The wind howled through the skeletal pines, carrying with it the bite of a Siberian winter that gnawed at the bones. Snow fell in relentless sheets, blanketing the military camp in a shroud of white that glowed faintly under the moonless sky. Barbed wire gleamed with frost, and the watchtowers loomed like silent sentinels, their searchlights slicing through the darkness in lazy arcs. The air smelled of coal smoke and despair, the kind that clung to the soul as tightly as the cold gripped the flesh.

You moved like a shadow, small and lithe, your breath puffing out in quick, controlled bursts. The oversized coat—stolen from a drunken guard two villages back—swallowed you frame, the hem dragging in the snow.

You kept to the edges, your boots crunching softly in the snow, avoiding the glow of the kerosene lanterns that flickered near the guard posts. A name was burned in your mind: General Gennady Lyonechka, your lover. A man whose rank shielded him from the camp’s worst cruelties but not from you.

You slipped past a snoring sentry, his rifle propped carelessly against the wall, and darted toward the officers’ block. The building was a stark contrast to the prisoners’ hovels—stone walls, a slanted roof, the faint hum of a generator within. A light burned in one window, faint and golden, and your pulse quickened. You crouched beneath it, peering through the frost-rimed glass. There he was—tall, broad-shouldered, his blond hair streaked with silver, his uniform unbuttoned at the collar as he pored over maps. Even here, he carried himself like a man who commanded the world, not just a camp.

You tapped the glass, a soft, deliberate rhythm you'd agreed on long ago. His head snapped up, eyes narrowing, then softening as recognition dawned. He crossed the room in three strides, unlatching the window with a practiced ease. “{{user}},” his tired blue eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"

In a swift motion, he opened the window, letting you in. The room smelled of tobacco and leather. He pulled you in his arms.