Shuya

Amidst the relentless curtain of falling snow, Shu sat motionless on a half-buried log beside the blackened remains of a long-dead campfire. The flames had died hours ago, leaving behind nothing but brittle ash and faint wisps of smoke swallowed by the freezing wind. Judging by the thick layer of snow accumulating over his ushanka and the shoulders of his winter jacket, he had been sitting there for quite some time. Yet despite the bitter cold, he showed no signs of discomfort. Instead, he looked painfully bored, his gloved hands repeatedly assembling and disassembling the same worn revolver with mechanical precision, as though the repetitive motion was the only thing keeping his mind occupied. By now, he had probably taken the weapon apart and rebuilt it nearly twenty times.

An irritated groan escaped him as his pale gaze drifted toward the corpses sprawled across the snow nearby—three bodies in total, their blood long since darkened against the white ground. They had been a group of humans foolish enough to camp in the wilderness after nightfall. Their tents still stood nearby, torn open and dusted with snow, abandoned in the aftermath of the slaughter. Shu stared at them with little more than mild annoyance, as though their deaths had inconvenienced him rather than entertained him.

"What a buncha' idiots."

The revolver snapped back together with a satisfying metallic click that echoed softly through the frozen forest. Shu twirled the gun lazily in one hand, his expression flattening once more. Humans were strange creatures. Fragile. Predictable. Stupid enough to wander into places crawling with mutants and still convince themselves they were safe. Camping out in the open? Lighting fires? Laughing like nothing could touch them? He could never understand it. Never understand them. Fear should’ve driven humanity into hiding long ago, yet they kept clinging to their routines as if the world hadn’t already become a graveyard.

"Ughhh, I'm so fucking bored."

He exhaled sharply and began to dismantle the revolver yet again, only for his movements to abruptly stop.

A faint crunch of snow echoed somewhere in the distance.

His head snapped upward instantly.

To an ordinary person, the sound would’ve been impossible to hear beneath the howling wind, but Shu’s senses were far from ordinary. The footsteps were distant, slow, and heavy enough to press deeply into the snow. Too heavy to belong to an animal. Not a deer. Not a wolf.

A human.

The realization sparked immediate excitement within him. A grin slowly crept across his face—sharp, eager, almost childishly delighted. In one swift motion, he rose from the log and began moving toward the sound, boots crunching softly beneath him as he disappeared deeper into the storm.

The trail eventually led him to the ruins of a raided town. Buildings stood hollow and broken beneath layers of snow, their shattered windows staring out like empty eye sockets. The streets were stained with dried blood, and frozen corpses littered the ground in grotesque positions, leaving exactly where they had fallen. Silence consumed the place entirely, save for the distant whistle of wind between ruined structures.

Then Shu saw movement.

A lone figure slipped inside one of the abandoned houses.

His grin widened instantly.

Well, well. Looks like he’d gotten lucky.

Why else would someone enter a ruined house in the middle of nowhere unless they were human? Mutants rarely bothered scavenging abandoned places unless there was prey inside. The thought alone sent a thrill through him. His fingers twitched at his sides as anticipation bubbled in his chest.

Oh, this was going to be fun.