The snow crunched under Artur’s tired feet as he carefully walked towards the small barn. He knew that if he did not get into the barn soon he would freeze to death. The Russian winter knew no mercy, it only knew how to kill.
The dead trees around him gave him good cover from any preying eyes.
Since this all began, he had seen many people die over a few cans of food. As if these people were waiting for something like this to  happen for years just to unleash their blood lust. In a small village, he had observed a woman raped and beaten to death by a group of men for little reason. The women had only one can of food on her and was clearly not a threat to the group of men but they killed her anyway. Most people treated others as if they were animals, maybe even worse than animals. Killing was now the most popular sport over the entire Soviet Union, if you could even call it that anymore.
Artur did not want to hurt anyone. He was happily ready to share his supplies with someone as long as they would talk to him. He had not spoken to anyone in the six-months that this hell has been going on. He has had many opportunities to approach people. Each time it has been too risky to do so. The people he saw could either not be trusted and would kill him or they would get him killed. If there was something colder than the winter, it had to be the coldness of loneliness.
Just a few months ago he had been living on his father’s farm after fighting in what some people called the “The Great Patriotic War”. Everyone welcomed him home as a hero. Only he knew that he had never fired his weapon in combat throughout the entire war. He had never even seen the enemy. He mostly drove around the higher ranking military officials around, keeping himself far away from any combat. Not that he had complained, he knew he was lucky to stay far away from the trenches.
The barn was now in clear view. The paint had faded a long time ago and the barn seems to not have seen much use. The trees seemed to stop far away for the barn, providing him no cover. If there was a barn, there had to be a farmhouse nearby, but the barn was good enough for him. In any case, he did not have time, the sun was setting and temperature would soon drop to deadly degrees.
Artur crouched in a ditch looking towards the barn. His tired brown-eyes gazed across the horizon to check for any people. The sun painted the trees and snow ground a dark-orange tint, making it hard to see. As long as Artur looked he could see nobody. He did not know if he had to be relieved or disappointed.
He checked his Mosin to make sure it was loaded and ready to fire. It was. Long range, there was almost no weapon that could beat his service rifle. Even though he had only fired it in training, Artur felt comfortable with the weapon. Rain or draught, cold or warm, the Mosin would work. Next, he patted his  father’s Nagant-revolver to make sure he could reach it in a hurry. His father had always bragged about his old Nagant. It served his father well in the first war, causing the death of over three men. If it was good enough for his father, it was good enough for him.
Keeping his finger close to the trigger, Artur began his sprint towards the barn. The run was silent, except for his own breathing that seemed to echo throughout the forest.
When he reached the barn doors after his long sprint he could now see something that he could not see from far away. The door was locked with rusty iron lock. He had no tools to cut the lock. Suddenly, as he was examining the old lock, the wood above his hand exploded followed by a delayed gunshot. Artur immediately sprinted along the barn. The next shot whizzed by his head and exploded into a combination of snow and wood into the barn wall. He dived behind the barn and took a few seconds to collect his thoughts. There was someone out there, but they didn’t seem willing to talk.
His chest was pounding so hard Artur was afraid that his heart would burst from his body. Whoever was shooting at him had to be living in the barn. There was no way around it: Artur had to kill the shooter. Without the protection of the barn, he would die in the cold. Artur checked his rifle one last time before moving to the edge of the wall. The shooter had to be at the western-side, hidden by the orange sun. If the shooter was anywhere else, Artur would have spotted him before moving towards the barn. The shooter could either be looking at the left side or the right side of the barn, meaning Artur’s odds of survival were fifty-fifty. Better than what many people get.
He aimed down the sight and tried to clam his breathing. Artur quickly peeked around the right side of the barn. Through the low rays of the sun he could make out a small figure laying on his stomach next to a small tree.
Artur did not think twice, he squeezed the trigger and his rifle replied with a loud boom, knocking lightly into his skinny shoulder. Artur pulled back the bolt on his rifle, spitting out the  empty cartridge and inserting a fresh round. As he peeked around the corner again, the figure still looked the same. It was too far for him to confirm the kill. Keeping his rifle raised and ready to shoot, he began to walk towards the figure. Step by step he marched forward.
