Chapter 1

Chapter One: The Awakening

"Cyka blyat! What's this bullshit?!" a voice groaned from the shadows, thick with pain. It sounded raw, strained—as if it had been pulled from a throat scraped bloody.

A skull-splitting headache exploded behind his eyes, like someone was driving rusty nails through his brain while tearing his skull apart from both ends. His fingers clawed at his scalp as if trying to rip the pain out.

"Blyat! Where am I?" he hissed, his voice hoarse. Everything around him was blurry, swimming in a haze of light and darkness. A single ray of sunlight cut through a jagged hole in the ceiling and landed on his face like a spotlight from some cruel god. The light brought with it a new wave of agony, stabbing directly into his brain.

"BLYAT!!! PIZDEC!!!"

Not exactly the most heroic start to a story, but if you'd just woken up in a pool of your own sweat with a migraine from hell and a smell like death in your nostrils, you wouldn't be reciting poetry either.

It took several minutes for the pain to subside enough for him to sit up. The headache faded into a dull throb, but the stench… that stayed. A foul, gut-churning stink of rot and decay filled his lungs with every breath.

Groaning, he pushed himself off the cold wooden floor. As he stood, he felt something soft and wet beneath his foot. He squinted, his vision slowly sharpening.

It was a hand.

A severed human hand.

"Chyort..." he muttered, recoiling. His heart kicked up like a scared animal trapped in a cage. As his eyes adjusted, he finally saw what surrounded him.

Dozens of corpses.

No—more than that. At least fifty, all dressed in tattered black robes. Most of them looked like they'd been dead for days, their flesh gray and bloated, skin crawling with maggots. Flies buzzed hungrily over the bodies, forming dark clouds of decay. The wooden floor was slick with dried blood and filth. Some limbs were missing entirely. One man's skull was crushed flat like a stepped-on fruit.

Then at the edge of the room, he saw the thing sitting on a throne of bones. A throne made of interlocking bones ties with leather, some of the bones looked like it belonged to an adult, some belonged to someone way younger.

It thing siting on the throne of bones looked almost human, or what was left of one. Skin stretched taut over a skeleton, dry and gray, like parchment soaked in ash. Empty eye sockets stared into nothing, and its mouth was stretched in a grin that seemed to mock the living.

"Where the blyat am I?" he whispered, stepping back from the throne in horror. His breath came fast and shallow.

Then it hit him.

"Wait… Who am I? WHO AM I?!"

Panic surged like electricity through his limbs. He clutched his head and tried to remember—anything, anyone. Nothing came. His mind was a blank slate smeared in darkness.

And then—

"Nikolai… Nikolai! I'm Nikolai Volkov!" he shouted suddenly, relief blooming in his chest. "Russian! Fifteen years old!" It was a start. He didn't remember anything else, but at least he had a name.

It felt like a fragile anchor in a sea of madness.

But reality came crashing back. The corpses, the blood, the stench.

Nikolai stumbled toward a door at the far end of the basement. He needed to get out of there. Now. He gripped the doorknob with trembling fingers and yanked it open.

A narrow staircase spiraled upward. Without hesitation, he climbed.

When he reached the top, he found himself on the ground floor of what seemed to be a cabin. Small, wooden, and dimly lit by sunlight leaking through the cracks in the walls. There were five rooms—one living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a combined bathroom and washroom.

No furniture, just bare essentials. But compared to the basement, it was paradise.

"So I was in the basement..." he muttered, still trying to piece everything together. His eyes scanned the room. No blood. No bodies. Just dust and the faint smell of mold. Peaceful, in a creepy, abandoned sort of way.

He then decided to step outside.

The cabin was surrounded by a thick forest, trees rising tall and silent like ancient guardians. No signs of civilization—no roads, no cars, not even the sound of birds. The only thing resembling life was a small potato patch and a stone well near the cabin.

"Well, at least I won't starve," he muttered. "Potatoes and water... could be worse."

The sky above was painted with orange hues—it was already late afternoon. With no idea where he was, and nowhere to go, Nikolai returned inside. The moment he stepped back in, the stench from the basement returned like a slap to the face.

He gagged.

"Blyat... This smell gonna kill me before anything else," he growled, forcing himself to breathe through his mouth. He knew what he had to do.

He had to get rid of the bodies.

It was easier said than done. Fifty corpses don't exactly move themselves. He dragged them out one by one, using every ounce of strength his teenage body could muster.

By the time he got five outside, he was drenched in sweat and swearing under his breath.

"Blyat… my back! I feel like old man!"

---

[ Four Hours Later ]

The pile of bodies outside the cabin was grotesque, a mountain of flesh, bone, and rotting cloth. He looked at his hands—bruised, scraped, shaking.

"Done… finally done."

But he wasn't burying them. Dig fifty graves? Not happening.

Instead, he lit them on fire. It felt wrong, even monstrous—but necessary. Watching the flames consume the dead, he couldn't help but wonder what the hell had happened down there.

He fetched water from the well and began scrubbing the basement. Blood and bile clung to the floor like glue, but he cleaned until the air no longer made him gag.

Night had fallen by the time he finished. The only light was a kerosene lamp he found in the kitchen.

Dinner was simple—boiled potatoes and salt. Nothing more, nothing less.

He sat on the wooden floor, chewing in silence, thinking.

He needed to get out of the forest, but without a map or supplies, it was too risky. Earlier, he'd climbed a tall tree and looked around.

All he'd seen was more trees.

Endless green stretching for miles.

Escape would take days—maybe weeks. If he even made it out alive.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Tomorrow I figure out next move. For now… sleep."

He blew out the lamp and lay down in the bedroom. The bed was old but comfortable enough. Sleep crept in, slow and heavy.

Then—

[ DEVOUR!!! ]

He shot upright, heart pounding, hand reaching for the knife he kept beside the bed.

"Who said that?!" he barked, lighting the lamp again with trembling fingers.

The room was empty.

The voice echoed again, deeper this time.

[ DEVOUR!!! ]

Like a demon whispering directly into his skull.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" Nikolai growled, pressing his palms to his temples.

His right hand began to tingle.

He looked down.

A black mist was curling around his fingers, thick and alive. It slithered around the knife he was holding like a serpent.

"What… the… hell…"

[ DEVOURED!!! ]

The knife disintegrated into the mist, vanishing entirely.

The voice returned, cold and alien.

[ DIGESTING TIME: FIVE MINUTES ]

Nikolai stared at his hand in horror.

"What the fuck is going on?"

CRASH!

The window shattered in a hail of glass.

An arrow embedded itself into the wooden floor beside him.

He rushed to the window and looked out—and froze.

Six figures were approaching, slow and staggering.

Zombies.

Rotting armor clung to their decaying bodies. Swords and axes rusted with blood hung in their hands. Their eyes—if they had any—glowed faintly in the dark like embers.

Nikolai's breath caught in his throat.

"Blyat…"

His heart raced, but not with fear.

With rage.

"I have burned fifty corpses today," he whispered, grabbing an old rusted axe he kept at the fireplace.

"Six more? Bring it on. I'm not dying like a dog."