January 1st and 2nd, 1890

January 1st, 1890

The storm that sprang up and swept across the North Road from the depths of Gods’ Hollow caught me by surprise and drove me to ground. For ten minutes, I huddled against a stone wall and waited for the wind to abate, when it did, I rose to my feet only to be slammed from behind and pushed over the wall.

The storm increased in fury and mingled with the wind’s howls I could hear my mother’s screaming madness. Again, the gale hammered me against the stones, finally forcing me to crawl toward the center of the Hollow’s open field.

I burrowed through the snow with all the dignity of a cowering mouse, and I’d not gone a hundred feet before the wind stopped.

Cautiously, I rolled onto my side and peered up at the morning sky. Dark gray storm clouds swarmed across my vision, and when I dared to sit up, I felt a surge of anger sweep over me.

I was far deeper into the Hollow than I wanted to be. Especially without supplies.

When I turned to calculate the distance to the North Road, a chill settled in my stomach. Both the wall and the road were hidden by a churning mass of snow. In theory, the road was beyond the snow.

But this was the Hollow, and anything or nothing could await me.

It was then I heard someone call out to me. Not by name, merely greeting. Off to my left, a trio of men approached. They were snow-covered and heavy with ice. They spoke and it took me a moment to realize the language was a sort of bastardized Russian. It took me several moments to recall what little Russian I knew, and soon we were able to exchange pleasantries.

The men were eager for me to follow them, for the sun would be setting in a matter of minutes, and when it did, few could withstand the temperatures. Reluctantly, I followed them to what I thought would be a camp, but what instead proved to be an entire village, living in fear of monsters.

For the time that I was here, I would earn my keep with my guns.

January 2nd, 1890

In the morning, I woke to the smell of strong tea and the loud voices of men complaining about the weather. I pushed aside the curtain they had hung for my privacy and found a trio of men at a small table. In short order, I knew their names, Aron, Brom, and Isaiah, the last of them the leader of the village I had been brought to.

We were in a place called Akatuy, and it was far from pleasant.

There were less than a hundred men and women in Akatuy, and it took all their skill and determination to remain alive. They had been part of a prison convoy, separated ten years earlier by a storm in their own country, which was – and was not in the way of the Hollow – Russia.

This group of convicts had carved out a place of their own, waiting for the weather to break, and when it had, they were not in their Russia. They didn’t know where they were. With each storm that swept over them, the landscape changed. Yet despite the shift in scenery, one constant remained: they were always in danger.

Unimaginable beasts came out of the storms, and the people of Akatuy spent most of their time fighting to live.

I was not the first person they had stumbled upon, but I was the first armed and unafraid by the storm that had raged.

From outside alarm sounded, and the men snatched up crude spears from the corner of the room. Together, we raced outside. From a watchtower, a man with pointed, and all of us turned to see a great wolf charging down the center of a battered dirt road. As the men lifted their spears, I drew one of my Colts and put a single round in the wolf’s forehead.

The shot echoed off the walls of the buildings around us as the wolf tumbled, slid, and came to a stop, its tongue lolling out of its mouth.

It was then that Isaiah turned to me and asked if I would help them find a home.

I nodded, replaced the spent round in my pistol, and smiled.

What the hell else was I to do?