The Russian Empire || Countryhumans

Northern Siberia, Russia — population: too little to count.

The village wasn’t on normal maps anymore. Truly in the middle of nowhere. No buses ran through here, no trains, no cars, nothing. It was as if the hamlet had been trapped in a snow globe - right at the foot of an iced-over lake, and boasting a glaring yet shy sun, that only barely creeps up on the horizon for a few hours a day, going dark before the blizzards hit.

Residents of this town were… not exactly the most receptive, nor welcoming. The remaining few dozens slouched with their heads down, their mouths sewn shut, with their barely audible whispers about you catching on the cold wind of the Siberian tundra.

And for you?

It was perfect.

Except not really.

By now, you’d been expecting something more substantial than bordered-up houses and a fraught, unstable WiFi connection.

The church? Locked. The people? No. Everything else? Boring.

Surprisingly mediocre compared to your other ventures.

On the fourth day, you had recalled something from the words of the inn owner. The heavy Russian accent made it hard to tell what she was saying, but she still spoke English:

“Whatever you do at the end of the lake — don’t pass the pine tree line. Don’t go North.” Another eavesdropper piped in, “The forest at the north side of the lake is dangerous. Things sleep there. It’s best to keep them asleep.” Another man chimed in, “Knew someone who went in the forest once and came back distraught. Snow Devils, apparently.”

Which was exactly the push you needed to venture north past the frozen lake and past the trees after a snowstorm the previous night, with far more curiosity and complacency than common sense.

Locals and their legends. You think to yourself as you cross the lake, being careful not to accidentally slip or break through the ice and drown in sub-zero waters. Probably bullshit.

Not that you would anyway. It was probably a few feet thick, thicker than yesterday due to the blizzard last night. It would never give way.

At the end of the lake, you step off the frostbitten trail and into a clearing of pine, ice and hardened snow glinting like crystals in the remaining daylight that was left. Breath fogging in the air as you unzip a backpack and rummage, crampons clinking in the tundra wind.

Various items lay in the dark depths of the bag.

Headgear… No. Extra batteries for flashlights and cameras, pocket knife, lighter, bandages… Nah. Ice axe, ropes, flashlight, harness, extra clothing… Various food items and a singular bottle of water and alcohol. No!

Come on… Where is it? You look down at the bag in front of you, searching deeper.

Camera, camera… You hit the bottom of the bag, and feel something metallic and camera-shaped. Pulling it out.

Aha, camera!

Almost immediately, you turn it on - pointing it at the crooked tree line, conifers towering over you.

You had come with the impression of seeing cool, abandoned Soviet buildings — hospitals, half-abandoned factories, deserted, dilapidated schools, the usual list. After the first days, though, you had grown tedious of the mangy, meagre stray dogs, empty white fields, and broken-down tractors.

You were bored.

Dangerously bored.

Or maybe it wasn't boredom. Pure stupidity? Curiosity? Maybe...

Advancing further through the forest, the snow crunches audibly beneath your feet - the camera recording every step of the way. After a few minutes, the village shrinks into the white monotony.

The trees, heavy with snow, creak ominously with bowed branches. Black, bare pines.

Minutes quickly had become hours, the sun beginning to dip lowly like a grey skull beneath the horizon. The silence alone was enough to drive you insane, as the relentless cold gripped your extremities - starting to get mottled with puce and blacken with frostbite.

However, the pine trees begin to thin into a clearing. Way too… vast to be unnatural. Way too full of ruins.

Your heartbeat quickens.

What looks like to be a structure, a building, sticks up out of the ground.

The building in particular is half-swallowed by powdered snow and vines of ice — a curved wall rising from one of the snowdrifts, like a buried creature trying to claw its way out.

You stepped closer, hand trembling. Placing a tentative hand to the stone, you rub away - revealing a degraded gold filigree with light blue.

“What the—?” Looking down at the work of the intricate ceramic mosaic in front, your heart stammers. “This isn’t Soviet…”

In fact, it’s way older. Imperial.

You begin walking around the ruins, shattered tiles scattered like wasps in a jam jar. A half-collapsed archway comes into view. Beyond it stretches a magnificent sight.

The sight of a faded façade. Massive, intricate, and swallowed with ice and snow. Its roof was caved in, collapsed - half-onion domes broken. Its arched windows onyx like gauged out eye sockets. Snow fills the hallways like sand in an hourglass.

“Holy shit…” Your breath fogs, mouth open. “Either this is the biggest discovery of my life… or I die of hypothermia here…”

Well. Worth it.

