CRACK.
The next icicle tore through the window before Ilya could move.
The sharp edge of it punched into the far wall like a thrown spear, splitting the wooden beam straight through. Splinters exploded into the room, catching him in the shoulder as he threw himself behind the table.
No hesitation. No scream. Just instinct.
He had seconds.
He gripped the rifle. Felt the sweat on his palms through the gloves. His pulse thudded against his ears.
He ran.
Boots slammed across the floor. Coat whipped behind him. He vaulted the windowframe without looking.
His boots struck the slanted rooftop outside, slid across the snow, and caught the edge just before he lost balance. His ribs slammed against the stone lip, but he didn't stop. He used the momentum to push himself upright and kept running.
He didn't need to look behind him to know it was coming.
The screech behind him confirmed it.
He crossed one rooftop, then another, the city stretching below him like a map of chaos. Smoke curled into the sky. He could see distant fires. The taste of cold ash in the air.
Another shriek, louder.
He didn't turn around.
CRACK.
An icicle slammed into the tiles behind him, the explosion of frost and shards nearly sending him into a roll. He tucked his body mid-sprint, came up again near a chimney, and vaulted the next gap.
The flying creature howled again. Faster now.
The second shot came with less warning.
It missed, barely, but burst into the roof so violently it sent debris flying into his legs. He stumbled, slid, kicked off another vent pipe and leapt for a smaller building's rooftop. His landing cracked a row of tiles and nearly sent him skidding over the edge.
The gap between shots was getting shorter.
His mind started to piece it together.
The first icicles had come at long, measured intervals. Now, they were quicker. Sloppier.
He ducked under another ridge and ran low.
Another icicle passed overhead, too close. It clipped the stone, sending a screeching vibration through the rooftop. He spun behind a broken chimney, back to stone, heart racing.
It wasn't precision anymore.
It was fury.
The creature was wasting ammunition. Desperate. Trying to finish him before it lost its edge.
He moved.
Another rooftop, then another. His boots felt heavier. His shoulder screamed every time he landed.
The fifth shot missed him entirely, slammed into a water barrel instead. It detonated in a burst of icy slush and splinters.
The sixth, closer.
He dove behind a stairwell. Snow fell from above in clumps. His ears rang.
He waited.
Above, the creature screamed again.
This time, slower. A crack in the rhythm.
He took a breath and risked a glance skyward.
The beast twisted mid-flight, its right wing tilted too low. Its symmetry was off. There was a fracture in the ice-blade feather structure. Pieces missing.
It wasn't just sloppy.
It was dying.
He swung his rifle into position. Lined the shot.
Took the breath.
Fired.
The shot went wide.
It missed.
His hands had shaken. His grip slipped on the half-frozen trigger. The pain in his shoulder was worse than he thought.
And the beast retaliated.
CRACK.
The return icicle came faster than before. It hissed past his cheek, sliced a line through the skin just below his eye and stuck into the stone behind him.
Blood spilled warm over his cheekbone.
He didn't react.
He didn't have time.
He was already moving, running again, the rooftops stretching ahead like an unraveling escape route. He pressed into another ledge, brought up the rifle, braced hard.
Lined it.
Waited.
The creature pulled up again, slowed. That wing, it was off-balance. He could see it.
Now.
He squeezed.
BANG.
The bullet struck the base of the fractured wing.
It split.
The scream that followed was a wet, high screech like glass ripping in water. The beast twisted mid-air, lost control, spun out.
It crashed three rooftops away, took out a stone chimney, and plummeted down between the buildings in a thunder of ice and rubble.
Ilya let the rifle lower slightly. His chest rose once. Twice.
He thought it was over.
Then he heard the growl.
He turned, and something moved behind him.
No time.
He ducked.
Too late.
A heavy claw swiped through the air and caught his right arm. The pain was white-hot, instant. It ripped through sleeve and skin alike, spun him sideways onto the cold tiles.
He rolled.
His rifle clattered ahead of him.
He looked up—
Wolves.
Three of them at first.
Then five.
Long limbs. Frosted fur. Glass-sharp eyes. They stood on the edge of the roof behind him, mouths open in long, low snarls. Their breath steamed in the winter air.
He couldn't move.
His legs wouldn't respond.
He didn't see them.
He saw the orphanage.
He saw fire again.
He saw the caretaker bleeding against the snow. Children curled up in corners. Ash raining from the rafters.
He saw his hands, his own hands, holding a rifle too big for him, shaking too hard to pull the trigger.
The wolves inched closer.
He stayed crouched, unmoving.
Frozen.
Another memory:
Anna. Reaching out to him. Her eyes wide. Her voice small.
"Ilya…?"
He blinked.
The vision broke.
His finger curled.
BANG.
The nearest wolf dropped.
The other four snarled, scattering just enough for him to move.
He lunged, grabbed the rifle from the snow, and turned—
He didn't fire again.
He just ran.
He leapt off the roof, hit a lower slope, skidded, hit the next ledge. Rolled through snow and slammed shoulder-first into the side of a rooftop vent. His cut tore wider. Blood dripped onto the shingles.
He turned, fired another round behind him. Missed.
Another leap.
The wolves were still following.
And then—
The next rooftop cracked beneath his boots.
The stone buckled.
He barely turned before something crashed through the wall below.
The alley exploded outward.
A towering shape stepped into view, shoulders brushing the broken arch, steam rising from joints like engine heat. Its chest glowed faint red behind black frost. Limbs were thick as trees, joints too slow to be natural.
It didn't roar.
It didn't rush.
It saw him.
