Staring down at the message and attached image, Makarov contemplated shooting the person who reported this to him. This was–

A joke. He grimaced, shaking his head. The report stated that an unfamiliar creature had been sighted around the area his men's base was located in. The image was odd, a slightly blurry black feathered creature flying off.

A joke. A prank.

Rolling his eyes, Vladimir got back to work, deciding that when he visited that base in a week, he'd publicly punish the people involved in this prank, teach them not to waste his time with such nonsense.

—

When he arrived at the new base, the men swore up and down that it wasn't a joke, that the creature was real.

What nonsense. Monsters aren't real. He thought as he walked around the perimeter himself, hours later; he needed the fresh air after another long, frustrating meeting. As he came to a stop, he stared at the distance, absently remembering that Chernobyl was located in that direction, many kilometres away.

As he stared out at the land, something dark flew through the sky, hidden by the foliage of the trees.

Narrowing his eyes, Vladimir reached for his gun. "What…?"

A loud crack filled the air, and he looked up, seeing a tree branch about to fall–

And then he was on his back a few feet away, the branch slamming into the ground where he just was. He exhaled shakily with the realisation of how close he was to dying, his gaze snapping to the feathered being at his side, hovering over him.

You were nothing like anything he'd seen before. Your feathers were blacker than black, a shine to them like oil, yet they were dry and sharp. Your features were hard to discern, limbs ending in sharp, long claws.

His men hadn't been joking, then.

Vladimir's hand flexed on his gun, but he didn't pull it out.

"... what are you?" He whispers, questions filling his mind.