04-19-2025, 11:48 PM
The second time he saw the dog, it was morning.
A yellow-grey dawn bled through the clouds like iodine through gauze, and the trees creaked with wind that never quite touched the ground.
Nazariy had been foraging for wire. He’d found a junked refrigerator the day before with its guts still half-intact, but he forgot all about it when he saw the animal.
Same patchy fur. Same crooked gait. Only now, its ribs showed like the slats of a sunken boat, and one ear was a raw stump. The way it moved was more confident now, or maybe just more desperate. It snuffled along the pavement like it was following a scent.
Nazariy followed it without really deciding to.
He kept low. Moved quiet. Not hunting. Not exactly. More like tracking. He told himself it was just curiosity. He'd been here too long, and silence was starting to chew at the edges of him. Something moving, breathing, being. It was enough to pull him from his routines.
The dog didn’t notice.
It padded past an old bus stop half-swallowed by moss, trotted down a cracked road where birch trees burst through the asphalt like pale bones. Then it stopped. Ears perked.
Nazariy heard it too.
A hiss. A mechanical whine, distant, soft—like a breath being drawn in by something very large, and very old.
Then he saw the figure.
Across the clearing, just past a crumbling sign that still warned, СТОЙ! ЗАРАЖЕНА ЗОНА!—STOP! CONTAMINATED ZONE!—a person in a full radiation suit trudged through the brush.
They moved with purpose. Not fast, but focused. Not like the scavengers who sometimes passed through, wild-eyed and muttering. This one had gear. Packs. A dosimeter that ticked softly in the air. They looked like a ghost in hazmat skin.
The dog froze.
Then, without warning, it turned and began following the figure at a cautious distance.
Nazariy’s pulse kicked up.
He waited. Watched. The suited person didn’t glance back. Just moved forward, steady as a clock. The dog’s head swiveled now and then, ears twitching at sounds only it could hear. And Nazariy stayed in the trees, moving when they moved, stopping when they stopped.
A procession of broken things.
They walked for almost an hour: past the rusted skeletal remains of a hydroelectric station, down a slope thick with nettles and slick with mud. The air smelled of rot and copper. A swampy, marsh-edged part of the river lay ahead, a flat expanse where the world felt soft and sunken.
That’s where the pump station stood.
It was low and long, built half into the earth, like a bunker. Its concrete walls were stained with the memory of rain. A pipe jutted out into the marsh like a broken limb. Reeds whispered secrets no one would believe.
The scientist paused at the door.
They pulled something from a pouch—a key, maybe—and after a moment, the door groaned open. The figure disappeared inside, swallowed by shadow and rust.
Nazariy didn’t move. Neither did the dog.
It had stopped about fifteen meters from the door, head cocked, one paw lifted slightly. Watching.
For a while, all three of them remained as they were. The man underground. The dog at the threshold. Nazariy behind a ruined car, half-submerged in the muck.
Minutes passed. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty.
The dog stepped forward. Slowly. Tail stiff. Its nose hovered inches from the black rectangle of the doorway. It didn’t enter.
Instead, it sat.
Its head tilted again. Listening.
Something shifted in the air. Subtle. A vibration too low to be sound. The dog stood, sneezed once, then turned and padded away without a glance back.
Nazariy remained.
He stared at the doorway. Something about it tugged at him - not fear, not interest. A weight. Like the way heavy rain feels just before it falls.
He didn’t want to go in. But he didn’t want to leave, either.
Instead, he moved to where the dog had been and crouched, fingers grazing the wet earth. The reeds moved, but the wind had died. A dragonfly hovered near his face. Its wings were... wrong. Too slow. Too loud.
He stood and looked down into the stairwell. It was dark. Not pitch dark, just enough light to see a glint of metal railing, the edge of water pooling at the bottom.
The scientist wasn't in view. No sound. No movement.
The dog had left a pawprint in the muck. It was already filling with water.
Nazariy stared at it.
Then, without really knowing why, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a rock—Pushka, the first one, the one with the uneven eyes and the pink ears. He stared at it, thumb brushing the paint that had begun to chip.
“What do you think?” he murmured.
There was no answer.
But the wind picked up again, gently, and it felt like it was trying to pull him forward. Like it was whispering in a voice he almost knew.
He didn’t go down.
Not yet.
Instead, he placed Pushka carefully at the top step, facing the darkness, as if on watch.
