Chapter 1: Siberian Silence – Russia, 1930

'Alexei Mikhailov' he kept thinking to himself, that was his name. He didn't want to forget. He knew what happened to those who did. He was fighting them. Him and his fellow soldiers, called these...Aliens... The Angry night, that is what they called them. For almost 3 years they had been fighting, dying, or turning into these creatures, and Alexei had no desire to become a subhuman creature. Trudging through the Siberian snows, he and his squad were trying to scout for the forces of the Angry Night, they'd had reports that a village had "Gone Dark" as they liked to call it now. They call it that when a village is wiped out by the aliens. The people stop speaking with the outside world, the snows get heavier, and the sun is all but blocked out. They could barely see, where they were going, they'd adopted a black uniform now, despite the snows, it was better to blend in with the horizon then the snow, the Chimera had much greater vision then humans, and any advantage they could gain, they would try to hold on too for as long as they could before they somehow managed to adapt themselves, as they had been doing near perpetually since the war had begun. "Shh. Do you hear that?" Alexei whispered, holding up his fist to symbolise to stop, his Sergeant turned to him, half crouching half running over to his side, "What is it Alexei? What do you hear?" He asked, "Sir, I think we are being followed, at first I thought it was just the wind blowing the trees, but now I know it is the crunching of the snow, I can't be sure if it is human or not, but surely if it were the enemy they would have-" His words were cut short, a reddish tint of some sort of energy projectile started hitting their position, followed by several more from other positions, suddenly turning into a hail of energy projectile fire. The Angry Night had come for Alexei and his comrades, and they had nowhere to run. "EVERYBODY DOWN! NOW!" The Sergeant screamed, they dropped into the snow, hoping to use the darkness and the snowfall to cover them and make them impossible to see "Okay, okay... Right... Everybody, watch where the shots are coming from! DO NOT, AND I SAY AGAIN DO NOT! Open fire until you know for sure that what you will hit is an Alien, as soon as your guns make a flash you will need to move immediately, or else they will kill you, we have a small chance to take some out and find a better position, okay? Good...Now choose your targets!". Alexei lay in the snow, his body frozen into position not by snow, but by fear, yet his hands trembled, the adrenaline pumping through his veins, his body was a mess of confusing chemical signals, he briefly shook his head to clear his mind, took a few short but deep breaths, and began to watch the pattern of fire as it flew past him, sometimes even in front of him, he was lucky not to be dead already. He took aim with his rifle at a Chimeran about 100 meters away in the treeline, a risky shot, he could hit anything and instantly have a barrage of fire in return, but he had to take his chance, he raised the rifle sight to his eye, he breathed out slowly, and fired, his round hit its mark and the energy fire from the trees had stopped coming from the direction he fired in, his trusty Nagant had not let him down just yet. Alexei then immediately began to roll slightly off to his left, distancing himself in case they had located his position, he looked around, a couple of Nagant's fired off and he saw slight movement, his friends had found their mark and were following their commander's advice, the fire gradually stopped. They had won, for now, a small skirmish though was nothing, but Alexei had learnt all he needed to know, the Angry Night would not be in these woods, if the village they had been sent to scout was intact.

