Chapter Text
A flash of green. The Osprey began to shake, sending the sleeping Adrian Shephard tumbling about inside. He quickly awoke, and scrambled to get up and grab onto something, before a violent shudder sent him right back to the floor. The aircraft was going down. His head hit the ceiling, and for a second he was rendered blind.
“There will be no more second chances for the Shephard,” A gravelly and foreign voice echoed out of nowhere, “Take caution…” The Osprey spiraled out of control, throwing Adrian out of the open door right as his eyesight came back. Just in the nick of time, because the aircraft blew up above him a moment later. Adrian fell through empty space.
Oddly enough, his fall gradually slowed to a stop, suspending him in the void while the pieces of the Osprey continued their descent down into nothingness. After that, for a while, nothing happened. Adrian’s heart was still racing. Is this death? He looked all around, but there was nothing, just the stars that littered the void, until his eyes landed on something green. The object looked like the portal the G-man used to enter and leave the void, and unlike the stars which floated around idly, it was completely stationary. Adrian swam toward it.
Just inches away, Adrian slowly reached out to touch it. As soon as he did, there was another flash of green, gravity resumed, and he fell through it face first.
The other side was blindingly bright. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced, this time feeling wind as he fell, an unexpected sensation. A second later, he crashed. He didn’t feel anything but shock yet, but he knew it was going to hurt soon.
Good morning, Adrian.
The first thing he felt as his senses returned was the cold metal beneath his body, which was already warming to his body temperature. He hoped. He hoped it wasn’t blood. The second thing he felt were his right arm and leg, which he had landed pretty heavily on. They hurt. It’s nice to know he’s alive, at least.
When he tried to raise himself up, his arms gave out quickly, and his head began to spin. Let’s take it slow . All he could hear were his own shaky breaths as he felt around the surface he was on with the arm that didn’t burn, searching for any indicator of where he might be. Opening his eyes was out of the question, not just because he was scared of what he might see, but even under his eyelids they watered, burnt by the light.
His body only hurt worse as the short burst of adrenaline wore off, and nausea overtook him. He felt the edge of the metal platform with his hand, and with his remaining strength gradually pulled himself the short distance towards it. Feeling around more, it was clear he was elevated somewhere with a railing.
Adrian unclasped his mask, it fell off and below, and vomited over the edge. Thank god for that. The last thing he wanted was to be lying in his own puke right now.
Thinking about it, this all makes sense. The G-man must’ve finally snapped and kicked him out. He can’t say he was real nice to the bastard that trapped him in purgatory. On the rare occasions that the guy came by, mostly to say something horrendously vague in his smug, know-it-all demeanor, Adrian lashed out and tried to attack him. Of course, he couldn’t lay a finger on him. What was up with that voice, though? It didn’t sound very much like the G-man…
Adrian yawned, suddenly unable to keep his eyes open. Is this it? Is this how he dies, having achieved nothing? He knows what this exhaustion means for him, he’s felt it before. Lying pathetically on the ground of some dusty ventilation shaft in Black Mesa after the thrashing, dying Gene Worm got a lucky shot on him, a ball of plasma into his chest, and he knew it was over.
It wasn’t over then, and it isn’t over now.
A door swings open, and someone approaches his limp body, lying directly in a sunbeam. It makes him look angelic, even face-down in a growing pool of shimmering blood.
Adrian is by no means light, this person finds out, and opts to drag him by the legs into the building. By some stroke of luck or even divine intervention, he had been dropped right at their doorstep. They set him against a wall inside and patched him up.
He was unconscious for several days.
The only way they could tell he was even still alive was by the steady rise and fall of his chest. All the while, this stranger prayed for his recovery, never once believing he was a lost cause.
Adrian dreamed about Stasis. It was so vivid, felt so hopeless, his short taste of freedom was thought to be the dream. He never really did leave here, did he? At some point he saw his younger brother, who he hadn’t seen in years, ever since he abandoned him to join the military. He looked very different from when he saw him last, much, much, older, with shaven hair and scars across his face. Still, he had the same features, and recognized Adrian, seeming surprised to see him. Adrian would never remember their conversation. In time, all the details of the lucid dream would fade from his mind.
Waking up wasn’t a particularly joyful experience for Adrian. The first thing he noticed was the smell of rot, causing him to gag. His entire right side and chest were sore, and opening his eyes at last revealed him to be slumped against the wall in a dimly lit, run-down old kitchen. Couldn’t whoever brought him here have put him in a better position? He sits up and straightens out his aching spine.
