2.5 - fics I read - CHERREADS

She tapped the table with her right finger.

"The food‑production car. The hydroponic reactor. The incubation chambers. The insect‑ and fungus‑protein distribution system. All of it is his handiwork. Your train—it's alive because Wilhelm knew what was coming. And how to prepare."

The inspector fell silent. Only the hum of the air conditioning and the distant clatter of wheels could be heard. He studied her more closely, a shadow of unease crossing his face.

"Shit…" he mumbled, but it sounded less like certainty now and more like a curse muttered to himself.

Tanya leaned even closer, her voice barely audible:

"Do you know why this matters so much, Inspector? Because if my father designed this system, I know how it works. Every secret pathway. Every bypass. Every so‑called 'backup' switch your technicians discovered. And if you think you can keep me in this cell as long as you please… you'd better make sure your cooling system isn't running on one of my designs by accident."

She smiled—quietly. Threateningly.

The inspector blinked, uncertain whether he was hearing nonsense or words that would reshape his view of this fucking world.

"Then explain to me, for fuck's sake," he snarled, "if your old man was such a key figure—the Archimedes of our time—why are you here in chains instead of sipping champagne with fat nobodies in first class?"

Tanya lifted her gaze. A sad, sinister smile curved her lips. Her eyes shone with something deeper than memory—rage that had eaten her from within for years.

"I'll tell you, Inspector," she said softly. "I'll tell you a story about a great dream. The dream of one man who truly believed he could secure humanity's future. That he could build a new world to endure. Without divisions. Without classes. Without that ridiculous, fucking aristocracy of compartments."

She clenched her fist; the prosthesis creaked against her uniform.

"My father wasn't perfect. But he was a visionary. He built this train as the last ark. Something meant to save not only bodies but the dignity of people. He divided everything equally—space, resources, plans. He wanted every car to have the potential for independence. Self‑sufficiency. Do you understand? Not hierarchy. A network. A community."

She fell silent for a moment, then spat words that thundered in the hush:

"And then he came. One fucking hedonist with influence, zero brains, and a thousand contacts. A first‑class sponsor. A man who never designed anything but his own villa with three jacuzzis. But he wielded politicians, the media, and money. He took my father's project… and gutted it."

Tanya looked at the inspector as though he were not a human being but the embodiment of this corrupt structure.

"He turned it into a palace on wheels for the rich. A class hierarchy. Quarters based on influence. Private cars for fucking oligarchs. And the first rule of the new order: those who have will survive. Those who don't—become meat."

Silence stretched longer. Tanya burned that image into his soul with her gaze.

"And do you know the best part? My father didn't give up. He fought. Tried to smuggle in modifications. Save at least part of the plan. He knew he wouldn't make it in time. But he sent me. Me, Inspector. With everything he knew."

She smiled faintly, contemptuously.

"And guess who ordered me stricken from the passenger list? Who suggested that the child of a genius was too big a risk?"

Her smile died.

"They declared me dead. And I survived. Because my father predicted it would happen."

She fell silent. In the interrogation room only the ticking of the clock and the sigh of wind between the cars remained.

"So you ask why I'm not in first class? Because that class shouldn't exist at all."

[FLASHBACK – 15 years earlier]

View:

The engine growled with effort, pushing through the drifts as if trying to break free from the iron grip of the blizzard. The car windows were frosted over from the inside, and the world beyond was nothing but white — endless, directionless, merciless.

Behind the wheel — Wilhelm Degurechaff, a man with tired eyes and fingers trembling with rage, not cold. A fifty-year-old man with short-cropped blond hair and dark blue eyes behind round glasses. He wore a thick leather winter coat, a fur-lined hat, and his cheeks were red from the cold.

Next to him sat a young girl with long blond hair, dressed like a mountaineer on Everest. In a thick coat, gloves, and a red scarf, with those bright steel-blue eyes. Tanya, then only fourteen — silent, focused, with a notebook in her hands, even as the world was ending.

"This was a shitty idea. Let me guess, it was your command again, Being X? Another fucking test of faith?! Push humanity to the edge of extinction?!" she thought bitterly as she spotted a few "ice sculptures."

She understood well that the world was threatened by global warming…

But to use that gas?! Spraying CW-7 into the skies to cool the atmosphere… that was a fucking bad idea!

Why didn't those damn politicians listen to her father and so many other scientists, scholars, biologists, ecologists — who warned it was the dumbest idea imaginable?!

But no… they did it. They succeeded. They succeeded far too well, and then came the second fucking Ice Age.

Pity that those who unleashed this frozen hell would survive aboard the "eternal train" as first-class passengers… fucking Wilford — if he hadn't had so much money, her father would never have even shown him the train blueprint.

Unfortunately, the materials to build the train were expensive… and Wilford was the only billionaire around who agreed to the project.

Her gaze wandered to the thick clouds on the horizon, dark as ash.

The sky had fallen — that's what they said now. The Earth had stopped. The sun was no longer a father. Now there was only ice, hunger, and steel.

"Fucking bastards…" Wilhelm muttered under his breath, trying to get a signal. The phone hissed, crackled… and finally connected.

The voice on the line, slightly distorted by digital noise, sounded cold and impatient:

"Wilford. Speak."

"What the fuck are you doing, Wilford?" Wilhelm growled. "We had a deal. Ten thousand people. Minimum! A full genetic cross-section! That's what we need to make this world viable again in three generations!"

Tanya looked up. She knew the numbers too. Their design grid was clear: genetic diversity, resilience, capacity for crop replication, full professional spectrum. This was supposed to be the Ark of the New World.

Not… this.