"Alright ladies, up and at them as they say" his Sergeant said, "gather up on me, and take the time to reload if you really need too... We need to go get some of those weapons, our scientists will want to look at them, and I heard Malikov, some big Scientist, has a particular interest in their technology, so he told the Tsar to "order" us to get him some. So... Wait, where is Vyacheslav?" One of the squad walked over, he had tags in his hand "Sergeant, Vyacheslav, he didn't make it. But at least he will not become one of them" the young man said solomnly, and with a sense of relief in his voice, and no wonder, 'for some fates are worse than death' Alexei thought in his head, as if that is what his friend wished to finish the sentence with. "hmph" The sergeant took the soldiers tags, and placed them in a pouch on his bandolier, "Okay, we stick to the plan, we go together, grab one of the weapons. And then we get out of here, I have no desire to stay out longer than we have too. Being in contact has already proven everything we needed to know, so not one second longer are we going to be here. Go, come on". The squad walked slowly now, weapons raised, eyes constantly shifting throughout the treeline, who knows what could happen now, sometimes these strange, beetle like creatures would be released, and Alexei could feel his heart pounding, and began to pray that nothing like that was going to happen to his squad. To the left he heard a loud crack, and within a split second his rifle was pointing in that direction, but to his relief the crack was followed by a loud "ouch" as one of his squad mates, Boris, got up from the ground, he had seemingly stumbled on the corpses of one of the aliens, he laughed, and watched Boris pick up the alien weapon. It did not seem like any weapon he had seen before 'but then, why would anyone of us have seen a weapon like this before' Alexei again thought to himself. It was a bad habit he had developed these past three years, Siberia was a large place, and though they had been fighting the Chimera for those three years, it was as if sometimes they were just on some strange exercise in the wilderness. The Chimera felt more like old fashioned colonial tribes, resisting the powers of those more powerful by merely hitting and running, and yet no matter what they appeared to be like, they had the ability to make whole villages disappear, no one had any true idea how many villages had "gone dark" and so in reality no one in Russia had any idea if the Chimera numbered in their hundreds, in their thousands, or maybe even more. If Siberia fell though, the Chimera would have free reign to invade the rest of the Russian Empire, the Mongolians, the Chinese even. But what is worse, is to think that they would have the perfect habitat to sustain themselves in secrecy, hiding in an expanse of land so vast they can settle for spending decades kidnapping soldiers, ransacking villages, before turning their attention to the major cities, 'and that' Alexei began to think to himself, 'is worse than any thought imaginable'.

"We'll head for a clearing" Alexei's Sergeant began to say "Then we'll light a flare, a helicopter should come for us, but we'll have to be careful, we'll dig a couple of foxholes, hopefully the Angry Night won't come for us again" he finished and the men started back on their previous tracks. A common tactic the Russians had developed to make sure the Chimera were slower to track them, was to walk back on their previous tracks, ensuring footprints are near exact in position, it was an increasingly obsolete tactic, the Chimeran seemed to be developing new weapons at a tremendous rate, and no one knew where or how they were doing it so quickly, but the newest, known to the Intelligence Corps and other Scientists as the CHX-02 Battle Rifle, had some sort of, thermal vision scope, worse than that, it had the ability to shoot through cover and appeared to come out much stronger if it had, the use of these new weapons made backtracking more unreliable, all they needed was one soldier with the "Auger" as it had become known, and the rest of the Chimera in the vicinity could be directed to the Russians, who would be ambushed and wiped out. Hundreds had died to this tactic, and Alexei was hoping he and his squad would not be added to that count.

They walked for a good forty minutes, reaching a clearing at about 18:48 hours. The sun had begun to shine through the dense clouds, and the snow had started to let up, thankfully, in the three years since the war had started with the Chimera, the Russians had invented more efficient helicopters to fly in the decreasing weather conditions. "Okay, start to dig in here and over there, two in the foxholes, then light the flare" the Sergeant said. Alexei placed down his pack next to Morozov's, Alexei didn't know Morozov too well, they had only been in the same squad for about two weeks, Alexei's old team had been killed, captured, or wounded by the Angry Night, he had been drafted into Sergeant Stepanov's squad after that to replace one of the two members of the squad who had been dragged off by a Carrier to be converted. The two men started digging in silence, the same of Stepanov and Romanov, no one wanted to be responsible for drawing attention to themselves, the risk was to great and with the knowledge that a helicopter would arrive to come and extract them, they already had to prepare for the fact this would draw Chimera from nearby. "Is everyone set?" Stepanov asked, "Yes sir, all set here" Morozov replied, he and Alexei and hopped into their foxhole, Romanov entered into his, and they watched as Stepanov walked off short distance, pulling a flare from the pouch attached to his waist, they all heard the crackle as it ignited and the blue smoke rose into the sky, the Sergeant unslung his rifle, and jumped down into his foxhole next to Romanov. The four men stood silently, waiting, hoping that it would be a quiet wait, that the chopper would arrive and they'd go home, another reasonably successful mission, apart from the losses, two more lost to the Chimera.

