I release my grip on his hand and use all my strength to shake my upper body aside. The bottle dips straight to the ground, stabbing deep. Dzyuba leans to the right and releases my right hand. He doesn’t try to take back his weapon, but instead aims to hit me with his bare hands. This time, I’m faster. I spread my arms and slam my fist unto his left temple.

Dzyuba is dumbfounded as he falls on his face beside me. We both rotate, and I jump on him. He used a bottle to charge at me, which means that his pistol must be out of ammo! With this revelation, instead of trying to lock him in, I raise my hand to nudge the back of his neck with my elbow.

A hand grabs on my pistol holster, hitching the pistol away from it. A moment later, the banging sound of a gunshot rings out again, too close to my ear. The noise is so loud that everything turns quiet for a good few seconds after that. The concussion is so intense; it feels as though the air that the bullet flew through just landed a punch onto my face.

The bullet cracks a hole in the ceiling and dumps a handful of soil onto my head. I hear him pulling the trigger again, but no gunshot sound.

I slam my elbow into Dzyuba’s, sending his barrel away from my head. The gun roars next to my ear. Now my hearing is fucked, my head starts whirling again, and I’m losing balance.

He pushes me away, then he immediately closes in again. I feel like I’ve just taken the force of a full rocket blast by myself. My back hits the wall of the tunnel; it’s almost as painful as kicking my own balls.

The old fart’s way too strong! Is it because I’m exhausted, or that he isn’t human? I don’t know what he is, but he acts like a beast.

He turns and throws a hooked punch into my chest, but I manage to parry it. He punches again, and again, and again. I take one to my cheek and another to my stomach. He’s too fast, and it’s too dim in here, so I can’t anticipate where his fist will land!

The swooshing sound of his fist comes again, and I’m contemplating just taking it so I can grapple him. However, something suddenly illuminates from his chest, with just enough light for me to see the punch coming.

I dodge to the side, smashing my elbow to Dzyuba’s shoulder. He staggers backward. I grab his arm, bending it backward until my effort is rewarded by a crunching sound. I have broken his arm, which now dangles behind his back like a twisted twig clinging on a tree.

He howls. I push him to the ground, locking his body with my entire weight. Dzyuba lands heavily on the ground, and after the second crunching crack, his broken arm splits in half from the elbow, bending upwards perpendicularly.

The venerable commander roars, then buries his teeth into my right earlobe. He tries to yank hard, gnawing at my ear and shaking his head to snatch it away.

“Fuck off!” I rumble. I squeeze his mouth, pry his jaw open, then push him away from me. It feels like my earlobe has been torn off: there’s definitely blood flowing from there, and it’s dripping from my chin.

Dzyuba leaps again. His eyes are still bloodshot, streaked like a mad cow. His hysteria makes me think that his previous composure was all but an act.

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“I know it all. I know it all!” Dzyuba bellows. “You think you and that woman are gonna get out of here in one piece? The Republic will come after you. It’s the Republic. Nobody gets away. Nobody!”

He jumps at me for a punch with his other arm—his knockout punch. And I swing mine—a jaw hook. I haven’t felt this uncertain of myself in a long time.

If this punch doesn’t connect, I’m fucked.

I close my eyes. I don’t know if I’m the faster man. I don’t even know what happened. I just know that my fist felt something and my face didn’t.

When I open my eyes, I see Dzyuba’s teeth clumping into an ivory mess. Crimson blood gushes out of his mouth, slithers through his teeth. He spits it out like snake venom. Saliva and gore squirts everywhere. A piece of toe-size flesh splashes out of his mouth and falls to the ground. There’s blood on his shirt, blood on my face, blood on the ground.

Dzyuba has bit his own tongue.

My next punch directs his face upward. His entire body tumbles backwards like a freshly sawed log.

His tongue falls from his mouth and onto the ground. Blood gurgles to the sides of his lips, creating a filter that resembles water gushing out of a brook. Dzyuba can no longer form coherent words. He merely groans as his eyes slowly roll to a tint of white.

“I’m not the only selfish one here.” I take a deep breath.

Dzyuba closes his eyes without answering.

A man of few words. This is the Dzyuba I prefer.

His body relaxes, accepting the invitation of death that’s creeping up to him. The faint glow on his chest dissipates, and darkness swallows the tunnel once again. I don’t know what causes that glow, and I’m not about to find out.

Pulling out my pistol from my side, I kneel beside Dzyuba. He looks like he’s suffering, so I will end that pain soon by shooting his brain out.

His half-closed pupils are hazy and lifeless. He exhales with his severed tongue, barely forming audible sounds.

I try to smile, but moving any facial muscle is just too difficult for me now. “You know what? You’re . . .” I huff. “Probably right. I won’t ever be able to outrun the Republic. But I’ll push my luck. At least when I turn fifty, I won’t sit in the corner of my dimly lit room, a bottle of vodka in my hand, yammering about how shitty this whole system is.”

Dzyuba snorts, then makes faint groans that sound like actual words. If he still had a tongue, it would probably mean, “You won’t make it to fifty.”

“That works too.” I reply.

I fumble for Dzyuba’s hand and take off his glove. The polycrystalline gem is shining on his finger, the light dimming my eyes for a moment. I take it off him and put it in my pocket.

I’ll give her a little surprise later.

Dzyuba mumbles something else. It takes a few seconds for me to decipher what he means.

“Fine. Finish me. It’s not as though you and I matter.” That’s what he says.

I’ll give you what you want.

Just as I am about to pull the trigger, another voice interrupts me.

“Are you going to kill another person?”

I turn around and see Alice sitting with her knees curled in the shape of a V at the end of the left turn. Why is she still here? Did she make her way out and then crawl back? Is she an absolute idiot?

My normally sharp tongue struggles to find words to answer.

“Alexei . . . Are you going to . . . shoot him?” she asks. I can’t see her face in the darkness, but the spirit of her voice is unmistakable. It’s soft, but it’s steadfast.

I put the pistol back where it should be: on my hip.

“No. I . . . I won’t.”

“But . . . you have killed him already, have you not, Alexei?”

“He was trying to kill me. This is self-defense. Would you want me to die instead?”

“No.” Her voice shakes just a little.

“I didn’t intend to kill him.”

“All right.”

“Any problem?”

“Can you absolutely not aim for his limbs instead?”

“It’s kinda rough when he was trying to pluck my eyes out with a broken bottle.”

Damn, if only she would listen a smidge. She’s relying on me to live, and the weak can’t just boss others around as they please.

“Crawl away,” I say. “The tunnel will be very long. Don’t think this is over.”

I pat my hip twice, indicating to her that her dress is still here, so there’s nothing to worry about. I think she nodded before crawling away. I stoop to follow. I never look back at the commander once; I don’t care for him either way.

Behind us, I hear Dzyuba draws his last breath.