Chapter 1

The nightfall came crashing down abruptly, harmonizing with the lingering eeriness of the atmosphere submerging the vast greenwoods. Above the deciduous birch trees standing alongside the green alders and cottonwoods, the tender fall of the winter snowflakes gradually signifies the demise of the Northern sunlight. Yet, as the massive fireball dies down, another life is born.

Just under the naturally erected veranda made from the roots of the poplar trees that have long ago ceased to flourish, and a cliff covered in old and new layers of snow and rainwater, a feeble light coming from, apparently, a fire, is desperately resisting the ample darkness fiercely swallowing the entire forest. What is inside the cave is the existence of two profoundly strange creatures - the kind of strange creatures that haven't been mentioned in any pieces of story since many thousands of years ago.

The first creature - a hind with a splendid pair of sparkling antler - have you ever seen a female Deer with antlers before? Yet there she was, lying on her own nest that is made from a plethora of ferns and leaves spread on the ground, her thin layer of fur unable to mask the everblue innerflame beneath her skin. Her upper body is covered with a thick and warm sheet of leather that is not sufficiently wide to cover her swollen belly, her every gasp for breath wheezes as if to resist the colossal amount of pain, raining down on the poor creature.

The hind is in labor – an extremely painful one.

The other creature - not any less astonishing than the hind - a towering animal of a Bear sitting right next to the hind, watching over her. The Bear has his fur in a slight dark shade of red, the fur portions wrapping around his neck and under his chin braided, his face embellished with two red streaks that were seemingly drawn with dried blood, and a lengthy cicatrix ran from his right edge of his mouth all the way to his right eye. Looking as rough as he could, yet the most significant emotion expressed on his face at the moment is that of a deeply anxious being. From time to time, the Bear would gently put his hand on the Deer's forehead or wrap his paws around one of her forelimbs.

Without a doubt, the Bear is concerned about the Deer.

For many hours to come, when the whole forest is enveloped in pitch-black darkness, the hind still has a long fight ahead of her, against a state of agony that is nowhere to being close to its end. While it is out of her control to do anything except biting her own tongue to cope with the physical and mental torments, the Bear slowly loses his patience. He stands up, walks to his makeshift leather cape and takes out a little pouch of powder. As she would seem to understand what is about to happen, the hind reaches out to the Bear with one of her forelegs, softly shaking her head, disagreeing with her companion with what is left of her strength.

As a response, the Bear bends over and lightly pounds on one side of his chest while holding the pouch. It is unclear whether the hind has finally given up to the suffering, or just simply decided to give the Bear her trust, but she stopped clinging to the Bear after his tender gesture. Slowly walking out of the cave towards the resilient, flickering flame and sits down next to it, the Bear opens the pouch and sprinkles a portion of the blue powder on the fire while mumbling something. What is in front of his eyes then put him in an astounded state of mind; the black smoke transformed to a bizarre shade of blue almost instantaneously. Under the shining moonlight, patches of the blue smoke have already begun to spread outwards and upwards, as if they are trying to find their own way up to the celestial realm. Thenceforth, the Bear stands up and walks inside the cave, continuing his responsibility to look after the Deer.

After another depressing twenty minutes, the Bear swiftly stands up and turns towards the entrance of the cave with a bowing posture usually seen in a dedicated religious worshiper.

- Brother! - He loudly shouted with the language of the bears. At the cave entrance, the moonlight is almost completely hindered by a massive shadow. The shadow then slowly walks into the cave, revealing his true appearance as he approaches - another Bear, with the same slightly dark red shade for his fur, the fur surrounding his neck and under his chin also in braids, and a tobacco pipe at the edge of his mouth with its smoke rising in curls.

- Finally, you looked for me. - The smoking Bear raised his voice, his head tilting slightly to look further inside the cave, behind his scar-faced brother, where the hind is lying quietly, trying to silence her agonized wailing. - All these years... you cut ties with your family and left our Tribe... just to run away with "that thing"?

The smoking Bear then pointed at the hind with his claws, his face swelled with extreme anger. Kolya knelt down with desperation, his face almost to the ground.

- I beg you, Igor... She is bearing my child, your nephew...

