Years Without Summer

Part 2 Chapter 3: A Life Lost

Katya felt happy. I mean, it wasn't as if she didn't have happiness before, but it was always fleeting, never did it truly last for a long while. Perhaps M'ya did something adorable or she was reading her favorite book, that was when she felt the happiness bubble up inside of her; though, much like a bubble, it wouldn't take long for the happiness to simply be destroyed. However, this happiness was much different, much different indeed. This happiness was something she hadn't felt in... well... years! It felt much like the happiness she felt with her siblings before they... It was best not to think of that! This sense of happiness and joy was most likely due to Petras in all honesty. As the many weeks of planning had passed, Katya had found herself growing closer to the slave, and now considered him a friend of sorts. A friend. A human companion, she never knew how much she missed having one until now. Speaking of which, right now she was with Petras, in his odd-base area or whatever the hell he called it. However, M'ya wasn't exactly with her at the moment; right now he was with the other bears, most likely fearfully in a corner as he tried to sleep without his master (which in all honesty made Katya feel a bit sad).

It was a cold night, however in the small room it was at least rather temperate, not to cold or hot (but it was a little damp, most likely due to snow-melt). The two were sitting beside one another, the sounds of giggles and laughs were little more than muffles to the outside world. "So...what should we talk about now?" Katya asked, smiling gently, before her gaze fell onto the much taller boy.

"Well... perhaps we could talk about a few things about us, like our history?" Katya tilted her head in curiosity. "Here, I'll go first:" Petras then continued, closing his eyes for a few seconds, "I was born in Kaunas, I never knew who my parents were. It seems like they left before I could even remember. They were probably killed and eaten by mutants... yeah, Kaunas was filled with them, the mutants, it was pretty irradiated as well. There were mutant animals, humans , anything. I was raised by a small gang of men, I was one of the few they allowed to live. Others...weren't so lucky. However, then when I was around, seven, I think, the gang brought me to Vilnius, not as if that was better. The place was filled mutants and radiation, along with plenty of genetically modified tardigrades-"

"Those things? I haven't seen them in a while.."

"Well, they're still all around us, as we speak, like rats. They just live in the shadows, like in the darkened edges of the metro, or the highly irradiated places. Doesn't help them that they're as big as rats, I had kept some as pets in Vilnius, adorable little things-! Oh, damn, I'm getting off track, better to focus on the story. Anyways in continuation, yeah, Vilnius, not so great. The gang said it was something about the 'nukes being diverted' or something, I don't know, I was too young to understand. Though, life there was still alright, plenty of gang warfare, though when I was around eleven, all the gangs just...disappeared and that's when, Czar's men found me and....brought me here, against my will. It was rough, I was beaten, attacked, tormented, the only way I could somewhat stop them from attempting to murder me was through alcohol. I'd make various cocktails and brews, which kept most of them busy, I still do that. Though, then there was this one time, where the men took it too far, they bruised me, beat me and...." Petras stopped for a moment, not wanting to say whatever it was he had to say, "before then leaving me out to die in the outer-edges of the city, which was where I met Babushka. She patched me up, gave me something to eat, though she was a bit crude, I felt as if I were in debt to her, so, we made a deal and the rest is well....history!" Petras soon let out a nervous chuckle, before he then felt a hug from the Russian girl, most likely because she felt pity for the boy; however, that didn't mean he didn't feel rather embarrassed, blushing faintly, as he hadn't expected the girl to give him a quick hug. His gaze soon fell back onto the girl, as if he was waiting for her to begin her life story.

Katya looked back before she took a deep breath, "Well... I was born someplace east, far...far east, perhaps maybe someplace away from this wasteland. I never knew my father, my mother...she didn't talk about him. I had two older half-siblings, I knew them, Nikolai and Anya, along with my mother. Anastasia. We traveled across Russia for quite a while, she was trying to get here, to Moscow. Kept on talking about Czar, I'm sure, but I-"

"Wait, she did? How unusual... in some of Czar's speeches. He tends to talk about this woman, Anastasia, and about how she was his queen. His wife, and how they would rule their new empire together. That it was by Marx the two of them were together. Along with the fact that he constantly stated that their descendants would rule for all eternity. The man is mad."

"..." Katya shot a slight glare at Petras, before a wave of realization entered her cranium, "That does make some sense, after all, she did talk about how the man would protect her and save her and and...make her his queen.." she then shook her head, "Though, yeah we wandered around Russia, that is until I was also around seven or something, yeah I believe, which was when she... died.. She was attacked and eaten by a mutated bear...her corpse It was....there was so much blood...her death hit me hard to say the least. My half-siblings decided to trap and kill the bear, we ate it too, but lest did we know that we killed someone else's mother. M'ya's. M'ya was just a cub at the time, we took him in, gave him a name and him and I have been together ever since. Damn, I miss the bear, we're usually together, so both of us are kinda out of our element. Though we just wandered around for a long while, before we wandered into the wrong damn area. I was ten and next thing I fucking knew I was unconscious and my siblings were fucking gone. Attacked by one of those goddamn worms. But some fucking family found me, healed me up and taught me some shit. They were German, if my memory is correct." Katya then removed her gasmask, which revealed her face as it would make her voice easier to understand, meanwhile Petras gave her a slightly surprised look after he scanned her facial features for a moment. "Afterwards, the year goes by and things get a bit fuzzy, eventually I found my gun and shit, began doing mercenary work, and etc. and etc."

Petras was about to say something, before he stopped himself. "Well speaking of worms... I forgot to mention some parts to our plan." Petras soon decided to scrounge around for something in the room, before he pulled out some map, a map of the metro! He soon unrolled the map on a flat surface, which revealed various scribbles on the material in which the map was made from. They were in two different languages: Russian and Lithuanian, most of which she could barely understand. "Now, as I stated earlier, he likes to go to that machine thing, which he needs to go through the metro to get to. Now if we manage to stop the metro from leaving, that means he'll be trapped in that area for a bit, which may give you enough time to land a killing blow. Though, how, you may ask, will we be able to do that? Well, here-" Petras soon pointed to one part of the map with plenty of words and drawings beside it, "Is one of those worms you're talking about, and a big one too! Now this guy use to be free in the metro a really long time ago before the soldiers managed to trap it in this area to get the metro running again and along with a few other things. Now they just use it to discard unwanted criminals. So, if we can manage to get it out of its prison, it can keep the soldiers distracted and stop the use of the metro for that time being."

"The plan seems decent, however, which one of us would free that damn...beast? Would it be you?"

"Pretty much so, yeah. I have my ways." Petras soon gave her a thumbs up, now a faint smile had grown across his face. Not long after, his face become much more serious, his amber eyes closed for a moment, before his head turned away from Katya. "Hey...do you think, after you're done with this mission... do you think I can leave...leave with you?"

Katya glanced at him with her emerald gaze.

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"