Prologue
Russia, March 2020
The weather predicts it will begin soon. The sky is cooking with black rolling clouds and seasoned with lightning. Beneath it a town tosses in fitful sleep. It’s almost as if the humans can sense your presence.
Crack. Boom. Thunder.
Glowing tendrils reveal the growling grey tempest. The scent of ozone lingers. You can almost taste the electricity.
It hasn’t always been this way.
You remember brighter days.
Before the dark ones came; stole your mind; wrapped your soul in chains.
The sky rumbles dangerously. Like a skittering horse, it is spooked. Anticipating. Apprehensive.
Eons ago bright horizons prevailed. You remember. You were there.
You remember how the people danced. Danced in the Summer, danced in the Autumn, in the Winter, in the Spring. How alive everyone seemed...
Rip. Roar!
Now you live among the dead, fighting voices in your head.
Hoping someone hears you crying in the night...
...but what could they do? Set you free? Ha! As if.
Morning breaks another day, finds you crying in the rain. All alone with your demons.
Your long black jacket caresses your calves. Sharp windy teeth bite at your face and the clouds draw back like curtains revealing smudges of blue stealing into the blackness. The incessant pitter pattering of the rain fades away till only the wet earth betrays its presence. Like it was for the old who passed away, only the ground whispers they were there.
Yet the dark ones live.
Your fingers curl into a fist.
Darkness destroys hope. Sin destroys hope. They destroy it. So, you promised that you would stop them. You will win.
Who is this man that comes their way?
The dark ones shriek, they scream his name.
Is this the one they say will set the captives free?
You are nobody yet you rise to the job when everybody refuses to.
Gazing into the distance you see the horizon, stretching out in greys and reds and oranges and purples as far as the eye can see.
Then the biggest bolt yet strikes the earth, dazzling you, its scream exploding in your ears.
Woosh. Roar.
Their scent is on the wind. Rejuvenating you. Lifting your head. Calling to you. Calling for vengeance. Like a predator hunting its prey you hear it.
You respond, “I’m coming for you...I’m coming for blood.”
And somewhere - thousands of miles across the sea - something hears you.
