Pterodactyl's shrill hunting cry pierced the air, echoing between the drab high-rises.

Leo dashed behind the nearest abandoned car, gripping his mace with clammy hands. He wasn't sure how much it would actually help against a flying two-meter long mess of claws and teeth, but the club looked sturdy, had sharp spikes and was reassuringly hefty. The weapon was given to his grandfather as a retirement gift and likely never actually swung in a fight, but it was still better than a kitchen knife – the second-best weapon he had available.

A minute passed, then another, and Leo let himself relax. In retrospect, he might have overreacted. Flying carnivores generally fed on fish and small mammals, not humans. He felt he could be forgiven for the caution, though.

After all, nothing could be taken for granted in this madness that swallowed the world two weeks ago.

Leo warily peeked over the side of the car and, seeing no immediate danger, rushed toward the large red 'M' of Moscow Metro. Not sparing even a second to slow down, he ducked under the overhang, hitting the swinging doors of glass and steel with his shoulder. Grey concrete stairs, slick with mud and rainwater, were a welcome sight. It was not much of a sanctuary, admittedly, but something about the metro's thick walls and sturdy roof was inherently reassuring when compared to the open streets, where danger could pounce from any direction.

Electricity was cut off the same day the sky turned green, and backup power failed shortly after, so the road grew increasingly dark the further he moved down the passage. It wasn't too far though, and Leo was just contemplating whether the bit of illumination his flashlight would provide was worth the hassle of searching though his backpack when something rustled in the dark.

Leo froze.

The noise came again. It was a faint sound, a rustling tap-tap-tap, like claws on the floor. And this time it was closer.

He reeled back, raising the mace. It was probably nothing, he told himself, frantically digging through the backpack with one hand. I'm hearing things.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

Leo hit something with his elbow and nearly jumped through the roof before realizing it was just a wall.

There!

His hands felt the rough cylindrical exterior. Grabbing it with three fingers, he hurriedly pulled it out – and the flashlight snagged on something, pulling out of his fingers and falling to the ground with a muted clang.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, dropping to his knees and letting go of the mace to sweep the floor with both hands. “Where are you, where...”

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

“Yes!”

He snagged the flashlight, nearly fumbling it again, and pressed 'on'. The ray of light illuminated the hideous monster rushing toward him.

A common grey rat.

He blinked. It blinked back, flinching from the brightness.

Leo teetered and fell back on his ass, letting out a shaky laugh.

“A rat,” he murmured disbelievingly. “Christ, I've been running from a rat. Barely fifteen days, and I'm already - ”

By the time he registered motion, it was already too late. Time seemed to slow as the small yet deceptively sharp teeth moved toward his throat -

BANG.

The sound echoed painfully through the dark tunnels, and something wet splashed all across Leo's face. He lurched back, smashing his head into the wall hard enough that his vision momentarily went fuzzy, and frantically cast about for his mace.

“Careful. I think there's something in the rainwater,” came a familiar accented voice from the dark. “All sorts of animals go feral, you don't want to get bit by them.”

Leo picked up both his flashlight and his mace, spitting the rat fur out of his mouth.

“Princess? You...” almost shot me! “have great timing.”

Alina raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the light, and shot him a glare. Leo took the hint, sheepishly lowering his flashlight.

She was the kind of girl that would have normally been entirely out of his league, posh, polished and cultured. Skinny jeans and a winter jacket did little to hide her curves, and her hair fell in perfect blond riglets around her face despite the limited supplies of water and electricity. Every word coming from her lips had a slight french accent, seeming exotic and sensual even in situations that were anything but.

Only frayed sleeves and dark circles under her eyes showed that Alina did not remain untouched by the rigors of the world gone mad.

“You can thank me by actually using my name,” she replied in annoyance.

“No can do, boss,” he told her cheekily, standing up. “I call it like I see it.”

It was a bad habit of his, Leo admitted. When he was nervous – and he was often nervous around pretty girls – he tended toward overt familiarity, and was simply too stubborn to take his words back. It had gotten him slapped on several occasions and even beaten to the point of hospitalization, but it also resulted in a reputation for having a lot more bravery than he actually did.

Alina flipped him off and turned around, making cheap off-brand sneakers look like designer pumps. Leo let out an appreciative whistle. The girl ignored him with all the aplomb of a goddess, too divine to take heed of the common masses.

He pulled on the backpack and followed in her highness' wake.

