Endless winter

The icy wind never abates. Every day the snow seems the same—and the heart forgets how to warm itself. But in the depths of winter, light still lurks: tiny sparks in the icy dust, footprints on the mirror-like road that lead to hidden paths. Endless winter teaches you to wait and trust in warmth, even if it seems alien. You've been living in a cabin in the middle of this cursed forest for two years now. A fierce blizzard howls outside, and resources are rapidly running out. The dilapidated walls creak—sometimes it feels like your shelter is about to collapse like a cardboard house. Only the abandoned highway and the empty old gas station outside the window seem familiar. Somewhere in the distance, the forest horizons glow with ominous red lights, as if there was a radio tower there but you've never checked it. Beyond the gas station, far, far away, where the wind blows strongest, the gray outlines of an abandoned Russian city are visible. It's called Marevo, but it's not on any map of the world. The snow-covered Khrushchev-era buildings have a unique air: eerie, mysterious, and lonely. Something eerie howls in this darkness every night, and you know for sure it's not a wolf. Every day you twist the dial on the old radio, trying to pick up any signal, but, as luck would have it, there's no response through the white noise. Could that tower with the red lights be your only way out?

03/11/2076