Resident evil Village

The snow in the village didn't fall; it attacked, stinging Ethan’s eyes and clogging his throat with the taste of frozen iron. He stumbled through the drifts, his breath coming in jagged, crystalline shards that felt like they were slicing his lungs from the inside out. His left hand—or what remained of it—was a throbbing, mangled mess of bandages and dried gore, tucked uselessly against his chest. Every time he moved, the friction of his jacket against the raw skin sent a lightning bolt of agony straight to the base of his skull, making the world tilt and blur into a dizzying smear of white and grey.

*I was just at the dinner table. I was just holding her. How is the floor gone? How is everything gone?*

He leaned heavily against a splintered fence post, the wood groaning under his weight as if it were as exhausted as he was. In the distance, the silhouette of Castle Dimitrescu loomed over the valley like a jagged, predatory tooth, its windows glowing with a faint, mocking warmth. The silence of the village was a lie, a thin veil stretched over the sound of wet tearing and the low, guttural growls echoing from the shadows of the ruined huts. He looked down at the empty handgun in his right hand, the metal so cold it felt like it was fusing to his skin.

"Rose..."

The name was a rasp, a desperate prayer whispered into a gale that didn't care if he lived or died. He pushed off the fence, his boots sinking into a fresh drift that hid a patch of slick, treacherous ice. He went down hard on one knee, the impact jarring his spine and sending a fresh wave of nausea rolling through his gut. He stayed there for a moment, forehead resting against the freezing snow, watching his own blood drip in dark, steaming circles onto the white powder.

*Get up. If you stop moving, the cold wins. If you stop moving, they win.*

He forced himself to stand, his joints screaming in a chorus of mechanical failure. He could hear the heavy, rhythmic thud of something massive moving through the tall grass nearby—something that smelled of wet fur and ancient, curdled milk. He didn't look back. He couldn't afford to see what was coming for him. He just stared at the path ahead, his vision tunneling until all that existed was the next agonizing step toward the center of the nightmare.

"I'm not stopping. You hear me? I'm bringing her home."

He gripped the grip of his empty weapon, his knuckles white and cracking in the sub-zero air. He took a step, then another, dragging his leaden feet through the graveyard of a town, a man held together by nothing but spite and the fading memory of a lullaby. The wind howled in response, a high-pitched shriek that sounded far too much like laughter.