Artyom conjured up chalk drawings on the park paths, the sun casting golden needles through the cracks in the leaves, and ice cream cups in his hands.

Yellow ducklings float on the brown waters of the pond, and a small bridge sways across the pond in autumn.

He was afraid that he would fall into the water, and even more so that he would accidentally drop the ice cream cup into it.

However, Artyom could not remember his mother's face in any way.

He tried to remember, pleading with him every night before going to bed that he would see it in his dreams, even if he forgot it again tomorrow morning, but to no avail.

Could it be that he really couldn't find even a small corner in his head that his mother could hide until death and darkness were over?

It seems that this is indeed the case.

But why did a living person disappear so completely?

That day, that world, where can they go?

Just now, as soon as the eyes were closed, didn't they reappear?

They can definitely be recovered, and somewhere on the planet, they must still be surviving.

All those who are hidden must be called: here we are, where are you?

You can hear them, just learn how to listen.

Artyom blinked and rubbed his eyelids so that his eyes could see again today, instead of immersing himself in the world of twenty years ago.

He sat down and opened his backpack.

In the backpack was a bulky military radio station with a green body and scratches.

There's also a big guy in the bag - a tin box with a hand crank, which is a homemade generator.

At the bottom is a forty-metre long flexible wire that acts as an antenna for the radio station.

Artyom connected all the lines and pulled the wires around the roof.

He wiped the sweat from his face, reluctantly put on a gas mask, buckled the headphones to his head, smoothed the keys with his fingers, and shook the handle of the generator.

The diode blinked a few times, and there seemed to be something alive in the palm of the hand trembling slightly and buzzing.

Artyom snapped a switch down.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the cacophony of the waves on the radio, fishing for drifting bottles from the distant Survivor Continent.

He rises and falls from wave to wave, rocking the generator in his hand, as if using his hand as an oar, paddling an inflatable raft.

The headphones began to sizzle, making a shrill "whining" sound in the middle of a squirrel.

Occasionally, there was a cough like that of a tuberculosis patient, then mute again, and after a while it began to sizzle again.

Artyom seemed to be walking back and forth in the tuberculosis isolation room, trying to find someone to talk to, but none of the patients were conscious, only the nurse put his finger to his lips and gestured solemnly: "Shhhhh

No one wants to respond to Artyom, and no one expects to live.

There is no news from St. Petersburg, and nothing from Yekaterinburg.

London is silent, Paris is silent, Bangkok, New York is silent.

It no longer matters who provoked this war, nor what caused it.

Why bother pursuing this?

For the sake of history?

History is written by the victors, and now not only is history written, but even those who read it are dying.

Sizzle......

The radio space is empty and boundless.

Babbling ......

Suddenly communication satellites wandered in orbit, they were so lonely that they went crazy, and they fell to the earth one after another, willing to be reduced to ashes in the atmosphere.

BJ didn't say a word, and Tokyo was like a grave.

But Artyom still shook the hateful handle, shaking, paddling, paddling, shaking.

How silent!

Incredible silence, unbearable silence. @·error-free start~~

"This is Moscow! This is Moscow! Please answer! ”

This is his, Artyom's voice.

This is him, as impatient as ever, unable to help himself.

"This is Moscow! This is Moscow! Please answer! ”

Babbling ......

Can't stop, can't give up.

。

"St. Petersburg! Please answer! Vladivostok! This is Moscow! Rostov! Please answer! ”

What's wrong with you, St. Petersburg?

Are you really so fragile and so far worse than Moscow?!

What's there for you now?

Glass Lake?

Or is it completely devoured by mold?

Why don't you answer?

Yes?

Where have you gone, Vladivostok, the proud city on the other side of the world?

You are so far away from us, are you also infected with the plague?

Are you not immune?

cough cough cough cough ......

"Answer me, Vladivostok! This is Moscow! ”

The whole world was lying on the ground, with its face in the dirt, unable to hear the torrential rain on its back, and unaware of the rusty water on its mouth and nose.

And Moscow is still standing here, with its feet upright, and a breath remaining.

"What's wrong with you, are you all dead?"