The passageway ended all too soon for Leo's liking. A second set of glass and steel doors, placed right around the corner, opened into the station proper, the cavernous chamber of white marble and black granite lit by countless hanging flashlights, portable lamps and even a few candelabras. It looked like a campground, fires blazing in the night. Though mostly huddled in small groups around their light sources, people talked with their neighbors, moved around, shared commodities and food. The entire place had a tangible sense of camaraderie, of a community that grew close in the wake of a tragedy.

He didn't know the exact number of people present, but he was certain it was higher still than the last time he visited.

“Leopold!”

He turned around, sighing preemptively. Only one person called him by his full name.

“Aunt Nadya,” he greeted her, trying to hold back annoyance. “It's Leo, just Leo.”

“Nonsense,” she waved him off like he was a child. Leo was all too aware that Alina's full lips turned upward in a smirk. “Your mother gave you a great name, you should be proud of it. Now, did you bring everything I asked for?”

“Almost.”

“Why almost?” the older woman demanded, nearly ripping the backpack out of his arms.

Because people are going mad, dinosaurs are roaming the streets and -

He choked down the retort. Arguing with aunt Nadya was pointless. She was too used to being right, being in charge and had little interest in being contradicted. If she ever felt like she was loosing an argument, she just kept talking over him, again and again, until he simply gave up and gave in.

“Some guys are holding the mall,” he told her instead. “And they had guns, so I didn't feel like pressing my luck. I had to scavenge from small shops and apothecaries, but I tried my best.”

“Well, try harder.”

Why don't you try -

Leo took in a deep breath through gritted teeth, trying to calm down. It wasn't good. He was still keyed up from all the danger, his body full of nervous energy and twitching at small noises. It was not a good time to be talked down to. A bit more, and he'd say something he'd later regret.

Still, was it too much to ask for a single word of thanks?

“I'll pass out the medications,” he said shortly, grabbing a small plastic bag from the backpack.

“I'll join him,” Alina swiftly tacked on before aunt Nadya's gaze could settle on her.

“Hm. Do that.”

Rather than walking down the stairs, Leo used the walkways, placed above the train tracks, to bypass the majority of the crowd. It gave his temper time to settle and provided him with an opportunity to observe the survivors.

That, and spend some time alone with the hottest girl around.

“Seeking out my company, princess?”

“In your dreams, Leopold.”

He twitched, but refused to be deterred.

“If this was my dream, we'd be doing a lot less talking.”

Alina snorted derisively, about to rip into him, then paused, biting her lip.

“Anything new happening outside?” she asked with feigned nonchalance.

Leo hmmed as they finally got around to the reason the girl was hanging around.

“I didn't see your boyfriend. I also wasn't really looking for him,” he told her frankly. “It's all war and peace out there, just without the peace. Society breaking down, people reverting back to tribal instincts, monsters grabbing anybody that strays away from the group. I avoided any unknown parties.”

And, feeling a little guilty, added:

“For what it's worth, if he lasted past the first few days, his chances of survival rise drastically. While new dangers become apparent every day, so do new solutions.”

Alina scoffed, turning away from him.

“I'll need to fall much further than this to require reassurance from the likes of you.”

Why, that little...

His eyes fell to her belt, but, for once, it wasn't to appreciate the tight fit of her jeans.

“You know, I could afford to take more risks if I found myself a better weapon,” he hinted heavily. “Maybe I'll even find your guy.”

Alina's hand fell to her pistol – the only gun in the entire station.

“No way,” she shook her head firmly, blond tresses flying everywhere. “What if we're attacked, and you're gone? Somebody needs to watch out for these people. The gun stays with me.”

Leo didn't press the issue.

“You have new arrivals?” he inquired instead. “I'm pretty sure there were fewer people the last time I came by.”

“Mhm,” the blonde nodded. “We had one group of office workers, two families and several stragglers.”

Leo groaned.

“Why?” the question wasn't really directed at his companion, just griping in general. “Just, why? Metro stations lack even the basic commodities for living!”

They passed the mid-station mark and moved down the stairs.

“If nothing else, providing food and water for such a large group is a downright prohibitive task. I mean, we both know who's going to be doing so, and I'm saying right now that we've crossed the Rubicon. There's no way to sustain a group of this size with the provisions available or easily acquired. And what's even the point of hiding underground? This isn't a nuclear attack, for Chrissake!”

“Don't swear,” Alina frowned at him. “The voices in the walls don't like it.”

Leo let out an uncertain laugh that quickly petered out at the continuing frown.

