#david writes

A total of twelve shots rang through the area as Niko towered over Darko's lifeless figure. The blood-soaked tableau before him was a testament to their shared anguish; rain melding seamlessly with the crimson horror—a haunting masterpiece of brutal indifference.

Niko sneered at his fallen comrade: "You piece of shit!" Hot anger burned through him like molten lava. "That was for everyone!" Niko exhaled vehemently, the world swallowing his anguish whole:

"THAT WAS FOR ME."

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The question festered in Niko's marrow: "Because of what?!" Their two beings shared damnation, intertwined like tortured seraphim. The grim shadow of falsehood spat on Niko's visage in response: "Because of shit!" A bitter song demanding acknowledgement from the unforgiving heavens, "Lies! Fucking lies!" Darko continued to howl, now turning and spitting in Roman's face, who defensively raised his hands while taking a few paces back from the crazed man. Outrage surged through Niko like an inferno untamed, "So that makes it okay?!" desperately seeking sense in Darko's perfidy. In pitiful and feeble bewilderment, "To stab your friends in the back?!" Darko sighed out a nihilistic proclamation: "When everything you believe is shown to be shit, you make strange choices, I guess." Anguish-laden curses escaped Niko's lips as futility gnawed at his sanity like a starving beast. "Fuck you!"

"Where is Ljubica?" he inquired amid the gentle hum of boiling water. Tatjana peered at the small clock nestled among memories before letting out a tender laugh: "The nights young, she could be anywhere." She sighed deeply: "She says it calms her, biking around." She returned bearing steaming tea and retrieved a cigarette from the rickety table beside her.

"Is she always out in the city?" Niko asked as he gazed out through rain-streaked windowpanes; seeds of worry beginning to grow. "Out on that bicycle? Even in this weather?" He sought her reasonings amid the storm.

Wearily, Tatjana shrugged. "It's been hard for her lately, I don't always understand what goes on in her head." she confessed, failing to ignite her cigarette, the flame of life long extinguished. In frustration, she flung the lighter to the floor while cascading blonde hair shrouded a ghostly visage mourning the loss of what once was. The weight of longing settled over them both; tracing tender aches and sorrows that, like rain-laden clouds, held within them the potential to nourish in time.

From the depths of Tatjana's introspective chasm, the forsaken cigarette found solace upon her lips – Niko, the tender guardian, bending to her side, taming her locks, and igniting her reprieve with his Zippo's flame. A whispered "I'm sorry." echoed through chambers of remorse and longing for a time that once was. Drawing from those hallowed memories, he claimed his own smoky respite and joined her at the border of reverie.

Her touch – a whisper of connection against Niko's hardened hand – beckoned him to share in their silent symphony. "Niko," she breathed between puffs of clouded smoke, "Eventually you need to stop apologizing to me." Her thumb traced canyons of scars and battles won in the tales their hands told. The quiet hung heavy around them, masking an unyielding bond in tension's weighted grasp.

"I've ruined you," Niko confessed, eyes raw with unshed tears, "It’s my fault Dragan died, I failed to keep you safe, sent you and Ljubica across the world alone" As crystalline pain threatened to overflow from Tatjana's eyes, she spoke his name, but he pressed onwards: "I’m empty."

"Nikola," Her firm tone belied the tenderness beneath. "You can't keep doing this to me." Fingers tapped ash to oblivion whilst another breath drew a deep smokey inhale.

As Niko gazed upon her fractured countenance from beneath shame-streaked lashes. "Though I love you," she trembled before the bittersweet tide threatening to overtake her voice, "I cannot fix everything that is wrong with you, in your soul."

Niko's hunger gnawed at his insides, a ravenous beast desperate to be sated. As he attempted to quell the aching void with a hot dog, his cellphone interrupted, vibrating on the dashboard like a relentless itch, displaying: 'U.L.P. Paper.' With a sigh and desolation surging through his veins, he traded the untouched hot dog for the device, dreading the encroaching omen.

"Belić," the voice of 'Agent ULP' reverberated like a ghost's breath through the speaker, "I have your man. He's been flown in." Niko's body froze as if ensnared by invisible chains, thrusting himself upwards—his knees colliding with the steering wheel while a sensation both inexplicable and profound washed over Niko's frayed soul. "We're going to drop him in the airport cargo area for you." A maelstrom of emotions swirled within him at these portentous words, still, an electric excitement charged his response, concealing his internal torment. "No more jobs, is that it? Am I out?" His pulse danced like a caged animal alongside an eerie film of sweat encroaching upon his palms. "You're out. You've done good things for us, and we are grateful," ULP echoed hollowly before delivering a stifling finality: "That said, I've given you a lot of protection. From here in, you're alone. Goodbye." Abruptly severed from their discourse, an uncanny silence swallowed Niko whole. Glancing at the forsaken hot dog on the dashboard – a futile offering to the inexorable march of time. He dismissed it once more as he frantically dialed Roman's number with trembling fingers, consumed by impatience as he awaited an answer.

