Artyom stepped into the dark, his machine gun at the ready. “Stop! Password!” he called out, but all he heard was some quite shuffling, quickly fading into the distance. Something had run off... quick, light, too fast to be the dark ones. Or a human. Perhaps a rat... Artyom shuddered. He returned to the fire, out of breath from how tense he felt.

"There was no one. They ran," he said to Pyotr Andreevich, frowning. Pyotr scowled. “You should’ve shot! What if it was the dark ones? Havne't you heard what happened at Polezhaevskaya?"

“It wasn’t them,” Artyom replied, shaking his head. “The steps were wrong.”

The thought of the tunnel beyond the 700-meter mark lingered in his mind. No one went past the 680-meter post, and the creatures that roamed there weren’t to be trifled with. “What happened at Polezhaevskaya?” Artyom asked, unable to shake the rumors, despite already knowing them.

Pyotr leaned in, speaking in a low voice. “Scouts disappeared. Then a whole detachment. No sounds, no shots—just blood. When reinforcements came, they found nothing but blood, no bodies. It wasn’t humans.”

A shout cut through the tension. "Hey! Everything okay out there?" Three figures emerged, flashlights cutting through the dark. Andryukha, the senior patrolman, greeted them with a grin. “Who’d they send to the end of the world today?”

Pyotr explained the encounter, and Andryukha raised an eyebrow. “What did it look like?”

Artyom shook his head. “I didn’t see it. It ran off too fast. But its footsteps... too quick, almost like it had four legs.”

Andryukha chuckled. “Or three!”

The men settled around the fire, a kettle whistling in the background, hot mushroom tea brewing. It soothed Artyom's nerves...