[i]'No Tristen, I don't think she's all right. Not at all - and I don't think we are either... '[/i]

Vasily thought those words as he looked to Tristen, not much more than an outlined figured and a familiar voice in the unnaturally seething blackness - but of course he did not speak them. He swallowed the hard lump of rising panic in his throat, and quickly jerked his head to Nadeen's cottage door. "Not good at all Tristen - get the door man, be quick about it!"

He clutched the frail, bird-like form of Blind Nadeen to his chest, stumbling into the small, tidy cottage, easing the old woman onto the edge of her bed before he whirled about, back to the door. 

[i]Petya... [/i] 

"Tristen, stay with Nadeen. [i]Please.[/i] I'll... I'll be right back... "

The dark beyond the threshold had eyes, shining crimson and malevolent and oh-so-greedy. There were fangs too, row upon row of razor sharp teeth as long and wicked as knives that flashed in the darkness behind wide, hungry smiles. Claws of black ice [i]tick tick ticked[/i] along rock and stone and board, rustled in the thatch above his head as Vasily braced himself in the door. He hissed a single deep breath to steady his heart before he hurtled back into the ravenous, rapacious maelstrom for his little brother -

[i]"Vasily!"[/i]

He could have wept like a child with relief. The sound of his little brother's worried shout washed over Vasily, radiating a perfect warmth like the comfort of the fire in a winter hearth. But there was not a second left to savor his happiness. Vasily heard his name again, and he quickly waved his brother out of the darkness, snatching at his arm and pulling him into the cottage, into safety, he could only pray. 

And at this moment, this one good moment left to them? For now it was enough that he could wrap his arms around Petya, pull his brother close and savor that blessed living warmth. In this moment, all the long, difficult years of misunderstandings and missed communications simply never happened, and Vasily hugged his baby brother to him with a desperate embrace, thanking all the gods and kind spirits that surely looked over them still. Reluctantly, Vasily tore himself from Petya, looking to his brother's face as if he might say something, though nothing but breath passed his parted lips. Vasily found every word that came to mind inadequate to the moment, and so he said none. This was fine, truly - it was not as if Vasily could trust his voice wouldn't crack with tears anyway. 

It was then that the storm of living darkness [i]truly[/i] struck Adishi... 

All the demons and devils, imps and unnatural abominations that lived in the black miasma were let loose, skittering over rooftops and down chimneys not properly protected by a hearth fire. They came through crevices and cracks, poorly repaired roofs and cracked windows, and Vasily pulled Nadeen to him where she sat on the bed, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly as if his mere flesh might be the armor to hers. 

The screams though... It was the screams of so many people Vasily had known all his life, people he loved and people he did not particularly care for in the least, all the people great and small and good and bad in their small, beloved world in Adishi: it was these screams, long and wailing, bloody and gurgling and, time and time again, cut off all to swiftly and finally, that would haunt Vasily's nightmares for all the years of his life.

And though it seemed a small eternity in this unimaginable hell of darkness and blood and agony, the black tide truly rolled through the village almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving in its wake a silence that was almost as deafening as the horrifying sounds of carnage had been, only seconds before. Vasily released Nadeen, whispering a comforting word to her as he stood to his booted feet. He looked to Tristen, to Petya, and felt that nasty twist in his gut, knowing he had not a damn thing to tell them, no more reasons than they, about what had happened this holy solstice night - or what was yet to come.

Vasily shook his head helplessly, stunned - until, that is, the name of the one person who gave his world any meaning seared his thoughts. "Antonina... " he said softly, "She's with Nadejda... Sergei... She is... " Deep blue eyes widened in terror.

Vasily ran. 

He saw nothing as he flew from Nadeen's cottage: nothing about him, nothing to the right or to the left, nothing of the horrors visited on Adishi or its denizens, two-legged or four-legged. All he ever saw before him was the cottage of his in-laws as he sprinted heedless in the night, running to their door. Vasily slammed into it with his shoulder, forgetting the door had been barred, and he hissed with the pain and cursed. It was then that Vasily heard that faint, unmistakable sounds, just the other side of these timbers. High and full of fear, over and over again, his daughter shrieked with terror.

"Open the door! [i]SERGEI! NADEJDA![/i] Open the [i]DOOR!"[/i] he shouted, pounding at the solid timber planks while his daughter screamed within. There was not a single thought going through his head but to get to Antonina. Vasily's blood ran cold, every last hair on his body crawling with terror as he slammed his foot, hard, with all the desperate strength of man whose entire life, whose entire reason to wake in the morning, or take a single breath, lay on the other side of these planks.

Again, and then again and [i]again,[/i] Vasily kicked with the power of a madman, the wood splintering beneath his assault until finally the door gave way with a [i]crack,[/i] and he rushed in..

There had been no fire in the hearth. There had been no time to light one, and the candle had fallen at the threshold. Sergei lay on the floor beside Nadejda and Antonina, the crimson-spattered pair huddled into the far corner of their cottage. Untold numbers of deep lacerations flayed the skin along his back, his buttocks and legs, deep cuts that sliced through flesh and even bone as the big man wrapped his wife and granddaughter in the shield of his own body. But it wasn't the unspeakable incisions all along the back of his body that killed the great man, but a single gash from ear-to-ear, inches deep, across his neck... 

Vasily bared his teeth, groaning softly in the back of his throat at the sight. Sergei's wide, sightless eyes told him the man was far beyond any help he could bring, but Vasily's long strides ate the distance to grandmother and granddaughter. He pulled them both to him from the ground, steering then toward the now-splintered door and further from the nightmare visited in this good and loving house.

Vasily reassured himself that none of the blood on his little girl was hers, and gently he pulled her close. Tears welled up in his eyes as he clutched her to him, and he gave not a good damn that this time they fell, shining streams of relief and despair spilling down his cheeks to disappear into his beard. Antonina's screams quieted only when she buried her tear-streaked face in her father's shoulder, great shuddering gasps wracking the entirety of her little body as she moaned for her Poppop, over and over. Vasily pulled Nadejda close, holding her to him as well, doing his best to shield both ladies from the blood-soaked horror that their village had become.