Journey to another world in the subway

Chapter 192 Fool
Homer followed the disappearing captain to the platform and looked around in panic—Hunter disappeared without a trace.

Melnik also came out of the confinement room, his hair was gray and he looked very vicissitudes, as if his soul had left him with the mysterious number plate.

Why did Hunter leave in such a hurry?
Where did he go?
Why did you leave Homer behind?

These questions should not be asked of Melnik.

It was best to stay away until Melnyk remembered Homer's existence.

Homer pretended to be chasing Hunter and left quickly, waiting for a voice calling him from behind, but Melnik didn't seem to care about him yet.

Hunter once told Homer that he needed Homer because he didn't want to forget his past
Is he lying?
Perhaps, he just didn't want to somehow get involved in a dispute at Polis, where he might lose and not make it to Tula in time.

His instincts and ability to suppress these desires are supernatural, and he even dared to storm an entire station by himself.

If that was the case, if Homer had finished playing his part after arriving in Polis with Hunt, it was time to step down.

Indeed, the end of the whole affair also depended on him.

In everything the captain had planned, Homer gave a push with his hand, making the ending as the captain expected.

So what is the so-called number plate?
Pass?
A sign of power?
Black mark?

Advance indulgences—to pay for the sins that Hunter so desperately wanted to bear with his own soul?

Anyway, after getting the number plate and permission from Melnik, the captain finally let go of his clasped hands.

He doesn't want to confess to anyone.

repent!

So what will happen there after Hunter arrives at Tula station?
Can he satisfy his desire and make the whole station bloody, or two or three stations?
Or, on the contrary, he finally figured out that such desire cannot grow endlessly?

Which of the two hunters asked Homer to follow him?

Is it the Hunter who greedily devours people, or the Hunter who rises up to fight monsters?
Which of them got caught up in the illusory battle at Woodland Station?
And who is here talking to Homer, asking for help?

And suddenly...

Suddenly Homer feels that he should be killed. Is this his real mission?

The remnants of Hunter in the past were destroyed and almost completely moldy. It was this remnant that forced Homer to make such a move. In order for Hunter to see everything clearly, whether out of fear or out of kindness, End Hunter's life with a treacherous shot in an unknown corner of the tunnel.

The captain cannot take his own life, so he seeks out an executioner for himself.

The executioner should have a tacit understanding with Hunter, he doesn't need to ask the executioner to do anything, the executioner should be smart enough to identify the second Hunter in Hunter - thinking every hour, not wanting to die The Hunter.

Even if he mustered all his courage, found the right time, and attacked Hunter by surprise, what would change?
His strength alone is negligible.

In other words, in this losing game, all Homer can do is observe and record?

Homer could figure out where Hunter had gone.

The Cavalry was a bit of a myth, and Melnyk belonged to it, as did Hunter.

According to rumors, this organization was consolidated, developed, and strengthened at the Smolensk station, which was Polis' weakness.

The mission of the soldiers of this organization is to protect the subway and its residents from any danger. Such a mission cannot be accomplished by ordinary soldiers on the station...

This is the only information that the Cavalry Regiment discloses to the outside world.

Homer didn't want to think about Smolensk, the station was as high as Alamut Castle.

He didn't even think about whether he had to go back to Dubrynin Station if he wanted to reunite with the captain...

There is only waiting, waiting for the rails that guide Hunter to inevitably lead him to the place where future crimes will take place, where this terrible history ends.

Let him solve this plague and give Tula a thorough disinfection.

then……

Fulfilling his unspoken will?
Homer thinks he actually has other functions:

Write instead of shooting, create immortality instead of taking human life.

But if your knees are bleeding all the time, it's hard not to stain your clothes.

Thank goodness he let Sasha go with the slippery man.

At least he made sure that Sasha would not witness this horrific massacre, which she could not have prevented anyway.

He glanced at the clock on the platform: if the captain followed the schedule exactly, there was still some time for Homer.

For the last two hours, he could still be himself and invite Polis to dance the last tango together.
-
Sasha rang the doorbell again after being unable to make a decision for a long time:
Why offend the guards of Emerald City?

Maybe they've heard her voice, maybe they've seen her clearly.

If they haven't opened the door until now, it means that they are discussing whether to open the door for a stranger who accidentally guessed the password like her.

What would she have to say to them, if the door was indeed opened?

Speaking of the plague raging at Tula station?

Will they come to the rescue?
Will they take a risk?
Are they all, like Leonid, good at seeing people clearly?
Maybe, to talk to them right away about the plague Sasha herself has contracted?
To admit the truth to others, although until now she had never admitted it to herself...

Can Sasha impress them?
Why didn't they help if they had already beaten this dreadful disease?

Why not send a courier with medicine to the Tula station?
Is it just out of fear of ordinary people, or hope that the plague will wipe them all out?

Did they specifically infect people in the big subway with this disease?
Do not!
How could she think like that!

Leonid said that the residents of Emerald City are fair and kind, and they never punish people or deprive others of their freedom.

In the beautiful world they built with their own hands, no one even thought of committing a crime.

Then why don't they save these dying people?

Why not open their doors? !

Sasha pressed it again.And then again.

There was no sound behind the steel airtight door, as if the wall was false and there was nothing behind it but thousand tons of stony earth.

"They won't open the door for you."

Sasha turned sharply, and Lefenid stood 10 steps away—he was crooked, unkempt, with a hesitant expression.

"Then give it a try! Maybe they'll forgive you?" Sasha looked at him puzzled, "Isn't that why you came here?"