"Shit...Morozov, I need you to confirm something for me, over there, to the right, treeline, that can't be the wind moving the leaves like that" Alexei said in a hushed tone so as not to risk alerting anyone unnecessarily or drawing attention to the potential contact that it had been spotted. Morozov glanced over in the direction Alexei had pointed out. "Crap, that's definitely an alien...Right, crawl over to the Sergeant, let him known what is going on, when you get back, I'll fire over there, if we kill it, we might be able to draw them out". Alexei nodded, and dragged himself out of the foxhole, the snow chilled him to the bone, but he began to crawl over to Stepanov and Romanov, he kept stopping periodically, he had to make sure he was not at risk of being shot, he knew the Angry Night was out there, he just didn't know if they knew what he was doing. Alexei continued crawling forward, "Sergeant...Sergeant" Alexei quietly called, "Hm what is it Alexei?" He replied, "We've spotted an Alien in the treeline, we don't know how many there are but they are definitely here, Morozov confirmed my suspicion, we are going to fire on it, we need to hit them before they ambush us, hopefully the helicopter will get here in time eh sir?" Alexei said, letting out a slight, grim laugh, "Ha, it will be here Mikhailov, get back to your hole, fire when ready, we'll be alert" Stepanov replied. "Yes sir" Alexei replied and then proceeded to crawl round, and head back to Morozov. 'The helicopter better arrive soon. I am not becoming one of those things' Alexei began to think to himself, he felt himself start to tremble as he crawled, something told him it was not the cold snow that was the cause, he was scared, death was easy, but to become something not even human. That was a fate worse than death. And a fate he did not wish to experience himself.

"Morozov?...Morozov?" Alexei began to call out as he approached his foxhole "Mikhailov? Is that you?" He heard a reply, "Yes, yes it's me, have you still got a sight on the Chimeran?" Alexei asked. "Yes, there's a lot more of them than I thought" Morozov said, a slight hint of panic had begun to creep into his voice. Alexei didn't blame him, they all feared the Angry Night. "Okay, okay, take aim on the one you can see, fire on him when ready" Alexei called as he clambered back into the foxhole next to Morozov, he unslung his Mosin-Nagant, and began to quickly check over to make sure there was no blockage from his brief crawl. A loud bang followed by a horrifyingly long echo flew into the surrounding area, Morozov had hit his mark, a screech was heard and a red trail leaked slightly out from the woodland into the snows around. Probably a shot to the heart or head, a good hit and one less alien to deal with. There was silence. Alexei looked over to his Sergeants foxhole, everyone wondered why nothing was happening, surely, they couldn't have been so mistaken about the number of Chimera.