- Red smoke for hunting, blue smoke for good news, black smoke for grave news. As I see it, you still remember our traditions. - Igor replies his brother with a smirk, then he walks away from his kneeling brother and towards the nest of the Deer. - Tell me, Deer, can you or can you not give birth to his child?

- Trava can't... she can't speak our language. - Kolya stood up, his head still bowed.

- Pathetic. Sleeping with a Bear does not make you one. - Igor sat down next to the Deer, putting his hand on her belly as if trying to feel something, his head shaking dreadfully. - Kolya... You know the reason our noble race should only have children with each other?

- To keep our bloodline pure, our ferocity strong and our sharpness honed.

- You do remember well, but that saying is merely some dramatic metaphor inscribed on the Tribe totem. Under this gigantic Red Forest, there exists only four kinds of creatures with intelligence: Bear Tribe – obviously that's us, The Pack, The Owls and The Antlers. Though those wolves in The Pack are the only ones with the same body constitution as us, we would never stick our... no, we would never "befriend" them, ever. The Owls... the wisest of the jungle... needless to say. The Antlers... besides kneeling down and being enslaved for generations after generations, those Deers can never be physically nor physiologically able to give birth to a Bear cub.

- Igor, you mean Trava... - Kolya asks in uncertainty, his voice starts to quiver.

- Precisely. Tonight, she will die along with the cub. There will never be a cure to this curse.

Kolya immediately kneels in front of his own brother, his head to the floor once again, this time with a loud thud. There follows a moment of completely dead silence that feels like it had been hours long. Then Igor starts to speak, after a long, deep puff at his pipe:

- Except...

- Brother, I beg you, I beg you! - Kolya instantly lifts his head up.

- You remember how our fellow Koro-Zuby was born? - Igor asks and watches as Kolya's unscathed half of his face slowly transforms to a troubling, terrified one. Kolya had obviously heard about how his neighbor - Koro-zuby- was born. Koro-zuby's mother - as unfortunate as she was - slipped and fell off a cliff during the last month of her pregnancy, on one night just as dark and chilly as this night. His father, having no choice, had to rip his wife's belly wide open and take the poor baby out.

- Choose, Kolya. Choose. - Igor lightly knocks his pipe on the ground to get rid of the ashes. - Either you lose them both, or you get to save the child.

Nothing can describe the emotions of a creature with intelligence that is caught between something far worse than just a rock and a hard place. Kolya stumbles to his female hind wife, who is painfully struggling and gasping for just a small chunk of air.

- I love you. - Kolya whispers as he lightly strokes Trava's forehead. - I will always love you, Trava!

The pain ravaging inside the love of his life seems to ease. Though lacking the ability to comprehend the language of the noble Bears, Trava seemingly comes to the realization that, her time has finally come.

- Kolya. It's now or never. - Igor speaks to his brother after a moment of patience. - The Deer doesn't have much longer!

Kolya nods his head and takes a deep breath. What happens during the next three minutes is indisputably his wisest decision in his life, but also the most devastating one - with his massively sharp claws, Kolya splits Trava's belly open, putting his paws inside his wife's body to search for any signs of life. Kolya then slowly pulls from Trava's body something that looks like a bag filled with fluids and his unborn cub - an amniotic sac.

- Kolya, you shall not intervene! - Igor orders his brother to bring what he's doing to a halt. - If your child is worth living, he would have to prove it.

In Igor's vague memories, Koro-zuby had his amniotic sac forcefully ruptured by his father. The moment he was taken out of the sac, the sudden light from the flames completely eradicated his eyes. Koro-zuby never got to see the light. Igor's warning words got out of his mouth so fast that he would never realize that he is worried about his nephew.

What normally seems like a minute, now feels like the entire chilling winter season for Kolya, until he finally sees a tiny bear paw, breaking the outer layer of the cocoon, revealing an obstinate head with both eyes still shut. Kolya finally gets to sigh with relief, he bites off the umbilical cord and gives his baby child - who has now started to cry for the first time ever - to Trava.

The hind embraces her son, licking off the residues of the amniotic fluid on his body. The newly born creature has a head of a Bear covered in a thin amethyst violet fur layer, with his tiny forelimbs coming with claws, his hind limbs coming with...