Adrian’s immediately established that he clearly isn’t in Stasis anymore, which is great, because he missed this real, solid world. The feeling of the broken tile beneath him is grounding, reassuring. Things are already looking up.
He also knows someone must have saved him from wherever he was after escaping. His vest and helmet lay just off to his left, and his chest is heavily bandaged under his shirt, which is dyed brown with dried blood. Great. In Stasis, all of his wounds had vanished, nothing to it. They’re all back now. And he didn’t miss them. Every breath he takes, his chest hurts, complaining about the gaping hole carved into him by the Gene Worm. At least most of his smaller cuts and scrapes have healed by a fair amount. So just how long had he been out?
A nearby gunshot splits the silence, causing him to flinch. Still too weak to move very much, all he can do is hope that isn’t bad news. He’s going to be pissed if he has to die for the third time…
After a couple long minutes, Adrian nearly falling back asleep a few times, a portly built, bald man with a shotgun laid over his shoulder jogged into the room, kicking the door closed and locking it behind him.
“Hey,” Adrian whispered nervously with a short wave of his good hand. He once sustained a headcrab bite on his neck in Black Mesa, the poison rendering his vocal cords damaged and weak. Speaking louder was possible, it just hurt. Especially in this state.
“Ah, you’ve awoken at last!” The man exclaimed with a deep voice, and thick European accent Adrian couldn’t quite place as he walked over, holstering his shotgun on his back. “You look tired,” he chuckled, “I would too after spilling all of that blood. It is a wonder you’re alive, brother!” Adrian took note of his attire as he walked away- he wore a dark brown traditional looking tee over a white long sleeved shirt with his shotgun in a holster on his back, patched up and faded jeans, black work boots, and around his neck, a golden crucifix. He must be religious. The large glove on one of his hands that’s caked with green goop is the only thing that puts him off a little.
The man takes some strange meat out of a fridge and begins to chop it up at a counter.
“Introduce yourself?” Adrian rasps.
“Very well! I am Father Grigori. I found thee upon my doorstep many a day ago, mortally wounded. Be happy they did not get to you first!” He laughed. “You are not from around here?” It took Adrian a second to register this as a question.
“Where are we? I… just got here.” Adrian cringes internally. What is he supposed to say? He fell out of the sky?
“Well then, welcome to Ravenholm!” This name is entirely unfamiliar to Adrian. Grigori looks pleased, in a way.
“I have prayed for assistance with a particular task, so perhaps you have come in answer to my prayers?” Adrian nods. Maybe he’s right , Adrian thought, I did just conveniently get thrown in here. The G-man didn’t tell me shit. What else am I supposed to do?
“This is great news. I confess, I am engladdened by your company. Too much solitude is not good for a man who, like myself, wishes only to serve.” Father Grigori returns to the counter, and soon a slightly better smell, of something cooking, replaces the previous. Adrian can see a cooking pot on the counter. Some food sounds great right about now.
“Let me make us some soup. This nourishment is quite plentiful in Ravenholm, if not, haha , pleasant on the tongue.” Laughing, Grigori holds up some of the meat from the fridge for Adrian to get a better look at- a dead, gutted headcrab. Unfortunate, as he’d been hoping that the Black Mesa disaster never happened, and he actually was in his parent’s basement right now, tripping absolute balls. He’s going to keep holding out on that hope anyways.
“So, what’s the date today?” Adrian manages at a decently normal volume, with some protest from his vocals. He wishes he sounded older, had a deeper voice. It’s so strange to think that he’s still only 22, and yeah, he’s sure he didn't age in Stasis. Really, only a few years passed anyways, in which nothing ever happened . The only thing that grew in any amount there was the hair on his head, which he’d be fine with, if the G-man didn’t shave off half of it whenever he fell asleep. Adrian remembers that he isn’t wearing his helmet right now, and that the prick just cut his hair. He feels around the top of his head, appalled at the bald spot he can feel in the buzz cut.
“The date? I have not known for a long time,” Grigori replied to Adrian’s surprise. “I have no need to keep track anyways.” Adrian holds back a rude remark. What circumstances would warrant not keeping track of the date? He decides not to ask; he can figure it out on his own.
When he finished cooking, Grigori poured a portion of the soup into two rusty bowls. Then it dawned on Adrian what he had meant earlier- it’s headcrab soup. Usually, he’d eat damn near anything put in front of him, yet he isn’t sure whether he’s ready to taste his greatest enemy.
Grigori extended a bowl to Adrian. He hesitated to take it.
“Be not afraid, brother, it is safe for consumption, if not a little hot,” Grigori commented, “My own recipe!” Adrian surrendered and took it, but only out of ravenous hunger. When he felt his face for his mask to take it off, it was absent. An odd feeling deep in his gut tells him he’s going to need to get it back.
