They walked for a long time.

  So long that at some point they stopped counting days altogether. Morning, day, evening—all of it blended into one endless stretch. At first they still tried to keep track: “second day,” “maybe the third,” but eventually they lost count completely. Sleep came only when exhaustion knocked them down, and they moved on again after brief, restless rest.

  Supplies ran out quickly.

  First the meat was gone, then the vegetables, then the berries from that clearing. After that, they ate whatever they could find: small sour fruits, roots, unfamiliar leaves. Sometimes something sweet turned up, sometimes something downright disgusting—but there was no choice.

  Several times along the way, they spotted rabbits.

  White, nimble, almost silent. They appeared at the edges of clearings, froze, watched the people—and vanished.

  “We should try,” Stasyan said once, tightening his grip on the club.

  Dima pulled out the pistol, looked at it, then at Stasyan—and put it away again.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t really know how to shoot.”

  “I do,” Stasyan shrugged.

  “And if you miss and shoot my leg?” Dima replied dryly. “Or your own?”

  In the end, Dima shot.

  And he shot—badly.

  The first shot went high, scorching the bark of a tree. The rabbit didn’t even flinch—it simply disappeared into the grass. The second shot went into the ground. After the third, Dima lowered the weapon and silently holstered it.

  “Well,” Dozhor snorted, “at least now we know for sure—you’re a terrible shot.”

  “Thanks,” Dima muttered. “I know.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  They gave up on hunting.

  Along the way, they encountered crystals several times. The same as before—jutting out of the ground, cloudy, with a faint inner glow. Every time, the same thing happened: as soon as they approached, the glow shifted, stretched outward, and pointed ahead. Always in the same direction.

  “Like road signs,” Dima said quietly once.

  Stasyan frowned.

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Dima waved it off. “Like markers. Just without writing.”

  “Oh…” Stasyan drawled. “Yeah. Like fingers. Pointing and saying, ‘That way.’”

  The forest slowly began to change. Trees grew sparser. Broken stone appeared more often, chunks of concrete, rusted rebar jutting from the ground like bones. Sometimes flat slabs lay underfoot, almost completely swallowed by moss.

  And then, one day, the forest simply ended.

  Not abruptly, not like a cliff—it felt as if it had stepped aside. Ahead stretched an enormous space, dotted with houses, lean-tos, campfires, and roads of packed earth. There were people everywhere. A lot of people.

  “Is this… a village?” Dozhor breathed.

  “If that’s a village,” Stasyan said slowly, “then I’m a king.”

  There were no walls. No gates, no watch posts, no palisades. And yet everything looked alive: people walking, talking, hauling sacks, laughing. Some traded straight from their hands, others repaired roofs, others sat by fires and ate.

  And—most striking of all—no one looked angry.

  Wary—yes.

  Tired—yes.

  Dirty—in places.

  But not hateful.

  “Look,” Dima said quietly.

  He pointed ahead.

  Between the houses stood massive stone walls.

  Collapsed, overgrown with moss, but still recognizable. Towers stripped of their tops. Sections of masonry too precise to be ordinary.

  Something tightened inside Dima.

  “This is…” he began, then fell silent.

  “What?” Stasyan asked.

  “A place that was once called the Kremlin,” Dima said quietly. “Or what’s left of it.”

  He took a few steps forward without looking away.

  “We’re in Moscow,” he added dully. “Or rather… what used to be Moscow.”

  Stasyan and Dozhor exchanged glances.

  “That’s a name?” Dozhor asked.

  “Yes,” Dima nodded. “A very large city. Once.”

  He looked at the people, the houses, the smoke from the fires—and tried to reconcile it with what he remembered. Avenues, ring roads, lights, noise. None of it fit.

  “Strange,” Stasyan said. “There are more people living here than I’ve ever seen. And no one’s cutting anyone’s throat.”

  “Then they know how to make deals,” Dima replied.

  They stopped at the edge of the settlement.

  No one rushed at them with weapons. No one shouted. A few people glanced their way—and went back to what they were doing.

  “Well,” Dozhor said after a pause. “Looks like we made it.”

  Dima nodded.

  For the first time since all of this began, he felt something strange.

  Not safety—no.

  But something close to hope.

  “No wonder the crystals led us here,” he said softly. “This place used to be a capital.”