Sizzle......

Is this the spirit of the victim who has penetrated into the radio waves responding to him?

Or is it the sound of radiation from the surface?

If death had a voice, it might have been something like this: ahem, ahem, sizzling......

"This is Moscow! Please answer! ”

Perhaps, someone will hear it right away?

Perhaps, someone in the headset will answer immediately, and an excited voice pierces the sizzle and comes from a distant place: "Roger!" Moscow! We're here! Roger, Moscow! Don't hang up! I've found you! My God! Moscow! There's news from Moscow! How many of you survived? We've got 25,000 people here! The land is clean! Zero surface radiation! The water is not polluted! Food? Of course! Medicines are also available! We're sending rescue teams to support you! Gotta hold on! Do you hear me, Moscow? Hold on! ”

Babbling babbling. It's empty.

It's more like a spiritualist ritual than a radio communication, and Artyom apparently gets nothing.

The undead, no matter how he summons him, refuses to come near him.

They are doing well in another world.

Through the occasional gap between the clouds, they looked down at Artyom's small figure from a high place, and only smiled at him: "Looking for you? Don't be stupid! ”

Ahem, cough, cough.

He threw away the damn handle, ripped off the headphones, stood up, and patiently crumpled the wires into a ball.

He deliberately did it slowly, slowly, to suppress his impulses so that he would not tear the wires and throw them off the roof.

He put everything back in his backpack, carried the backpack - this seductive devil - on his back, and carried it downstairs and back to the subway.

See you tomorrow.

-------------------------

"Long time no see, Comrade Alcohen. Are you ready to join the rebels this time? We'd love to hear from you. ”

Alcohen noticed that the rebel commander he had met before was still so talkative.

It seems that he has come out of the shadow of the death of the bearded uncle.

It was on the way to the Polis metropolis that I met the old man from before. @

It feels so good.

"Lusakov, don't be joking. People like me, you know, don't deserve to be in your organization. Alcoen said, then looked at the beautiful man in front of him, and stretched out his hand to Sasha.

"Come, let me introduce you. This is my wife. Then he pointed to Lusakov and introduced Sasha: "This is the great warrior I met before, who once saved me from the red line, and can be regarded as my savior." ”

"Comrade Alcohen, I haven't seen you for many days, you have learned to laugh, if it weren't for you, I don't know how long I would have been dead, maybe I would have been buried in the sewer by now." Lusakov smiled.

Then he looked at Sasha's blushing face and quipped, "This is your wife!" Then Comrade Alcohen, you are going to be blessed! But I warn you, don't get too drunk on beauty and forget our important mission. ”

Then Alcoen and Sasha followed.

Lusakov went to his base.

It was here that Alcoen met his former friend and sat down for a meal.

"Comrade Alcohen, have you heard of what the Spartan Rangers did before? That's horrible! Beast Mumba said with his hands dancing.

When Alcoon heard this, he just nodded, and did not answer the words of the beast Mumba.

And Mumba, the beast in the corner of the table, was still saying loudly: "I really didn't expect that the Spartan Ranger warrior, who has always been known as neutral, would do such a thing." It's really unacceptable. ”

Then he slapped the table, startling everyone.

Alcohen frowned, trying to stop the conversation, and then heard the beast Mumba speak loudly.

"What do they think, you say? That's a whole subway station! It was all burned with flamethrowers indiscriminately. Whether it's a corpse or a living person, it's all gone. ”

"I've heard about it......" Just as Mumba was about to continue, Lusakov interrupted him.

He said, "Beast Momba, don't talk about this topic anymore. It's been a long time since we've seen Comrade Alcohen, and we should find a way to entertain him and his beautiful wife. Instead of listening here to you balabala-bara some pointless topics. ”

As he spoke, he taught the beast Mumba a lesson, "As for what the Spartan Ranger warriors did, we cannot judge it. And in my opinion, they did the right thing. When the best solution to the plague is not found, using a flamethrower is the best way to go. ”

"You know, if they didn't use flamethrowers, but there were random corpses there. The plague has already reached us, and you're going to be busy here and there, instead of sitting here and talking big and nasty. ”

After Lusakov finished speaking, the beast Mumba was silent.

