The darkness enveloped him just beyond the entrance and fear came with the darkness. He could see absolutely nothing visible ahead, but he could hear disgusting chomping sounds. He regretted once more his lack of a machine gun, but it was too late to retreat. Steps began to sound in the distance, and then came ever closer. It was as if they approached when Artyom was moving forward and stopped when he stopped. Something similar had happened to him, but when and how, he couldn’t recall. It was very frightening, approaching the unseen and unknown… An adversary? His trembling knees did not allow him to move quickly, and time was on the side of the terror. A cold sweat ran down his temples. He felt more ill at ease with every passing second. Finally, when the steps were only about three metres from him, Artyom could not hold back, and, stumbling, falling and lifting himself up, he raced back to the station. Falling a third time, his weakened legs refused to sustain him, and he understood that death was imminent.

‘… Everything on this earth is a consequence of the Great Worm. Once the whole world consisted of stone and there was nothing on it except stone. There was no air, and there was no water, there was no light and there was no fire. There was no man and there was no beast. There was only dead stone. And then the Great Worm made it his home.’

‘But how did the Great Worm get here? From where does he come? Who bore him?’

‘The Great Worm has always been. Don’t interrupt. He made a home for himself in the very centre of the world and said, “This world will be mine. It is made from hard stone, but I will gnaw my own passages in it. It is cold, but I will warm it with the heat of my body. It is dark, but I will light it with the light of my eyes. It is dead, but I will inhabit it with my creations.”

‘Who are the creations?’

‘The creations are the creatures the Great Worm issued from his womb. Both you and I, all of us, are his creations. There you have it. And then the Great Worm said, “Everything will be as I said, because this world henceforward is mine.” And he began to gnaw passages through the hard stone, and the stone softened in his belly, saliva and juice moistened it, and the stone became alive and began to bear the fungi. And the Great Worm having gnawed the stone, let it pass through himself, and he did it thus for thousands of years, until his passages went through all the earth.’

‘A thousand? What? One, two, three? How many? A thousand?’

‘You have ten fingers on your hands. And Sharap has ten fingers… No, Sharap has twelve… That won’t do. Let’s say Grom has ten fingers. If you take you, Grom and other people so that all together there were as many as you have fingers, they each of them all would have ten times ten each. This is a hundred. And a thousand, this is when it is ten times each 100.’

‘That’s a lot of fingers. I can’t count them.’

‘It’s not important. When the Great Worm’s paths appeared on the earth, his first work was finished. And then he said, “So, I have gnawed thousands and thousand of paths through the hard stone and the stone has been scattered into crumbs. And the grit has passed through my womb, and has become soaked with the juice of my life, and it has become alive. And earlier the stone had occupied all the space in the world, but now an empty place has appeared. Now there is a place for the children I shall bear.” And his first creations came forth from his womb, the names of whom they no longer remember. And they were big and strong, like the Great Worm himself. And the Great Worm loved them. But there was naught for them to drink, for in the world there was no water and they died of thirst. And then the Great Worm grieved. Grief was unknown to him before then, for there had been no one to love him, and he had not known solitude. But, having created new life, he had loved it, and it was difficult to part with it. And then the Great Worm began to cry, and his tears filled up the world. Thus water appeared. And he said, “See, now there is also a place so that one may live in it and water, so that one may drink it. And the earth, sated by the juice of my womb, is alive, and it bears fungi. Now I shall make some creatures, I shall bear my children. They will live in the paths that I have gnawed and drink of my tears and eat the fungi grown in the juice of my womb.” And he feared giving birth once more to huge creations like himself, for you see there was not enough space or water or fungi. At first he created the fleas, and then the rats, then the cats, and then the chickens, and then the dogs, and then hogs and then man. But it did not turn out as he had thought: the fleas began to drink blood, and the cats to eat rats, and the dogs to oppress cats, and man to kill them all and eat them. And when man for the first time killed and ate another man, the Great Worm understood that his children had become unworthy of him and he cried. And each time that man eats man, the Great Worm cries, and his tears flow through the passages and flood them. Man is good. The meat is tasty. Sweet. But one can eat only his enemies. I know.’

Artyom clenched and unclenched the fingers on his hands. His hands were tied behind his back with a piece of wire and they had become numb, but at least they were responding again. Even the fact that his whole body ached was now a good sign. The paralysis from the poisoned needle had turned out to be temporary. The idiotic idea spun in his head that he, in contrast to the unknown storyteller, had no memory of how chickens had got into the metro. No doubt, some merchants had succeeded in bringing them from some market somewhere. They had brought swine from one of the VDNKh pavilions, he knew, but chickens… He tried to see what was next to him, but around him was absolute, inky darkness. However, someone was not too far away. It had already been half an hour since Artyom had come to. Gradually he was becoming aware of where he was.

‘He is stirring, I can hear it,’ a hoarse voice said. ‘I’ll call the commander. The commander will do the interrogation.’ Something had moved, then stopped. Artyom tried to stretch his legs. They too turned out to be bound with wire. He tried to roll over onto his other side and hit something soft. A long, drawn-out moan, full of pain, was heard.

‘Anton! Is that you?’ Artyom whispered. There was no answer.

‘Aha… The Great Worm’s enemies have come to…’ someone said derisively in the darkness.

‘It would have been better had you not come to.’ It was that same broken, sage voice that had been relating the story about the Great Worm and the creation of life for the past half hour. It immediately became clear that his keeper differed from the other inhabitants of the station: instead of primitive, chopped phrases, he had been speaking properly, somewhat pompously, and even the timbre of his voice was completely human, unlike that of the others.

‘Who are you? Release us!’ Artyom wheezed, moving his tongue with difficulty.

‘Yes, yes. That’s just what they all say. No, unfortunately, wherever you were headed, your travels are over. They are going to torture and grill you. And what will you do?’ the voice answered from the darkness with indifference.

‘Are you… also imprisoned?’ Artyom asked.

‘We all are in prison. They are releasing you this very day.’ His unseen companion giggled.

Anton groaned again and began to stir. He mumbled something unintelligible, but had not yet regained consciousness.

‘Why are we are sitting together in the darkness like cave-dwellers? ’

A lighter was struck and the spot of flame lit the face of the speaker: he had a long grey beard, dirty, matted hair and dull, mocking eyes lost in a network of wrinkles. He could be no less than sixty. He was sitting on a chair along the other side of the iron bars that broke the room in two. There was something like it at VDNKh, too. It had a strange name: the ‘monkey house’. Artyom had seen monkeys only in biology textbooks and children’s books. In any event, the facility was used as a prison.