- Hooves. Trava, he has your legs... Your beautiful legs. - Kolya finds himself unable to resist his delightful tears falling down from his eyes. Then he realizes, the everblue, lifelong innerflame inside his wife has finally died out - Kolya's interspecies spouse has drawn her last breath.

- Give him to me. - Igor talks to his brother, showing the most sympathetic expressions he could ever make. - I want to hold him.

Taking the cub from Kolya's arms, Igor wipes the amniotic fluid on his nephew's amethyst fur with his paws, the expressions on his face now transform to those of someone who is experiencing sadness and disgust, all at the same time.

- Kolya. How long has it been since you ditched our Bear Tribe? - Igor shifts his tone almost too quickly, his voice now solemn, in a very strange way. Kolya immediately understands the situation; that Igor is now asking him a question from the perspective of a Chieftain coming from the place that he has long ago forsake, no longer a brother. Kolya adjusts his pose to look somewhat more formal, and answers Igor with all due respect:

- Bearing in my heart and mind the lifelong dishonor for tainting the proud reputation of the Bear Tribe, I have fled our Tribe for five summers and four winters.

- After that pathetic Deer, you would not once again be foolish and give your heart to any other inferior creatures, would you? - Igor continues.

Kolya silently nods. Because he knows, apart from that tiny little violet creature lying peacefully on Igor's arms, he would never be able to have feelings for anyone else.

- Your hind is dead. The boy will soon be if he is not breastfed by his own mother. However, half of our noble blood is still running inside him. I would allow both of you to return to our Tribe, on one single condition.

Kolya holds his breath, his eyes wide open, waiting for what would come next.

- Bring the Deer with you. Speak to the tribe that you have awaken from your foolish obsession, that you have proved that by putting an end to the hind. The cub will be allowed to live with the livestock. When he has grown enough, he will be sent back to the Antlers, so he can live among his own species.

- No, No... Igor. I... I can fight the Wolves and eviscerate every last one of them. But, you are aware that I can never do something like this to Trava, even if it is as small as making up a lie...

- You want to go to war with the Wolves, fair enough, but what will you raise your son with? From the breast milk of the female Fangs that you are going to murder?

- Please, Chieftain! My son cannot grow up thinking that his mother was ripped apart by his own father! And my son cannot be out of my sights for even a split second!

- Better off than living by yourselves, out here in the wild, you and him! - Igor responded to his brother with a terrifying roar. - Choose wisely, either you follow my orders to return to the us, or be disowned by the Tribe!

- I'm sorry, Igor! I'm deeply sorry...

Kolya stood up straight, standing face to face with the Chieftain. He draws out his claws, putting it on his neck, and, with a swift horizontal movement, the braids under his chin quickly come to shreds. A decision has been made, without a doubt. Kolya and his newborn son, against the whole world.

At that exact excruciating moment, Kolya can clearly observe the infinitely blazing anger in the eyes of the respectable Chieftain. The grumbles of a badly wounded animal came out from Igor, he raises his arms, still holding the cub, close to the burning flames, trembling uncontrollably as if he is about to evict this calamity into the realm of destruction, yet he cannot bring himself to actually doing it. He knows one thing for sure, his cruelty is nowhere close to being able to crush his brother's final purpose of existence.

- You dumb, poor, fucking miserable, interbred piece of a creature. - Igor sighed. - Kolya, conforming to the traditions of the Bear Tribe, your son will be named by the Tribal Chief. But you no longer belong to the Tribe...

- I beg you, Igor! - As Kolya tries to hold down his weeping, he entreats Igor - once again - as a brother. - Please, name my son and wish him well. All the things I did, all the misdeeds I have done. They end with me and Trava. Please, give him a name. Please, allow him to survive in your greenwoods! We will go far away from the Red Forests, far deeper, into the Ruins. We will never see you again...

- You think that is what I want? - The strangely solemn tone is no longer there. Igor has returned to being Kolya's big brother - There was not a day that went by that I did not think about you. There was not a night that went by that I did not wait for your return, and we could once again sit by the fire smoking, having raw fishes... just like old times. But all you ever did was provoke me. I can't even remember how many times I had to fight a battle with myself because of you!

