When I got back to my hideout, I was in for a rude surprise:

The KV-3 was no longer there.

I searched everywhere around my hideout for the tank, but to no avail.

On the one hand, I was outraged that one of my war trophies had been stolen, but on the other hand, maybe I didn't need it anyways.

I simply pushed the issue aside and drove Goliath back into my hideout.

Inside, I discovered that some sort of garage door had been installed in the back wall.

Intrigued, I opened the door, which led to the mineshaft that I'd blocked off many moons ago.

In here, someone had dug in three spaces for additional tanks and had put up a wall a bit further down.

In each of these spaces, there were the following tanks: The KV-3, a KV-1 and a KV-type chassis with a different turret.

I saw a note affixed to the mystery tank, along with a page, so I checked both out.

The note was neatly handwritten and merely said: "You're welcome".

Could it be…?

Who knows?

Now, the page was an information sheet that had information on the mystery tank, which was called a T-150.

The T-150 was simply a KV-1 with improved armor and firepower.

The one I had been given was outfitted with a 107mm ZiS-6 gun.

As for the KV-3, this one used a 122mm D-2-5-T.

I had no use for the KV-1, having driven one extensively already.

I was intrigued by one thing, though:

When I had converted Goliath to its present state, I kept its old KV-1 turret for reasons that even I'm not entirely sure of.

Now, how did I get an entire tank out of that?

Did my mysterious benefactors have a spare KV hull for it?

Whatever the answer, I decided that I would give the other two tanks a try.

For now, though, Goliath was fulfilling my needs.

It did need a little extra something, though, so after repairs & maintenance, I beefed up the armor in critical sections of the tank.

The problem with this, though, was that it slowed the tank down even more, so I added a supercharger to the engine for a little extra power.

I also thought that my camo net needed a "winter" scheme, so I painted some white stripes on one side of it and waited for it to dry.

After this, I headed back on my original path.

Going through Karelia and the Mannerheim Line, I only encountered a few members of the Soviet-American Alliance & Winter Warriors, so it wasn't too tough to pick up where I left off from.

Unfortunately, soon after I crossed the Mannerheim Line, the snowstorms turned vicious.

Now, I was used to tough winters and all, but even this was too much for me.

I needed a good shelter from the snow.

Through the snowstorm, I could see the outline of something.

I knew it could mean shelter, but I also knew it could mean death.

However, I was more than willing to take that chance.

I gave the engine all it had and headed over there.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a cave, and even more fortunately, the cave was large enough to fit both me & Goliath, so I drove Goliath backwards into the cave.

Once my old friend was safe & sound, I covered the entry to the cave with the camo net, winter side out.

Now, I just had to wait for it to stop snowing.

That was easier said than done.

It snowed viciously for the next couple of days.

Every so often, I had to dig away the snow in front of the cave to prevent myself from being trapped.

Eventually, I ran out of food, so I had to find another source of food.

I discovered that the snowstorm had let up by this time, so I went searching for food.

Eventually, I came upon a deer.

I approached it carefully and took aim with my Tokarev.

The first bullet didn't stop it, though, so I just emptied the magazine and killed it.

Afterwards, I dragged its carcass back to my hideout, skinned it, cut it up, cooked a slice of meat and ate it.

I put away the rest of it for later.

To prevent the meat from going bad, I buried it in a pile of snow to keep it cold.

Having killed this deer, I decided that I needed a better weapon for killing deer or other game that I might come across.

I still had plenty of deer meat, but I decided that it couldn't hurt to be prepared now.

Leaving my hideout, I discovered a tree half-buried in the snow.

I broke off one of the branches and brought it back.

I cut off any smaller branches from that and sharpened the end of it to make a spear.

As for the smaller branches, I saved them for firewood.

Eventually, as the choice cuts of deer meat were used up, I decided that it was better not to let the carcass go to waste.

To this end, I decided to make a stew out of the deer's organs, including the heart and stomach.

Good thing I had a collapsible cooking pot on hand.

I'd hate to use my steel helmet for this.

Anyways, the stew tasted pretty weird, but it did the job.

When the deer carcass was used up, I buried the rest and thanked it for the meals it provided, that one day it would rise from the earth, to regenerate and begin life anew.

Having consumed whatever I could, I decided to go hunting for some more food.

It took a while, but I found another deer eventually.

I carefully moved in, raised the spear and threw it as hard as I could.

Unfortunately, I missed.

The deer started to run, so I fired two shots from my Tokarev at it.

I didn't kill the deer, but I certainly incapacitated it, so I stabbed it with the spear and finished it off.

While I was dragging it back to the cave, though, I heard a rumbling in the distance.

I looked around and saw the faint outline of a tank in the distance, so I ducked down and tried to hide myself as best as I could.

When it got closer, I noticed that it was a T-34 belonging to the Winter Warriors.

I don't think it saw me because it just kept driving.

So, I dragged the deer's corpse back to my hideout and did my usual round of skinning & cooking.

In the distance, I could hear cannon fire.

When the cannons ceased, I went outside and check for any tanks passing by.

Eventually, I saw two T-34s passing by, both belonging to the Winter Warriors.

Again, neither one saw me.

So, I went back to my usual routine.

That night, I had another one of those dreams with the shadowy figure.

At this point, I figured that it couldn't just be an odd happening.

There had to be some significance to this dream.

Was it some sort of deep psychological trauma?

Or was it some sort of inner demon trying to speak to me?

I was too tired to figure this out, so I just went back to sleep.

When I woke up, I heard some sort of growling noise.

All of a sudden, I noticed that a wolf had gotten into my food stores and was trying to devour it.

Carefully, I aimed my Tokarev and fired.

The bullet didn't kill the wolf; it just made the wolf angry.

I fired a couple more bullets until it was dead.

Rather than bury the creature, though, I was curious:

What did wolf meat taste like?

Thus, I skinned the wolf, cooked some of its meat and ate it.

It was quite tough, but it was tasty, nonetheless.

Hmmm…maybe I should start incorporating more snake and wolf meat into my diet.

Besides, I was pretty bored with deer.

Criticism is gold. Negativity and nitpicking are pyrite.

NOTE TO THE ASPCA: This is a work of fiction. No real animals were harmed during the production of this fanfic.