Then he turned and walked back the way he’d come.
A yellow-grey dawn bled through the clouds like iodine through gauze, and the trees creaked with wind that never quite touched the ground.
Nazariy had been foraging for wire. He’d found a junked refrigerator the day before with its guts still half-intact, but he forgot all about it when he saw the animal.
Same patchy fur. Same crooked gait. Only now, its ribs showed like the slats of a sunken boat, and one ear was a raw stump. The way it moved was more confident now, or maybe just more desperate. It snuffled along the pavement like it was following a scent.
Nazariy followed it without really deciding to.
He kept low. Moved quiet. Not hunting. Not exactly. More like tracking. He told himself it was just curiosity. He'd been here too long, and silence was starting to chew at the edges of him. Something moving, breathing, being. It was enough to pull him from his routines.
The dog didn’t notice.
It padded past an old bus stop half-swallowed by moss, trotted down a cracked road where birch trees burst through the asphalt like pale bones. Then it stopped. Ears perked.
Nazariy heard it too.
A hiss. A mechanical whine, distant, soft—like a breath being drawn in by something very large, and very old.
Then he saw the figure.
Across the clearing, just past a crumbling sign that still warned, СТОЙ! ЗАРАЖЕНА ЗОНА!—STOP! CONTAMINATED ZONE!—a person in a full radiation suit trudged through the brush.
They moved with purpose. Not fast, but focused. Not like the scavengers who sometimes passed through, wild-eyed and muttering. This one had gear. Packs. A dosimeter that ticked softly in the air. They looked like a ghost in hazmat skin.
The dog froze.
Then, without warning, it turned and began following the figure at a cautious distance.
Nazariy’s pulse kicked up.
He waited. Watched. The suited person didn’t glance back. Just moved forward, steady as a clock. The dog’s head swiveled now and then, ears twitching at sounds only it could hear. And Nazariy stayed in the trees, moving when they moved, stopping when they stopped.
A procession of broken things.
They walked for almost an hour: past the rusted skeletal remains of a hydroelectric station, down a slope thick with nettles and slick with mud. The air smelled of rot and copper. A swampy, marsh-edged part of the river lay ahead, a flat expanse where the world felt soft and sunken.
That’s where the pump station stood.
It was low and long, built half into the earth, like a bunker. Its concrete walls were stained with the memory of rain. A pipe jutted out into the marsh like a broken limb. Reeds whispered secrets no one would believe.
The scientist paused at the door.
They pulled something from a pouch—a key, maybe—and after a moment, the door groaned open. The figure disappeared inside, swallowed by shadow and rust.
Nazariy didn’t move. Neither did the dog.
It had stopped about fifteen meters from the door, head cocked, one paw lifted slightly. Watching.
For a while, all three of them remained as they were. The man underground. The dog at the threshold. Nazariy behind a ruined car, half-submerged in the muck.
Minutes passed. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty.
The dog stepped forward. Slowly. Tail stiff. Its nose hovered inches from the black rectangle of the doorway. It didn’t enter.
Instead, it sat.
Its head tilted again. Listening.
Something shifted in the air. Subtle. A vibration too low to be sound. The dog stood, sneezed once, then turned and padded away without a glance back.
Nazariy remained.
He stared at the doorway. Something about it tugged at him - not fear, not interest. A weight. Like the way heavy rain feels just before it falls.
He didn’t want to go in. But he didn’t want to leave, either.
Instead, he moved to where the dog had been and crouched, fingers grazing the wet earth. The reeds moved, but the wind had died. A dragonfly hovered near his face. Its wings were... wrong. Too slow. Too loud.
He stood and looked down into the stairwell. It was dark. Not pitch dark, just enough light to see a glint of metal railing, the edge of water pooling at the bottom.
The scientist wasn't in view. No sound. No movement.
The dog had left a pawprint in the muck. It was already filling with water.
Nazariy stared at it.
Then, without really knowing why, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a rock—Pushka, the first one, the one with the uneven eyes and the pink ears. He stared at it, thumb brushing the paint that had begun to chip.
“What do you think?” he murmured.
There was no answer.
But the wind picked up again, gently, and it felt like it was trying to pull him forward. Like it was whispering in a voice he almost knew.
He didn’t go down.
Not yet.
Instead, he placed Pushka carefully at the top step, facing the darkness, as if on watch.
Then he turned and walked back the way he’d come.