Then he felt that the atmosphere was a little awkward, so he stood up and said, "I suddenly thought that my business was not done yet, so I went to work first." With that, he left the hotel despite Alcoen's retention.

Lusakov glanced at Alkoen and said: "Comrade Alkoen, you don't have to blame him, you also know that the beast Mumba is a man who has no mouth to hide, and he can say whatever comes to his mind, and he is not a brain at all. _o_m ”

Lusakov had communicated with Alcohen before, and knew that his goal was to join the Spartan Rangers, and what the beast Mumba said just now caused Alcohen's dissatisfaction.

This also made Lusakov realize that he Alcohn would no longer join the rebel fighters.

But he has always recognized Alcohen's actions and beliefs, even if the two of them are no longer all the way, but if he hadn't rescued himself from the hands of the two red line scrambles, he would have died by now.

Therefore, benevolence and righteousness are not in friendship, and I should treat him well.

What's more, both of them have a common goal - to fight for a new life for mankind.

Alcoen waved his hand, indicating that he didn't mind what Beast Mumba had just said.

Instead, he said to Lusakov: "I want to pick up your radio, I have a tape here, I want to hear what's in it." ”

Alcohen thought of the tape he had gotten at Base -6.

Although I knew that it was about the Caspian Sea, I still wanted to know what was inside.

Lusakov was a little stunned when he heard Alcohen's request. But he didn't think much about it, smiled and said, "Yes, let alone lend it to you, I can give it to you." ”

"Give it to us? Then I don't have to, I just want to listen to a tape. ”

"It's fine. If you want to take it, you can do it. It's useless to put it here anyway. ”

-------------------------

She didn't move.

"Is she asleep?" Artyom thought. But this "thinking" is completely mechanical, and he doesn't care if she really sleeps or pretends to be asleep.

He stood at the entrance of the tent, took off his clothes, piled them in a pile, rubbed his shoulders together, lay down beside Anna like a motherless child, and pulled the quilt over him.

If there is a first.

Second quilt, he would never do this.

The clock on the platform showed that it was seven o'clock in the evening, as if it were. And Anna has to get up at ten o'clock in the evening and go to work in the mushroom garden.

As a hero, Artyom was relieved of this work, and other matters were left to his own volition.

Every morning, before Anna returned from work, he would get up and go to the ground.

After returning from the surface, he fell asleep before Anna could "wake up".

This is their life as a couple: sharing a bed, having different dreams.

Artyom covered himself with the red quilt as lightly as possible, for fear of waking Anna. @·No mistake starter~~ But she still felt it, didn't say a word, and pulled the quilt angrily.

After a minute of stupid scramble, Artyom relented and lay naked on the edge of the bed.

"Really." He said.

She was silent.

Feelings are like light bulbs, which were originally well lit, why was the filament suddenly burned out?

He buried his face in the pillow—thank God, there were two—and warmed it up with the exhaled heat, and fell asleep.

In the dream, he saw another Anna - smiling lively, amusing him happily, very young.

How long ago was that?

Two days ago?

Or two years ago?

Hell knows.

At that time they felt that there was a whole eternity waiting for them in front of them, and as a result, this eternity was left in the past forever.

It was also cold in the dream, also because of Anna - he was chased by her, running naked all over the platform - but it was out of love, not resentment.

Every time Artyom just woke up, he was still believing in a daze that the never was over, that they had just come to the middle of the eternity.

He couldn't help but want to wake her up, reconcile with her, and get back together.

But after a minute, he'll be completely sober.

"Can you listen to me a few words?" Artyom asked Anna.

But she was no longer in the tent.

Artyom had taken off his clothes and was still lying in the aisle.

Anna neither picked them up nor threw them out.

She just stepped over them, as if she was afraid that if she touched them, she would be infected with surface radiation.

She did seem to need the quilt more, and as for him, the surface radiation would help keep him warm.

It's okay to go.

Thank you, Anna.

Thank you for not talking to me, thank you for ignoring me.

"Thanks, damn it!" He shouted.