[center][img]http://antifashist.com/images/jimg/c/c4e58e6f4222f75ce1b3d14a2227d5bd.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][h2]Nikolai[/h2][/center]
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[h3][color=forestgreen]глава один[/color][/h3] [i](Chapter One)[/i]

Survivors aren't called that because they're easy to kill, especially those who survived the plague that wiped out most of the world's civilization. Small groups of people huddling in the upper floors of ruined apartment buildings could hardly be called civilization, but that's the best Nikolai had managed to find for the last couple of months. Most of the times he came into contact with these types of groups he was either attacked or simply told to go away. After months of surviving in the world of the infected, Nikolai managed to find three small havens hiding out in New York City.

Up until the apocalypse, people hadn't really thought of Nikolai as strange. As he stood in the blood soaked hallway entrance of one of the havens, the music playing in his headphones kept his adrenaline in check while he finished off the third infected to rush him. He let out a small sigh through gently smiling lips as he peeled his mace out of yet another partially collapsed skull. He could just barely hear the thumping of the final infected footsteps as it came up through the chokepoint into his kill room.

When Nikolai found the havens, he hadn't been able to settle down like he thought. He knew people needed a messenger; someone capable of surviving the infected without needing luck all the time. He spent his time traveling between the havens and collecting resources from the abandoned city. One thing that always hurt him deep down was walking past a grocery store stocked to the brim with canned food while hunger gripped him. People had gone to them thinking there would be getting food, but ended up becoming food instead. He did his best for these people but they never really expected him to come back when he left.

Humans may be able to learn from the mistakes of others, but infected take a lot longer to pick up any new information so when the fourth infected finally reached him, Nikolai braced like always and waited. A moment later, a crash for one was a familiar shudder to the other and a hefty swing of his mace ended the infected as it lay on the floor at Nikolai's feet. Bleach and mops replaced bodies and blood as the haven's resident's helped him clean up the mess. He finished his delivery and left after only accepting a refill to his canteen.

The sunshine and clean air that rushed to meet his senses could have easily made Nikolai forget the apocalypse as he stepped out into the ruined streets of Old New York.