“God, you're serious,” he blinked. “You've been stuck in here way too long if you've started hearing voices.”

Except she looked entirely sincere. Was it an in-joke of some kind? Leo was suddenly struck with the disorienting feeling of alienation, of not belonging.

It wasn't the first time he felt that way.

When the world changed, it wasn't the green sky that tipped him off. As a matter of fact, between closed blinds and artificial lighting he didn't even notice it at first. No, it was the sudden lack of wifi, followed by the loss of electricity. At first he thought something had happened at the power plant – not a rare occurence by any means – except his phone couldn't connect either, and the military compass he got as a gag gift was switching directions so rapidly, you'd think it was a politician. Then he took a look outside.

Leo spent those early days holed up in his apartment, worried about gas, terrified of the monsters he saw running unchecked outside the window, cowering behind overturned tables whenever he heard gunshots. In the end, it was only the lack of water that forced him to investigate the outside, wet rags covering nose and mouth, grandpa's mace clutched in a death grip. By that time, all the weapons were already looted, food scavenged or rotting, and people gathered into isolated groups, united by old friends and unusual circumstances. Everybody was suspicious of strangers, and, if it wasn't for an old friend of his own, Leo would likely have died a dozen times over. Kirill taught him what to look out for and what sounds to avoid, introduced him to the people who could be trusted and warned him off those who could not.

When Kirill... passed (he tried not to think of it, for he had enough nightmares already), Leo took over his self-appointed task of caring for a few amenable shelters, carrying messages, foraging for supplies, keeping an eye out for stragglers. He was not especially close to aunt Nadya, but it was still more of a connection than he had with any other shelter.

Incidentally, one of the main – and more cryptic – perils that Kirill told him to avoid were particularly large groups. Not only due to inability to help them out in any meaningful manner, but also because they tended to go... weird. Some fell into religious extremism, others turned violent, and all soon went silent. It was telling, that in a sector that should have housed over a hundred thousand people, Leo had yet to meet a group that exceeded four hundred.

The last time he visited, the station's population was just over three hundred.

“It's aliens, I'm telling you!”

“And I'm telling you that you've finally gone daft in your old age! It's clearly the americans!”

“I'm daft? You're the one still living in the Cold War!”

“You think it's aliens! Back me up here, young man!”

Leo blinked, drawn out of his contemplation by the bickering, and shook his head with a bemused smile.

“Oh, no. I know better than to get in-between the two of you.”

The Petrovs were the kind of old couple that made you wonder if they managed to remain madly in love all these years or were about to add to the geriatric homicide statistics.

Apparently, they've met while working together on a project for the soviet government – though good luck on getting them to spill the beans – and somehow ended up married within a year. Despite decades of holy matrimony, the pair seemed incapable of agreeing on a single subject. He was rightist, she was leftist; he was a historian, she was a physicist; he was a devout church-goer, she an atheist on a warpath. Leonida Ivanovna and Nikolai Yuryevich could spend hours arguing on any and every topic: from politics and philosophy to whether baryon asymmetry proved the existence of god. Leo once heard his semi-namesake seriously argue about the color of the sky, simply because her husband claimed it was blue.

Judging by the situation outside, she won that one.

“Coward,” Nikolai accused half-heartedly.

“Prudent,” his wife immediately contradicted.

Leo laughed.

On bad days he wondered why he even bothered, why he didn't just... not return one day. Then people like the Petrovs reminded him why.

He turned around to share the thought, but Alina, having gotten what she came for, had already disappeared into the throng.

Oh, well. Next time.

“What's the subject matter this time?” he inquired from the pair.

“The situation outside, of course,” Leonida Ivanovna replied swiftly. “I'm telling this Neanderthal that nowhere on Earth is there technology to do something like... this.”

“She's telling me that little green men are responsible for everything,” Nikolai Yuryevich deadpanned. “Because that makes sense.”

“Maybe is was an accident?” Leo suggested. “A leak from some secret government lab?”

The elderly couple ceased their bickering to scoff at him in utter unison.

“In Moscow?”

“With this kind of defined effect boundary?”

Leo took a step back, raising his hands in surrender before he could be drowned under the barrage of scorn and scientific facts.

“Sorry, sorry, not an accident, got it,” he wasn't all that attached to the theory anyways. And besides, he had something else to discuss. “Listen, I was just talking about it with Alina... Don't you think this shelter's becoming a little crowded? We'll be running short of pretty much everything soon, and besides, shouldn't we actually, you know, maybe start doing something about the situation? Attempt to contact somebody or try to clear out the monsters?”

