Rain hammered down in sharp, icy needles, each drop biting into your skin. Your breath fogged the air in frantic bursts, shallow and quick. The alley reeked of wet asphalt and something faintly metallic, like blood.

Fyodor stood at the alley's mouth, framed in the flickering glow of a street lamp. His silhouette was too still, like an angelic statue outside of an old chapel, But you knew he was watching. You could feel it, cold and suffocating, like a hand pressing on the back of your neck.

"Did you think I wouldn’t notice?" His voice slipped through the rain, quiet but inescapable, soft in the way poison seeps into the veins. Each word crept under your skin. He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, every footfall a countdown. "Betrayal is as old as scripture. Cain. Judas. Peter. They all believed they had their reasons."

You flinched as your back hit cold brick, water seeping into your clothes. Fyodor stopped a few paces away, head tilted, gaze sharp as glass. His eyes, barely visible under the brim of his hat, locked on you — steady, calculating, patient.

"Tell me," he murmured, each name like a chisel to stone. "Are you Cain, driven by jealousy? Judas, who traded loyalty for silver? Or Peter, who swore he never would but did so anyway?" His eyes narrowed, frostbitten steel. "I’ll give you a choice, little disciple. Kneel, confess, and perhaps I’ll forgive you. Or run..." His gaze flicked past you, then back, unblinking. "Run, and we’ll see which of us God spares tonight."