Arena

You head into the wooded area and are soon embraced by an absense of wind. You make your way along a little trail through the pines and brush and snow.

You half expect to stumble upon the cabin of your youth, where you stayed at as a boy, so similar is the terrain here to your home in Mother Russia.

As a boy of twelve you watched as your father, a woodsman, murdered your mother and came after you. He clutched his axe in hand and there was a terrifying, mad rage in his eyes and a wicked grin on his face. Something had snapped inside of him.

You father had been a large man, but at twelve years you were nearly as tall and broad of shoulder as he was. He had strength but you were far more agile and dodged his swings easily.

You tried to reason with him, tried to snap him out of his madness. But nothing got through.

In the end he lunged at you and you smashed his head into stones around the fire place. You spent a lot of time alone in those woods before the wars of the outside world invaded your solitude.

Ahead of you the path of a deer runs through the snow, intersecting the trail from left to right, and continuing on into the trees.