The silence was insufferable. The Chimera had never been like this before, and that worried Alexei, they were normally brutal, feral even in their attacks when one of their own was killed, but now, nothing. They were beginning to gain intelligence, they no longer needed to be swift and brutal in their assault, they could be cold and calculating. This was a worrying thought, the only reason they'd be accepting of casualties, is if they had enough replacements, which meant they must have taken a city or two here in Siberia. Alexei was going to have to go with Stepanov and the rest of the squad to report this. His thoughts were cut short, bolts of red energy came streaming past, slamming into the ground around the foxhole, Morozov slumped to the ground "Shit shit shit! Morozov? Morozov?" Alexei called out, he fired two rounds from his rifle and then crouched down to check on his comrade, "Ugh, crap, I am okay Alexei, keep firing, just a flesh wound!" Morozov shouted over the sounds of the assault, Alexei watched as Morozov clambered for his helmet, that had been knocked to the floor, his friend was bleeding heavily at the cheek, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered. Alexei stood back up, he waited a couple of seconds, though it felt like eternity, he scanned the area and made sure he was aiming in the right spot, he fired a round off, and the red bolts stopped coming, he had hit his mark, but the rate of fire from the Chimeran weaponry made it feel like there were hundreds of enemies surrounding him, and for all he knew, there was. Morozov finally got back to his feet and began to fire off rounds in the direction of the Energy bolts. Suddenly an explosion hit the ground perhaps a meter away from his foxhole, he and Morozov dropped to the ground in cover, several more explosions hit around in quick succession. 'Were these mortars?' Alexei began to think, 'how could they have developed these weapons in just three years?' But he couldn't keep thinking like this, he popped his head back up and began to fire again...Nothing... He hadn't reloaded, he ejected the empty clip, and reloaded, he pushed the bolt forward, and fired, ejected the round, and repeated, he had no idea how many times he repeated the process but he was sure he wasn't truly hitting anything anymore, he was hoping to just suppress the unrelenting barrage. "MAKE SPACE! NOW!" A voice screamed from the left, Alexei looked over and quickly swept himself to the side, Romanov jumped into the foxhole, "Where is the Sergeant?" Alexei asked him, Romanov began to speak through the deep, heavy breaths "He was hit, I tried to help him, but the bleeding was too heavy, he ordered me to leave him, but I said I'd bring him with me, so that we could get to your med pack, but as I was lifting him out the foxhole" Romanov stopped, his breath had been lost to him as he slumped down, trying to regain it, he coughed hard, and pulled out his canteen, taking a swig of water, he continued his report "As I lifted him from the cover, an explosion knocked us back down, shrapnel had penetrated his neck and forehead, he was killed immediately, I had to leave him there, I took his ammo in case any of you needed it, and grabbed his dog tags, but at least he died, I would not have wished to leave him to the crawlers they shove inside people" he said solemnly, "Crap, okay, take a moment friend, regain your breath and fire when you are ready to rejoin the fight" Morozov said to him, he glanced at Alexei, the squad had again grown smaller, and the fact Romanov had to scrounge the ammo from the Sergeant was a reminder that they did not have the ability to sustain the fight much longer, yet the helicopter was nowhere to be seen. Alexei looked back, the blue smoke rose high into the sky, and yet still he felt like they had been forgotten. He turned back to the fight, he continued to fire for what felt like eternity, Romanov lay his rifle over the top of the foxhole, he fired into the Chimeran lines, the three men did not know how much longer they could continue.

"I'm out of ammo!" Alexei shouted over the sounds of the battle, "I have one last clip, here, take it" Romanov passed him the 5 round clip, "Much appreciated" Alexei grinned, knowing this was going to be the end, he loaded the rifle, and began to fire, first round, missed, second, again a miss, he steadied himself and fired a third time, he hit one of the alien creatures as it broke from cover, he again steadied himself and scanned the multitudes of targets, he picked a lone Chimera standing just outside the treeline, he fired, missed, thankfully for him the Chimera was unfazed by the near miss and stood its ground, Alexei fired again, the aliens head flew backwards, then forwards, its body fell to the ground, a headshot, Alexei had killed the alien with his final round. He sighed, dropped his head for a moment, he decided to clear his rifle, there was no reason for it, he couldn't ask for more ammo, the three men had run dry "Okay lads, it's been an honour to serve with you, we'll throw off some grenades, and fix our bayonets, if we're lucky they'll take the bait and abandon cover, when they charge us, we'll take as many as we can with us, agreed?" Alexei said, the two men looked at him, and nodded grimly, they snapped their bayonets into place, they pooled their grenades, the three of them pulled the pins of their explosives, "one...two...throw!" Morozov shouted, the grenades flew over the open space, a couple of the aliens flew through the air, the grenades had done their job, some of the aliens had been killed the remainder broke cover and began to charge the Russian position, "again! throw the last of the grenades!" Morozov shouted, the three soldiers chucked their grenades, several Chimera dropped to the floor, one of them, who was unfortunate enough to have run right over one of the explosives, went flying a good three meters back, limbs flying off into several other directions, "It's all over gentlemen, let's give them a taste of Russian steel before we are finished" Alexei shouted. The three men climbed the foxhole when suddenly several Chimera dropped to the ground, Alexei looked back and a helicopter was hovering above, snow beginning to be thrown into the air around it, and a soldier manning the turret began to fire, the Chimera just dropped, where they stood, some who were closer to the woods managed to flee into cover, but the remainder were cut down. The explosions began to gradually slow down, and then stopped altogether as the Angry Night was finally forced back.

The helicopter landed and the three men boarded. Alexei slumped into his seat, he took the bayonet off his rifle, placing it back into its scabbard. His hands trembled as he let out a sigh and tried to catch some sleep. He didn't know where he was going next, he didn't care. He was just happy he made it through alive.