Adrian took a small sip of the soup. Grigori didn’t lie, it tasted downright awful. Yet it felt energizing, and so good to finally have something in his body that wasn’t Black Mesa vending machine food, that it enticed him into drinking more and more, fighting back his gag reflex until the bowl was clean and his tongue burned.
Grigori chuckled at his eagerness and handed him a torn up towel to wipe his face on. No way this is sanitary, but whatever. Soon after, Grigori finished his own soup and put their bowls away.
“Hey, I gotta find my gas mask. I lost it off your… doorstep, I think,” Adrian said, surprised at how clearly it came out. The soup really worked wonders for his throat.
Before Grigori could respond, a headcrab abruptly jumped out onto the man’s head from a vent behind him with a screech. Adrian scooted back with a grimace, all too accustomed to what typically happens. Grigori handled himself fine, however.
“Ha! There you are!” He yelled and quickly pinned the pest down against the counter, and in a rather gruesome move, reached into its interior and pulled an organ out that might have been its heart, killing it in seconds. And he didn’t even use the gloved hand to do it. Adrian watched on in awe.
“I’m quite immune to their bite, worry not,” Grigori explained as he brought the organ somewhere out of sight, “These days I hardly feel it.” After a moment, a whirring sound is heard, and then clinking.
“Now, I cannot claim great wisdom, yet through much trial and error, I have found a way to immunize myself against the demon’s neurotoxins.” Grigori stepped back into sight with a syringe in hand, filled with something yellow-green. Headcrab blood, Adrian figured.
Grigori injected himself in the neck. Adrian can tell he’s done this before by the small lump the same color as the blood in the place he injected. That doesn’t look too healthy, but Adrian won’t mention it. Grigori walked back out of sight to refill his syringe. How often must he be getting bitten to need a whole antidote for their poison? Am I going to need the antidote? Fuck no, no more needles, no matter what’s in it, he debates himself.
Adrian crawls to a nearby crate and uses it to support him as he stands up, now that he feels he has the strength to. A little lightheaded, but otherwise fine, he stretches and pops his joints. It felt incredible after being sitting there for so long. He must’ve been out for quite a while.
When Grigori was done cleaning off his needle, he went to unlock the door he came through, shotgun in hand. He hadn’t forgotten Adrian’s request.
“Come, brother, let us find your mask.” Grigori gestured for him to follow, then held the door open for Adrian and his limp. His right arm and leg still pain him from the fall.
Grigori likes to gesticulate a lot with his hands while talking, Adrian’s noticed, usually in wide motions, as if preaching to a congregation.
Outside, a burning smell immediately assaulted his nose. The dry cold of the air was a strange contrast. It must be around late autumn, judging by the lack of any snow, and looking at the sky visible from the alley, sometime in the afternoon. Judging by that stench , sometime during the apocalypse.
Adrian saw the dried blood on the top of the metal catwalk he walked out onto, and knew this was the place. Just beyond the blood were the stairs that lead to the bottom of the alleyway. Grigori had to help Adrian a ways down, but at the second floor he insisted he’d be fine the rest of the way; Grigori stayed there to keep watch.
Adrian’s mask lay just a bit deeper into the messy alley, a few mysterious bite marks in the silicone. Being decently far from the stain of his vomit in the concrete, aside from some dirt, to his relief, it was clean. Adrian crouched down to grab it, however, his reflection in a window caught his eye, freezing him in place. He looked disheveled and tired and his blond hair was cut even worse than he thought, though that was to be expected with recent events and his ever-persisting eyebags. What concerned him were his eyes .
All his life his irises were deep brown- unless in direct lighting, so dark they blended into his pupils. However, in his reflection in the cracked window, they glowed a bright green color. Wearing his mask he could have excused this as the green tint of the lens, but obviously, his mask hasn’t even been picked up yet. Get over it, Adrian thought, Aliens are real, and magic is too, so who cares about your eyes? Still, inexplicably, anxiety bubbled in his stomach.
Just then, Adrian heard that signature screech behind him. He whipped around to see the underside of a headcrab flying at his face, only to be shot out of the air a moment later with impeccable aim by Grigori. Adrian flinched back, falling onto his ass.
“Hurry, brother! This place has been overrun ever since you arrived, and more will surely come to the sound of my Annabelle!” Grigori fires again, at something Adrian can’t see. He doesn’t need to be told thrice, that’s enough near-death encounters for the day. Adrian snatches up his mask by its straps, then scrambles back up the stairs. Grigori follows close behind, reloading.