If the shooter was not dead, or if the figure was simply an illusion, Artur would be dead. Artur scanned all the sides of the forest, but he could not spot any movement.
A fresh body lay sprawled out across the snow. Blood was steadily dripping out from the head. The body’s legs were twitching as Artur turned over the body. It was young boy, maybe fifteen years old. The boy’s chubby face was frozen in an expression of horror. Artur did feel a hint of remorse, but he was only defending himself. Somehow it felt as if the boy’s light blue eyes were piercing into his soul, exposing his past and all his weaknesses. Artur began searching the body, careful not to look at the boy’s face. The boy carried little ammunition, and the cartridge did not fit his guns. The boy carried no food, which was unfortunate for Artur since he was running on his last cans. In a small pocket of the boy’s pants, he found what he was looking for. A key.
The last rays of light had begun to vanish while Artur was sprinting back to the barn. He had not bothered to bury the corpse, not even taking a moment to close his horrible eyes. Nobody would care, nobody would even know. Proper burial was a thing reserved for civilised times, not this.
The small rusted key slid roughly into the lock. The lock’s bolt jumped open. Artur clicked on his old service lighter and began searching the barn. The floor was covered in thin layer of hay. There were some empty cans stacked next to a worn out blanket. There was also a small staircase leading up to the second floor of the barn. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw something unimaginable.
A man clothed in a suit and tie was sitting on a bale of hay with the biggest smirk on his face that Artur had ever seen. The rest of his facial features was shrouded by the dark.
“This is trespassing you know. Didn’t your daddy tell you not to go into other people’s houses?”
Artur jerked his revolver out of the holster, cocking it and pointing it towards the stranger.
“You live here?” asked Artur as he stepped closer towards the man.
“No, not me. That boy that you killed, he called this home. It wasn’t much, but you took it from him.”
“How do you know I killed him?”
Artur sat down on a bale of hay opposite to the man, keeping his revolver pointed directly at the ominous stranger. The man chuckled for a moment and almost as fast as he started, stopped and stared down at the rotten wood floor. The barn fell silent with a dangerous silence.
“You know, I liked that boy. He was innocent. He was just trying to survive. But you had to end that, didn’t you?”
At the moment the man jumped up and  slowly walked into the small light coming from Artur’s lighter.
“Do you want to fucking die!?” shouted Artur as he launched himself upright and shakily extended his gun in front of him.
In the faint light he could make out more precise features of the stranger. The man’s suit was sleek and pitch black. The shirt was the only part of his clothing that was a different colour, the white made it look like a light in the darkness of the man’s costume. He towered above Artur as a giant. His short and glossy black hair was combed back neatly. His dark blue eyes were welcoming, and somehow reminded Artur of his father’s eyes. A pearly white smile painted the man’s face.
“I would rather worry about your own life. That kid you shot, he had friends.”
The sweat dripped from Artur’s brow. He could feel the walls closing in on him.
“Look at that wall and get on your knees.” Said Artur commandingly.
The man complied almost instantly, spinning around and falling on his knees without hesitation on the old wooden floor.
A faint chuckle echoed through the barn.
The man did not even flinch when Artur pressed the revolver against his pale neck.
“You really want to do it this way?”
“There is no other way.” Responded Artur with hesitation in his voice.
“What about letting me live? I’ll sleep up here, I promise to not disturb you, trust me, I don’t snore.”
“No! There is something wrong about you. I can see it, you’ve done horrible things.”
Artur pressed the barrel of the gun deep into the man’s neck, yet the stranger still did not seem uncomfortable. Artur’s finger was tightly fixed on the thin metal trigger of his gun.
“You gonna kill an innocent man because of a hunch? Then do it, I hope you get what’s coming to you.”
Artur was ready to kill the man, but for some reason his trigger finger would not move. Could he really be sorry for this man? For a complete stranger that could kill him at any moment.
Artur sighed and lowered his weapon.
“If I’m going to trust you, I at least want to know your name.”
“Just call me Alik.”
“If you make a sound, I’ll come up these steps and make sure you never make a sound again.” Said Artur as he backed down the steps.
The winter wind howled by outside the barn as Artur took out his folded blanket from his wore-down bag.
“By the way, my name is Artur.”
A light chuckle from above echoed throughout the old barn.