The pair exchanged looks. It was not a particularly promising start.

“There's not much we can do,” Leonida Ivanovna explained slowly. “The current circumstances are so far outside of what we could predict or prepare for, there's little point in planning beyond the very nearest future. Whatever we do could and would become obsolete the next time the perpetrators make their move. As galling as it may be, the ball's in their court.”

“Oh, don't listen to this pessimistic old hag,” Nikolay Yuryevich waved her off. “It's not nearly as bad as she claims. Somebody carved out a solid piece of Moscow; you can be damn sure Kremlin's throwing everything it's got at the problem. All we need to do is sit tight and avoid exacerbating the situation.”

Leo held back a grimace. The couple disagreed on everything except for the decision to stay right where they were, and he didn't know how to persuade them otherwise with only something as vague and cryptic as Kirill's warnings.

“Take off those rose-colored glasses and look at the real world for once,” the man's wife told him. “It's been over a week now. If the government could help, it would have done so already. Either we've been written off, or they're as helpless here as we are.”

Surprisingly, the old boy smiled.

“I though you were gonna say that,” he told her, rummaging through his things to pull out a portable radio. “Behold and bear witness to my genius!”

“That's what you were working on the last few days?” his wife remained unimpressed. “This beaten old thing? I'm not even sure if radios work this far underground.”

Nikolai Yuryevich simply extended the antenna and activated the device.

“I don't hear anything,” Leonida Ivanovna said after a few moments.

“Oh, hush, woman,” he rolled his eyes. “For once in your life, just be quiet and listen.”

She rolled her eyes right back, but complied with the instructions.

They sat around the little black box long enough that Leo started mentally making excuses, preparing to make his leave. He still had to pass out the medicines to three other people, after all.

He startled, nearly knocking over the radio.

“Was that -”

“Shhh!” the couple shushed at him.

The voice was hushed, muffled, nearly imperceivable. One had to strain to distinguish it from the hisses and the buzzes of the old radio, and even then it was only the barest of sounds, completed and given meaning almost entirely by the human mind; every listener likely heard something slightly different.

For a bizarre moment Leo wondered if the message was even in Russian.

“See,” Nikolai Yuryevich whispered, “they're coming!”

Leo swallowed.

Though there was no way for the speaker to have heard the old historian, there was something chilling about those words. Some meaning greater than the obvious, something... vast.

Nikolai Yuryevich himself looked a little pale, but rallied with admirable optimism.

“I told you Kremlin wouldn't leave us to rot! We're not alone!”

This time it was impossible to deny.

“I don't think it's Kremlin,” Leo licked his lips.

Was it just him, or did the station grow colder?

“Can you hear us?” Leonida Ivanovna's hands were shaking, but her voice was strong and even. “Who is this? What do you want from us?”

“Pray?” Nikolai Yuryevich raised himself up to his full height. “I don't know who do you think you are, but I'm not praying to anybody on this Earth except our Father in Heaven.”

Leo shook his head minutely. Maybe it was one of those things left to interpretation, but there was something in the voice, in the tone or phrasing, that made him think the word wasn't 'pray'.

It was 'prey'.

CRUNCH.

Leo pulled his mace from the wreckage of the black box.

“Sorry about the radio, Nikolai Yuryevich,” he told the historian. “But I'm making the executive decision to cancel this program.”

The man pulled off his glasses, using a handkerchief to wipe them with quick, nervous movements.

“That's quite all right, young man,” he wheezed out. “I was thinking about getting rid of that old thing anyway.”

“I told you that you should leave the tinkering to professionals,” Leonida Ivanovna supplied readily.

“Hey!” he protested. “That car worked just fi-”

The historian cut himself off as the trio looked at the radio – but the words weren't coming from it anymore. People all over the makeshift shelter were standing up, looking around for the source of the voice.

The words did not feel all that loud, but something about them made the ears hurt. The sound – which seemed less like a sound with every passing second – appeared to be an almost physical thing, something crawling into your head, rolling and echoing around your skull, making it difficult to form coherent thoughts. It was becoming hard to discern... was the voice still speaking or were you just replaying its words?

Panic was slowly overtaking the station. People were pressing their hands to their ears, trying to block out the voice, children were crying. Aunt Nadya tried to establish some kind of order, but it was hard to hear anything over the words in their heads.

For a single wild moment Leo raised his mace – but the sound seemed to be coming from the walls themselves, and he couldn't smash those.

That's when the lights started going out.