“We are safe here no longer, we leave at once. They have swarmed us here more than I thought, they seize away our day!” Grigori exclaimed once they were safely inside, as he rummaged through a crate. Talk about a hustle. Meanwhile, Adrian, still out of breath, suited back up in his vest, mask, and helmet, finally hiding that haircut.
“Take this, it is all I have for you.” Grigori loaded a pistol and handed it and one other magazine to Adrian. “Ammunition for this is hard to come by in Ravenholm,” he added. The gun was a model unfamiliar to Adrian, but it felt solid and reassuring in his grip and fit well in the holster on his hip. It’s a good thing he’s left-handed, because his right hand is still too weak and wouldn’t be able to handle the firearm well.
“Where are we headed?” Adrian asked with his mask pulled up a bit to not muffle his already quiet voice, following the older man back onto the catwalk. Already is he feeling the excitement of getting some more action. Hopefully, this will be better than Black Mesa. No nuclear bombs, no betrayals and cover-ups, and no giant worms. He’s seen enough giant worms for a lifetime, thanks.
“We shall take refuge in the hospital just west of here. Stay close, brother, and do well to be vigilant!” Grigori climbs up a makeshift ladder against the building, with Adrian close behind.
From the vantage point of the roof, Adrian could get a better look at the town. It looked even more apocalyptic than it smelled, with old, abandoned and burnt up buildings, bloodstains, lots of them, and the groaning crowd of zombies that congregated at the base of their building. So, a zombie apocalypse. They were too hard to make out clearly from here, but something looked off about some of them- Grigori was calling to him to hurry, so he stopped dawdling and jogged over.
From rooftop to rooftop they jumped and climbed. Adrian was surprised at Grigori’s agility, which enabled a fast pace across town. He’s older and built much larger than Adrian, yet the younger man was often the one lagging behind. In Adrian’s defense, he did still have a painful, barely healed hole in his chest. That combined with the bite in his neck certainly made all this heavy breathing a difficult task.
There were many makeshift walkways set up and traps Grigori easily avoided along the way, so Adrian could tell he’d set up this route before. Unfortunately, the only ammo hidden around were shotgun shells. Good thing Adrian only had to use his pistol a couple times - zombies may be too astoundingly bad at climbing to get anywhere near to their elevation on such short notice, but headcrabs can jump anywhere. That’s not to mention that there are variations of headcrabs here he hadn’t seen before, faster ones with long legs and poisonous ones. They make normal headcrabs seem like friendly little domesticated animals. Adrian hates them.
He still thinks it’s such a shame most aliens turned out to be hostile, because he was a huge animal person and would’ve loved having a couple of them as pets. In Black Mesa he had taken a couple small aliens with him, but of course, they were taken by the G-man. Can’t have shit.
The architecture of the town was foreign, he observed, unlike anything he’d seen in America. The streets were narrow and buildings crowded together, built tall with bricks and concrete. The layout was random, every building different. It was also very industrial, with inactive smokestacks visible in the cloudy, fog-shrouded sky at all times, power lines that stretched over every street, abandoned vehicles and electrical fires. Aside from the masses of zombies below and the occasional eccentric religious exclamation and laughing from Father Grigori whenever he shot something dead, it was ominously quiet. It put Adrian on edge.
“By the by,” Adrian said, wheezing with his hands on his knees recovering from his last jump, which nearly tore a couple wounds open, “I’m Adrian Shephard. Call me Shephard.” He’s not very proud of his military status, so no more Corporal, but he likes being called by his last name. Makes him feel older, more important.
“Shephard… it is a befitting name! The shepherd shall guide them to the light!” Grigori declared, breaking out into manic laughter. Adrian grinned. Nobody’s taken such a liking to his name before, it made him feel proud of it for a moment, before they got back on track and jumped between another building.
Despite everything, Adrian enjoyed the trip. He loved the wind, pulling up the mask to feel it on his face when he ran, he loved the burn of his muscles, and having company with him was great. He couldn’t get any of this in Stasis. It was dark, stale, lonely, and he was confined to that shitty, cramped aircraft. This felt… freeing, in moments. When he didn’t feel on the verge of passing out due to the pain in his chest.
When they reached the hospital, the sun had just set, casting the dark town even further into gloom. The buildings on this side of town looked a little newer, a little more brutalist, fully convincing Adrian that he’s somewhere in Eastern Europe.
A long sheet of metal made a perfect pathway from the flat top of one building into a window of the hospital. Adrian wondered how Grigori got that there, before ducking through the window, careful to avoid the few glass shards which stuck out of the frame.
