us. The whole valley froze for a second, and a creaking sound came from it, like a broken mechanism. Then they...
Part 3. Chapter 6. The First Strike
Dawn never came. A dirty, brown haze covered the sky, through which the sun pierced a waning crimson spot. The air became thick, heavy, smelling of ozone and decay. An unnatural silence settled over the walls, broken only by the crunch of sand under the sentries' boots and a distant, growing rumble.
Ilya, standing on the eastern wall, felt it first. Not a sound, but a vibration. At first, barely perceptible, like distant thunder. But after a few minutes, it grew into a low-frequency hum that set teeth chattering and the steel plates of the fortifications trembling. A shiver ran down his spine. He gripped the hilt of his sword, feeling the cold steel respond to his anxiety.
"Damn..." he whispered. "Marin, look."
Marina, standing nearby, raised her binoculars to her eyes. Her face turned chalk white.
"They... They're coming. The entire horizon... is moving."
The first to break the silence was a turret on the northern wall. A single burst, nervous, questioning. Then another. Zakharov, without looking up from the monitor in the command post, raised the radio to his lips. His voice was calm and cold, like a knife blade.
"All sectors, combat readiness number one. First line of defense, activate. They're coming."
The roar turned into a deafening tramp of thousands of feet, the roar of an approaching hurricane. Soon, individual sounds began to emerge from the din—the grinding of chitin, hissing, hoarse, inhuman screams.
And then they saw them.
This wasn't an army. It was a natural phenomenon. A moving wall of flesh, fangs, and claws, stretching from one end of the desert to the other. They didn't run—they flowed, crushing the dunes beneath them, black and countless as locusts. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Their ash-gray bodies blended with the sand, and the poisonous yellow stripes on their backs pulsed in time with their sprint.
The air filled with the bony clatter of thousands of claws, merging into a deafening crackle, as if someone were emptying a sack of bones into a giant meat grinder. Through this roar, a piercing, rattling screech pierced the air, making their hearts clench and their teeth ache. And then a smell reached them—sweet, nauseating, like a mixture of rotten meat and ozone. It was the smell of death itself.
"Fire!" Ilya commanded, his voice, amplified by his helmet's speaker, ringing out over the eastern sector. The City's walls came alive, rattled with dozens of barrels. The first ranks of the creatures, nicknamed "bait" and "human shields," exploded in a rain of blood.
Machine-gun fire mowed down entire ranks, but those following behind simply stepped over the torn bodies of their kin without slowing. They rolled in a wave, and with each passing minute their rough, scaldingly cold chitin crept closer to the walls.
Ilya, standing on the eastern wall, felt it first. Not a sound, but a vibration. At first, barely perceptible, like distant thunder. But after a few minutes, it grew into a low-frequency hum that set teeth chattering and the steel plates of the fortifications trembling. A shiver ran down his spine. He gripped the hilt of his sword, feeling the cold steel respond to his anxiety.
"Damn..." he whispered. "Marin, look."
Marina, standing nearby, raised her binoculars to her eyes. Her face turned chalk white.
"They... They're coming. The entire horizon... is moving."
The first to break the silence was a turret on the northern wall. A single burst, nervous, questioning. Then another. Zakharov, without looking up from the monitor in the command post, raised the radio to his lips. His voice was calm and cold, like a knife blade.
"All sectors, combat readiness number one. First line of defense, activate. They're coming."
The roar turned into a deafening tramp of thousands of feet, the roar of an approaching hurricane. Soon, individual sounds began to emerge from the din—the grinding of chitin, hissing, hoarse, inhuman screams.
And then they saw them.
This wasn't an army. It was a natural phenomenon. A moving wall of flesh, fangs, and claws, stretching from one end of the desert to the other. They didn't run—they flowed, crushing the dunes beneath them, black and countless as locusts. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Their ash-gray bodies blended with the sand, and the poisonous yellow stripes on their backs pulsed in time with their sprint.
The air filled with the bony clatter of thousands of claws, merging into a deafening crackle, as if someone were emptying a sack of bones into a giant meat grinder. Through this roar, a piercing, rattling screech pierced the air, making their hearts clench and their teeth ache. And then a smell reached them—sweet, nauseating, like a mixture of rotten meat and ozone. It was the smell of death itself.
"Fire!" Ilya commanded, his voice, amplified by his helmet's speaker, ringing out over the eastern sector. The City's walls came alive, rattled with dozens of barrels. The first ranks of the creatures, nicknamed "bait" and "human shields," exploded in a rain of blood.
Machine-gun fire mowed down entire ranks, but those following behind simply stepped over the torn bodies of their kin without slowing. They rolled in a wave, and with each passing minute their rough, scaldingly cold chitin crept closer to the walls.
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