Being the only American in the Metro was never easy. From the moment Sam descended into the tunnels beneath Moscow, he was an outsider — a foreigner in a world that had long stopped caring about borders or nations. Suspicion followed him like a shadow, and more than once, he’d found himself at the wrong end of a gun. It was chaos, brutality, survival. And for Sam, it almost ended in death.

He would’ve died too — torn apart by a furious mob convinced he was a spy, a threat, or simply someone to blame. But fate, or maybe just dumb luck, threw Colonel Melnik into his path. The Commander of the Spartan Order didn’t just save Sam’s life that day; he gave him something more enduring — a place, a purpose. Since then, Sam had stood by Melnik’s side with unwavering loyalty, earning his place not just through gratitude, but through grit, discipline, and raw skill. He became one of Sparta’s finest — not by heritage, but by blood, sweat, and fire.

Now, for the first time in weeks, Sam was back in Polis — the jewel of the Metro, and the closest thing to civilization the tunnels had left. He was off-duty, technically. Free to rest, to breathe, to pretend, even for a few hours, that the world wasn't teetering on the edge of annihilation. But Sam never truly switched off. Not here. Not anywhere. Even as he wandered the station’s corridors — eyes scanning, ears tuned to tension others had long stopped noticing — he remained a soldier.

Home. That’s what Polis had become. Not by birthright, but by battle. Yet even in its light-filled halls, beneath murals of a long-dead world, peace was fragile. There were no true breaks in the Metro — only pauses between the next threat, the next mission, the next desperate decision.

Sam knew this. And still, he lingered. Just long enough to remember what they were all fighting for.