And it moved forward.
A Golem.
Worse than a Maul.
Ilya fired. Once. Then again.
The bullets deflected off the ice armor like they were pebbles.
He turned to run.
The beast raised its arm.
And punched the alley.
The impact shattered the roof beneath Ilya's feet. Tiles gave way. He fell with them, landed hard on a lower landing. He tried to get up, his knee gave out. He forced it up again.
The wolves didn't follow down.
They waited.
They knew.
He staggered toward the far ledge. Gripped the frost-covered bricks. Climbed down into the street below.
Everything burned.
He could barely keep track of the city now.
Alley. Street. Debris.
His boots slipped through ash-streaked snow. Blood left thin trails behind him. His vision blurred again for a moment, and this time he almost didn't correct it. Almost didn't care. But his legs kept moving.
Another cry from above, this one lower, almost broken.
He ducked under a shattered archway, into a courtyard littered with broken crates and the twisted frame of a market stall. A canvas tarp flapped violently overhead, torn in the middle. The wind cut deeper here. The buildings opened wider.
And in the sky above , the trio descended.
Three flying beasts, fractured but lethal. Wings uneven. Movement sharp.
He ducked behind a broken cart, then sprinted low across the courtyard.
An icicle slammed down just behind him, then another. And another.
They weren't precision strikes anymore. These were rage. Fury.
The beasts dove again. One veered wide and came in at an angle, wings slicing through smoke. Another swept low and crashed through a lamppost, spraying stone and iron in its wake. The third held back, gliding slow and deliberate along the rooftops, waiting for the right moment to fall.
They were everywhere.
Ilya turned and fired, hit nothing.
He sprinted across the courtyard, into a narrow service alley and slipped over a loose ladder into a collapsed bakery storefront. The glass underfoot cracked with every step.
He ducked behind the counter, tried to breathe.
He couldn't stop shaking.
His arms were trembling. His heartbeat wouldn't slow. He leaned against the wall, blood seeping from his right arm, from the cut on his jaw, from somewhere else now too. He wasn't sure.
Then, movement.
One of them had landed.
Just outside.
He raised the rifle again, unsteady.
The winged shape passed the broken window, silhouette flashing in the light.
He pulled the trigger once more.
BANG.
The bullet struck the beast's shoulder, not a kill shot, but enough to send it staggering sideways into the stone pillar.
It screeched. Stumbled. Then twisted, slashing the side of the bakery with its claws. The whole wall caved in.
Ilya fell back, hit the ground hard, rifle skidding from his hands.
The dust exploded outward. Plaster and snow fell together.
His ears rang.
A shadow moved through the ruin.
Another beast, not the one he hit, crashing down through the wreckage above.
He reached for the rifle. Too far.
He rolled left, pain biting through his ribs as a shard of ice buried itself into the floor where he'd been lying.
Another. Closer.
He scrambled through the wreckage, pulled himself out the side, slipped on a fallen beam, then tumbled down into the side alley again.
Snow again. Blood again. Cold again.
His mind was fraying.
He felt it, that edge. The place where thoughts stopped and only noise remained. Where instinct became numb and pain blurred.
He heard his name.
"Ilya. Don't go alone."
"Come back before sunset."
"Promise me—"
More wings above. The golem still behind.
He looked up, the clouds were starting to break apart. Not clearing, just glowing red.
The sky looked wrong.
And the beasts kept coming.
He forced his legs under him again. His fingers found the rifle. He gripped it like a lifeline
But his legs gave out again.
He collapsed to one knee beside the alley wall, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a growl. The rifle hung from his fingers, heavy now, like the air had thickened around it. His vision doubled. Then tripled. Then narrowed.
He blinked once.
Twice.
His heart didn't beat normally anymore.
It thudded. Skipped. Then pressed forward like it had to outrun itself.
The snow beneath his hands had turned dark. Not shadow. Not ash.
Wet.
Warm.
He looked down.
His arm, his right one, the one with the deepest gash was leaking. But not red. Not anymore.
A black liquid slowly replaced it.
Not thick like tar. Not slick like oil. Something between. Something alive. It pulsed faintly, like it remembered a rhythm his bones had long forgotten. It oozed from the wound, traced along the line of his wrist, spilled into the snow without steam.
The frost didn't freeze it.
The cold didn't stop it.
The blackness spread.
It threaded across his knuckles, into his palm. His breath hitched. He tried to wipe it off, but his fingers wouldn't move the way they used to.
The rifle slipped.
It hit the ground with a soft clack, too quiet for what it meant.
The black liquid reached the haft. The wood did not drink it, it obeyed it.
The rifle pulsed once in response.
A low tremor moved through the ground beneath his boots. Barely a quiver. More like the city exhaling around him.
Ilya didn't stand.
He didn't scream.
He just sat there, body leaning into the ruined alley wall, snow piling at his boots, eyes locked on the stain now blooming outward beneath him.
It didn't pool like blood.
It reached.
The blackness slithered into the cracks between the cobblestones. Crept like roots. Crawled like veins. Spread beneath shattered crates and broken stalls, coiling around lost nails and bits of bone, curling through the stone like a question waiting to be answered.
He felt something behind his ribs shift.
Not break. Not yet.
Just shift.
Like a door unlatched. Like something waking.
More blood spilled.
More black.
More.
It didn't stop.
And he didn't stop it.
The sky above flashed once, lightning without thunder.
The winged beasts hesitated mid-flight.
Only for a breath.
Then they screamed again.
And dove.
The blackness kept growing.
And eventually blinded him entirely.