No maps showed anything here. No roads.

It shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s a… palace?

A palace in the middle of the wasteland that is the tundras of northern Siberia. You think to yourself, pointing the camera at the structure. “This place is massive… How isn’t it a tourist attraction or a UNESCO World Heritage site? How don’t the residents know about this? This definitely isn’t snow devils.”

What was even weirder was that it was even bigger than other sights you had seen before around Russia. Way bigger than the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, or Peterhof, or any palaces that you knew of. It was almost as if it belonged to a giant rather than an Imperial Russian family.

And that — obviously — meant that you must check it out.

Excitedly, you grab the headgear from the backpack - moving frenetically as the straps are connected - swapping it for the camera. Putting on a harness, an ice pick plunging into the wall the next moment as you climb with numb fingers.

Up, up, and up.

Boots scraping on the ice, it certainly seems that whatever palace this is becomes more intact. It might’ve just sunk into the earth rather than decayed.

And after ten to fifteen minutes, you had reached the top — a shattered skylight covered only to a thin crust of snow.

Perfect.

You walk over to the spire that somehow still stands at the roof, rope in hand, and you tie it around the metal - which creaks ominously, using a hitch to secure yourself.

Testing the stability and strength of the frame, you knelt. Weak, but climbable. With a careful step forward, you stepped onto the edge—

—and it disintegrated almost immediately.

You drop like a stone. A cloud of snow erupting from the hole.

“NO! NO! SHIT—!”

The next thing you know, you’re falling in slow-motion chaos. The world spins, a thicker rope - ceremonial, massive, braided like one to a chandelier - smacks you in the waist, winding you. Your ears ring as you scream.

“FUCK—!”

Spinning in mid air uncontrollably like an ornament on a Christmas tree, you slam violently into the top of a velvet banner - dust falling from the rafters, snow already cascading down to the throne-like dais many tens of metres below.

“ARGH!”

The rope and velvet banner swung, jerked, and slowed your fall just enough to not completely break your spine on the fall to the floor at breakneck speed.

“AHHHHHHHH!”

Just enough that you had landed on something… soft?

You lay sprawled out on thick, dense fur, panting. Warm. Not animal fur thrown over furniture, nor carpets.

This can’t be right. This isn’t right.

A sound rumbles underneath you.

A breath. Loud. Long. Deep. Dangerous. Like a glacier calving silently, shifting in its sleep.

Something stirs just a few metres ahead in the gloom.

No, no! Absolutely not, not dealing with this shit. Hell no. Not doing this.

You scrambled backward — only to hit a wall of obsidian fur the size of a hill.

Then, a deep voice rolled through the hall like a shockwave.

Heavy. Tired. Groggy.

“м… м… mnnnh… Еще пять минут…” (Five more minutes…)

You froze.

And whatever this… giant is. It’s massive.

Over one-hundred feet tall, easily.

He then grumbles, a massive pair of golden-brown lights opening. Begrudgingly lazing, unfocused - before his pupils snap straight on you from tens of metres away. Eyes. Immense, incandescent eyes.

“Mmmh…” He purrs, “Little one..?”

Right then, the light on the headlight flickers, illuminating a massive shape.

You gasp. “Holy…”

A colossal figure, a huge man, lying amidst layers of velvet with kokoshnik patterns. Black hair streaked with white and a singular strip of mustard yellow on his fringe, around a face hidden in furs and gold - with a jaw with a huge, scruffy beard, thick and huge. Heavy necklaces, a royal blue sache faded to midnight blue, aiguillettes, and a pocket watch glint underneath a small layer of snow that had filtered through the destroyed roof.

And he’s looking directly at you. Smiling, beaming.

A fold pulls out from underneath the explorer as he sits up — revealing that you had been sat on his fur coat all along.

“Ah!” The giant sat up, snow falling from his jewellery and clothing which he dons, a cloud of dust that shakes the palace like an earthquake. “A tiny visitor!”

You scream, scrambling off the huge fold of his thick coat almost immediately.

“Please—“ The giant flinched, looking dejected, “Don’t scream, you wake up the snow devils!”

And then, you were off. Already running. Heart racing.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Bad idea — the surface was uneven.

Before you had even taken three steps, your foot caught on a chipped tile of ceramic. Stumbling forward - you fall into—

Two enormous fingers the size of church spires pinch you delicately from the torso and pluck you out clean from the ground.

Like a flea. Or grape. A very terrified, screaming grape.

Helpless.

Oh.. fuck... What do you do?