Now he understands why Grigori didn’t know the date. Every day must be the same fight for survival, and by the looks of it he lives here all by himself, so what is the point?
Grigori turned his flickering flashlight on, as the lack of daylight and electricity made it exceptionally dark inside. Adrian tried the lightswitch anyway, it didn’t work, and neither did trying to turn on the night vision in his mask. Figures, that was like, one of the best parts of his mask. Grigori handed him the flashlight while he boarded up the window behind them.
Shining the light around revealed them to be standing at the end of a long and narrow hallway, with closed doors on either side apparent as far as the beam reached. When Grigori was satisfied with his barricade, he took back the flashlight and led the way deeper into the hospital. They walked in silence, guns ready, to avoid attracting anything that might lurk out of sight.
Adrian’s ears ring in the quiet. That might have been the only thing he didn’t miss during his stay in Stasis: his Tinnitus.
All the way on the other side of the building was the room Grigori had set up base in. From the pocket of his jeans he produced a key, and unlocked the door.
The windows in this room were blocked off much more securely than any others he’d seen, irregular pieces of metal bolted across the frames, with small gaps in between to let some light and air inside. The small space was dusty and rather empty other than the stockpile of medical supplies, ammunition, and canned food. Various hospital beds and operating tables also lay around. Grigori locked the door, then pushed some heavy machine in front of it for good measure.
“Tomorrow we get the power on,” Grigori said, hushed, “as their numbers grow with each day, the demons grow restless, their hunger drives them into a frenzy!” He laughed.
“Ravenholm is in turmoil, Shephard, it is too dangerous to be out after sundown anymore. Make yourself at home here, in the calm before the storm.” Ominous, but Adrian didn’t let it scare him. As long as he’s got his helmet, the headcrabs mostly can’t get at him, and the zombies are too slow to be a huge threat. Grigori’s probably exaggerating. Adrian unloads his pistol. He may still be on edge, but he isn’t forgetting his gun safety anytime soon.
Taking a random can of food from the neat pile, he wonders if anyone he knows is alive. With guilt he first thinks about his younger brother, but the memory is squished down quickly. Even if his few friends were still out there, they’d likely be in the United States, while Adrian is… god knows where right now. By now it’s likely that they all have forgotten about him, anyways. He sits down on the floor and opens the can by slamming it against his helmet. A little more brain damage couldn’t hurt.
You know what, maybe this is the fresh start he needs. He can help Father Grigori with whatever it is he’s trying to get done, and this time, he won’t royally fuck everything up. He won’t abandon anyone. Yeah, he’ll redeem himself. No matter what it takes.
Adrian finishes whatever weird meat was in the tin and then moves a bed to a windowless corner of the room. Even with the barricades, he’s not taking any chances. Those zombies still are freaky ; he’s excited to get some better shots off at them soon. For now, he’d like to get some normal, uninterrupted sleep, underneath four of the flimsy hospital blankets he gathered. Adrian can feel the chill in the unheated building even with his full uniform on.
He was nervous about taking off his protective gear, but recalling his single attempt at sleep in Black Mesa, he knows he’ll have to if he wants normal sleep. Only when he’s lifting the vest off does he notice the big mysterious gun thing strapped to the back of it. How did that even get there? It sure wasn’t there when he first put his vest on.
Upon closer inspection, it’s that teleporter thing he picked up in the labs that used Uranium-235 as ammo. But of course, it’s completely out of ammo, despite him clearly remembering stuffing tons of that radioactive shit in there. He throws it in the pile with the rest of his stuff. Oh, my backpack’s gone, Adrian realizes, Of course I didn’t notice this, I’m used to the weight. Dumbass.
That menace of a barber is no longer around to shave all of his hair off while he sleeps, which makes him feel even better about his whole predicament.
Crawling into bed at last, keeping his urban camouflage on for the extra heat, Adrian feels something against his leg inside of one of his pants pockets. He knows exactly what it is by its shape: his diary. Journal. It’s almost a little embarrassing, but before Black Mesa, every night he wrote in it, albeit not with very good spelling - he never made it quite far in school - and in tiny letters to preserve space. He promises himself to write in it tomorrow, as he’s got a whole damn lot to write, and finally settles in to sleep.
It takes him a while to fall asleep, as it always does with his racing thoughts. At least it helps that even this firm mattress feels like a king-sized bed with four pillows and a thick comforter compared to the seats of the Osprey. It reminds him of whenever he would crash on one of his buddies’ couches after getting kicked out for doing weed, or something. It always felt better than his own bed.
God, did he miss being alive, as shitty as it can be.