"Nobody forgives, it's empty."

"You said it yourself……"

"I lied, this is not the entrance to the Emerald City."

"Then where?"

"I don't know, no one knows." He spread his hands.

"Then why do people let you go wherever you go? Don't tell me you're not an observer...you...whether you're on the circle line or the red line...you're lying to me, aren't you?"

"You bullshit about the Emerald City, and now you have pity on me!" She searched hard for his eyes, and from there, she found his confirmation of her guess.

"I have always wanted to go there myself." Leonid looked straight at the ground. "I have been looking for it for several years, collecting all the rumors about it and reading some old books."

"I've been to this one place maybe a hundred times. I found this button...and pressed it day and night."

"It's all in vain."

"Why did you lie to me?!" She approached him, stretching her right hand towards the knife, "Did I do anything to you? Why did you do this?!"

"I want to steal you away from them." Lefenide found the knife and suddenly became distraught for some reason. Instead of running away, he sat down on the railroad tracks, "I think, if you and I are alone ..."

"Then why did you turn back?!"

"It's hard to say." He looked at her obediently from below, "Perhaps, I understand what boundary I have crossed. When I sent you here... I was alone in meditation...one's soul You can't be born black."

"At first it was clear and little by little it became cloudy and smudged."

"Every time you forgive yourself for being evil, you always find an excuse for it, and you say to yourself, it's just a game."

"But from a certain moment, black occupies most of the soul. Few people will notice this point, and it cannot be seen in the body."

"And I suddenly understood that it was here and now that I crossed that line, and then I became a different person forever."

"I'm aware of this, and it's not your responsibility to bear this."

"Then why does everyone respect you three points? Why do they all fawn on you?"

"It's not me." Leonid took a breath, "It's Dad."

"what?"

"Has the last name 'Moskwin' ever been mentioned to you?"

"No." Sasha shook her head.

"Then you may be the only person in this subway who doesn't know this surname." Lefenide smiled wryly. "In short, my father is a big leader, the leader of the entire red line."

"The passport I got is a diplomat's passport, so it is allowed everywhere. This surname is very rare. No one would dare to take the risk of impersonating it. Only people make mistakes out of ignorance."

"Then you..." Sasha moved further away from him and looked at him fiercely, "You are an observer? Is this why you were sent out?"

"People were eager to get rid of me. Dad knew I wouldn't succeed, so he gave me up. You see, I'm secretly still disgracing his last name." Leonid curled his lips.

"Did you quarrel with him?" The girl narrowed her eyes.

"How can one quarrel with Comrade Moskvin? He is a monument! I was kicked out of my house and cursed."

"As you can see, I have been a fool since childhood."

"I'm obsessed with beautiful paintings, I love the piano, and I'm drawn to books."

"Mum ruined me, she always wanted a girl."

"Dad suddenly noticed this and wanted to divert my interests to weapons and partisan intrigues, but it was too late."

"My mother taught me the flute, and my father used a belt to make me stop playing. The professor who taught me to play was exiled by him, and he arranged for me to be a political instructor."

"But all these efforts were in vain, I'm already numb."

"I don't like red lines, I want to work in music, I want to paint."

"Papa somehow sent me to tear down a mosaic, it was educational, he wanted me to know that all delicate things decay one day."

"I knocked it down so people couldn't make another copy."

"During the process of knocking, I remembered every detail clearly, and now I can even put together a puzzle like that by myself."

"To this day I hate my father."

"You can't say that about him!" Sasha said in surprise.

"For me, yes." Lefenide smiled. "Others will be shot for this. And about Emerald City..."

“When I was little, my professor quietly told me its story.”

"From then on, I made up my mind that when I grow up, I must find its entrance."

"There must be such a place in this world. For it, I am worth living in this world, and my life is meaningful."

"Everyone lives like this there. I am not a scum who is nothing, nor a pampered nobleman. I am an ordinary member of the equal masses."

"But you didn't find it." Sasha put the knife away, except for some new words she hadn't heard, she could understand the general idea, "because it doesn't exist at all."

Leonid shrugged, stood up, walked to the button, and pressed it again.

"Maybe to me, it doesn't matter whether there are people over there who can hear it, and it doesn't matter whether there is such a place on this earth."

"What matters is where I think it exists and that someone is listening to me. I'm not good enough for them to open doors for me."

"Is this enough for you?" Sasha asked.

"It is enough for all mankind, of course it is enough for me." Lefenide shrugged
"So how are you going to be worthy of 'walking through this door'?" Sasha asked.

"Well...although it's stupid to say that, of course...it's my flute."

"I guess it fixes something."

"Do you understand... music is the most ephemeral art."

"It's only there for a few minutes while the instrument is playing, and then it stops abruptly and disappears without a trace."

"But nothing can infect people in such a short period of time like music, and nothing can hurt people so deeply, and the wounds heal so slowly."

"The melody that touches you will stay with you forever."

"It's the essence and truth of beauty, and I think it heals the ugliness of the soul."

"You're weird," she said.

"But now I suddenly understand that a leper cannot cure a leper. If I were honest with you, the door would never have been opened to me."

"Do you think I'll forgive you, for these lies and deceptions, this cruelty?" Sasha stared at him sharply.

"Will you give me another chance?" Leonid suddenly smiled at her, "You also said that each of us has the right to own it."

The girl kept silent guardedly, she didn't want to be drawn into his horrible game again.

(End of this chapter)