- Igor! That is the path I have chosen. - Kolya speaks once again, in despair.

Igor withdraws his emotions one more time, he lifts Kolya's newborn son towards the ceiling of the cave, the tone of his voice now back to serious.

- You will forever be a Likan. Your kind will forever be inferior, the lowest among all races, nothing more. Life always comes with miracles, and I sincerely hope that you will find your own way to go against your gloomy destiny. For that, I will call you... Nakil!

Turning towards Kolya, Igor speaks to him in his Chieftain voice.

- You will be provided with milk from the livestock, daily, under the white poplar tree at our abandoned outpost. Both of you will be allowed to survive in the Red Forest until your son has grown enough. From then on, take yourselves to the Ruins... and never return.

- You will forever have my gratitude, Chieftain! - Kolya bowed down with utmost respect.

- And here... as your brother. - Igor takes the smoking pipe off his mouth and knocks the ashes out. - I have always wanted to give this to you... since a long time ago, and under a different circumstance. Congratulations, you are a father now.

***

After a heartbreaking farewell, Igor walks away to return to his home. As he is dashing through the greenwoods, a strange smell catches up to him. He slows down and defensively inspects around.

- Kvitka, come out. You know you cannot follow me like that.

From the wildberry bushes under the alder tree, another red bear slowly appears. She runs to Igor and passionately rubs her nose on his.

- Kolya have just become a father, have him not? - Kvitka considerately asks.

Igor nods.

- That hind?...

Igor shakes his head.

- The cub...

Igor nods. Then he starts talking.

- Nobody is supposed to know about him. If the Tribe becomes aware that Kolya has ditched his own kin to elope with an Antler or that I spared the life of his crossbred baby, we will be eternally dishonored.

- I understand. And we would be in a lot of trouble if they know about how Kolya will raise his son with your wife's breastmilk, wouldn't we? - Kvitka smiles, putting one of her paws softly on Igor's face, the other on her swollen belly that is at its last stage of pregnancy.

- After all, you're the only one who knows what is in my head. - Igor smiles happily. - But... I am not certain if I want that monstrosity to survive and grow up. If he dies, Kolya will probably return, to the place where he belongs.

- If he survives, Kolya will be happy. He will even be happier if he knows that his son is about to have a fellow brother.

- Kvitka smiles again. Perhaps, in just a day or two, Nakil's fellow brother will come to life. But then, as she looks at Igor, she figures out something else.

- You... did not tell Kolya that our child will be born soon, didn't you?

- No. That would give Kolya hope... The hope that his son will have a fellow brother. The cub, Kolya's son, he is a Likan. He shall not have any relations with anyone in the Bear Tribe, in any way, and perhaps, the Antlers would not embrace him either. Letting him survive under our greenwoods is mercy enough, that is not to mention how the Fangs will devour him if they ever find out about his existence...

- I get it, Igor. - Kvitka interrupted him, reaching over to her husband, about to caress her husband's face with her tongue, but Igor immediately pushes her away.

- Shh!!! - Igor put his paw up, signaling his wife to be quiet. Suddenly, Igor roars and deftly charges himself at one of the bushes on the ground. A few moments later, he steps out of the bush, his mouth holding a strange circular metal object, with something that looks like three tiny propeller blades attached on top of it. On the metal surface, a bright LED-powered string of letters and numbers continuously flashes at irregular intervals.

- What is that, Igor? - Kvitka closely inspects the object that her husband has just taken down.

- I am not sure what that is, but this is not the first time something like this has shown up here. Our warriors and hunters has encountered and destroyed similar things since many years ago.

- Maybe they come from the outer worlds... from the other side of the Wall.

- Maybe. But whatever they are, their presence here can never be acceptable. A deformed creature in our greenwoods is enough.

Using his own arms, he crushes the mysterious object, destroying it. Then he returns home with his dearly wife. Kvitka and Igor do not have a single idea about what they have just destroyed. A state-of-the-art reconnaissance drone. The red LED line on the metal surface of the UAV flashes for the last time before blacking out:

"Drone #133. Section: Chernobyl Forests, Outer Ring. Active year: 2294".