"Roman," he clipped darkly, eschewing pleasantries and slicing straight to their grim reality. "They've brought Darko Brević into the country for me. This is almost over. I'm going to finish it." With unwavering determination lacing each syllable, Niko jammed the key into the car's ignition. "Niko, you can't do this alone." Roman's voice, a blend of authoritarian concern and brotherly compassion, "I'm coming with you. Come collect me from Firefly Island." Grumbling like a tempest set free, Niko submerged himself within the rain-drenched streets, discarding the now meaningless hot dog that has long gone cold. "Alright," he sighed in resignation, "Wait there for me." With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Niko cast the phone aside onto the dashboard. He tore through the rain-drenched labyrinth of Liberty City, forging a path towards Firefly Island. The night's oppressive symphony rang out, marrying the relentless drumming of rain on metal with the shivering howl of thunder, and Vladivostok F.M. murmuring through crackling radio speakers, the distant melody of Splean’s ‘Линия жизни’ playing through–

Гни свою линию

Гни свою линию

Гни свою линию

Горят огни

Сверкают звезды

Все так сложно

Все так просто

Мы ушли в открытый Космос

В этом мире больше нечего ловить

Emerging into Broker, Niko discovered Roman, cloaked beneath a sanctuary from the downpour, and honked quickly. Roman tumbled into the waiting car with nerves tingling electric. "Cousin, there you are." he breathed. "They are bringing him to the cargo bay at Francis International." Niko intoned mechanically, "I do not want to be late after I have waited so long." Their gloomy journey like a funeral march.

Roman nervously broke the heavy silence: "Well, this is the big moment," he started, attempting solace. "What you have been waiting for for so long. I hope you will not be disappointed." His words fell like calming petals around Niko, but thorns lingered beneath them. Niko murmured hollowly, "Disappointment is not a consideration." He faltered before resuming: "I have not been the same man since the day that Darko betrayed us." After a heavy beat, he mumbles painstakingly, "Since I saw those things." Roman inhaled sharply and muttered: "You lost a lot of friends that day, Niko. We both did." With a sardonic half-laugh, Niko sneered: "In some way, our friends from the village were lucky." Pain coiled within his every syllable as he admitted: "I lost myself that day, too." Roman sat unmoving; never before had such raw confessions stirred dread deep within him. "Everything that was good and innocent in me died along with them." His own revelation twisted like entrails. "If I could live those hours again," Niko continued,

"I think I would have preferred to be buried in the pit along with everyone else."

Roman recoiled at this grotesque ode of survivor's guilt spewing forth from his cousin. Enshrouded in his gory confession, Niko persisted: "This is all that is left of me." he resigned himself hoarsely. "What am I good at, Roman?" He choked on desperation: "What is my trade? I deal in death because that is all that is open to me." Roman stared resolutely at his cousin. "I will tell you what you are good at, Niko." he proclaimed, "You are a good cousin, a good father, and a good friend." punctuating each assertion to sear them into Niko's mind: "You still have integrity. No matter what you say, there is still humanity in you." Roman's voice swelled with conviction, "You still have the power to be good. It's important that you believe that."

"Hah, maybe I will start to believe it when Darko is dead." Niko uttered with vindictive fervour, as though each word bore the anguish of a decaying existence. "That might give me some perspective." A decade's torment echoed through the biting sting of his words. Roman, burdened with existential anguish, beseeched his cousin, "This killing must stop sometime, Niko." Roman's voice trembled with palpable desperation, "Once this is done, then you must begin to forgive." He implored. "Think about your future instead of the horrible things that have happened to you, to us, to all of us, in the past!" Roman pleaded. "After this is done," Niko retorted harshly, a flicker of genuine emotion piercing through his bitter exterior. "Then we can talk about forgiveness and redemption." His words echoed the darkness within, a testament to the weight he bore within his tortured soul. "Now is not the time for such conversation." And so, the two remained in a somber silence that stretched beyond its physical conception as they journeyed towards inevitable confrontation.

Their unspoken communion was shattered by Niko: "It was weeks after the massacre that I realized that we must have been given up by someone in our group." Roman, caught off guard, bewildered by Niko's sudden admission, his eyes meeting his cousin's sorrowful glare. "Given up by someone from our own village." Niko flatly revealed. Clutching the wheel until his knuckles turned ghostly white, he continued, "I had to go back to the pit where the bodies were dumped. I had to count the ripe corpses and see who was missing."

"Niko, I know." Roman muttered in response, nausea crawling within him. "That wasn't something the old me could have done," Niko admitted, sparing Roman a fleeting glance before resuming focus on the road before them. "But losing those friends, seeing them cut down in their prime," Swallowing a lump grotesque with sorrowful memories, "It hardened me, it made me cold." Empathetic despair weighed on Roman's voice, "I know it did, Niko. But that was a long time ago! I'm not saying that Darko should be forgiven - it is not our place to do that." He implored, seeking a crack in Niko's stone-cold resolve. "But the Darko you are going to meet might be very different from the one who led our friends to their death."