"Plans changed," Wilford replied with clear indifference. "We need to be practical. Ten thousand means logistics. What we need is structure. Elites. Leaders, not masses."

CRACK!

Wilhelm slammed his fist into the dashboard.

"You fucking tyrant… That won't be structure. That'll be a fucking caste! One day they'll burn you in your own boiler!"

"Let them try. But if you want your daughter on board… you'd better calm yourself."

Wilhelm looked at Tanya. Through the windshield, he saw the outline of something massive — a dark, angular shape, a monstrous machine slicing through the snow.

Wilford's train. The symbol of a new age. Or the end of the old.

"Don't forget who gave you that system, Wilford," Wilhelm said slowly, voice full of weight. "I designed the energy cells, the food system, the agrarian rotation."

"And for that, I thank you, Wilhelm," Wilford replied flatly. "But you didn't design the politics. I did."

The line went dead.

Wilhelm threw the phone onto the seat. "Fuck!"

Silence.

Tanya spoke quietly:

"You always knew, didn't you? That he never meant to let everyone in."

Her father didn't answer immediately. He looked tiredly at the road, littered with frozen corpses — poor souls who didn't find shelter in time.

"I knew… but I hoped the fear of the world ending would change him."

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. "It didn't. People like him are immortal. Built of cynicism, ice, and their own legend."

Tanya looked away. She watched the snow battering the windshield, as if the sky wanted to shatter them.

Then her gaze returned — sharp, analytical, older than her age.

"We'll survive, Father. Together, we'll impose real order on that train," she muttered slowly. "You were loyal, Father. The best engineer. You knew what was coming."

She looked at him calmly. "And you wanted to prepare… but as always —" she sighed, squinting at more corpses, "— politics."

"Exactly. Politics," Wilhelm sighed, glancing at her. His daughter had always been different — brilliant, cold, terrifyingly intelligent. But now she spoke with a tone he hadn't heard before.

"Wilford made a mistake. A big one. And I'll prove it to him from the inside."

The world was ending.

The engine hummed. The steel colossus loomed closer. On the horizon, lights — rhythmic, sharp, artificial. They approached the entry gate, frozen and guarded by Wilford's armed men. And in front of the gate stood hundreds, maybe thousands, or tens of thousands of people…

So much wasted potential for the sake of fat pigs…

Inside the car — silence, thick and unsettling.

"You made a mistake, Father," Tanya said heavily, rubbing her eyelids. "You should've designed the last city, not this… steel cemetery on rails."

Wilhelm didn't look at her.

"From a stability perspective… you're right," he said calmly, without anger. "A city would give us a central point, social structures, a chance to develop. But…" he glanced at her sideways, "Where would you get fuel, Tanya?"

He let out a hollow chuckle. "This isn't some steampunk tech running on steam."

"It would've been… frostpunk, Father," Tanya corrected. "A fitting term for such a situation…"

"You could call me Dad sometime, you know," Wilhelm sighed with mock offense, clutching his chest. "Oh, what a shitty father I must be, that my daughter talks to me like a corporate drone to upper management."

"Ha-ha-ha… hilarious," Tanya snorted with heavy sarcasm. "But still, why not try something like that?"

"Man can survive snow, can survive hunger. But not cold without energy. And the last city wouldn't have had a sustainable power source," Wilhelm sighed, tapping his fingers on the wheel. "Not on a multi-generational scale."

"But we had the concept of geothermal coolers, fusion reactors…"

Wilhelm raised his eyebrows with a faint smile.

"Fusion requires stable conditions. Plasma magnets can't handle temperature fluctuation amplitudes. And geothermal? Tanya… you know well, with continental plate breakdown under this climate instability, nothing's guaranteed. It would've all collapsed."

"So instead of an unstable city, we have a rolling castle with 18th-century class divisions," Tanya scoffed, her gaze turning cold.

Wilhelm finally sighed. He was tired. Not just physically — mentally, morally.

"It was a decision, not a dream. Mobility gives us an edge. We adapt. We avoid storms, seek warmer zones. If even one generation survives, the system will balance."

"If." Tanya repeated. "If Wilford doesn't wipe out half the population on a whim. If the elites don't turn every carriage into a feudal manor."

The engine hummed steadily, as if trying to drown the silence that fell between them.

They were getting closer. The train lights now looked like beacons in the blizzard — still, unnatural, imposed. And in front of them, a crowd — frozen stiff, desperate, silent.

Wilhelm glanced at the gauges — outside temperature: minus 41 Celsius. Too cold for hope.

"Tanya…" he began softly. "I didn't choose the train because it was the best. I chose it because it was possible."

"That's what all who surrender say," she replied quietly, almost gently, as if she didn't want to hurt, just to draw a line between them. "Possibility is not a value in itself. It's just… an escape route."

Wilhelm bit his lip and was silent for a while. Then he shook his head.

"You want to build something lasting. And I… I only want to survive. For you, for the people. That's all. It doesn't mean I don't have dreams, Tanya." He grimaced heavily. "But… sometimes you have to choose between a dream and reality."

Tanya sighed and looked out the side window, where the snow danced in the headlight beams.

"A city would be a home. A place where children learn to write, not how to run away. Where people wake up, not just fall asleep hoping the engine will still run tomorrow."

"And what when the engine stops?" he asked gently. "What will you do when we run out of fuel, when the coal's gone, and the only alternative is people? We've seen that before."

Tanya didn't answer right away. She stared at her gloved hands, still feeling the warmth of childhood scars beneath them.

"It doesn't mean it's not worth trying. Not everything has to end in cannibalism and tyranny." Her voice trembled—perhaps from cold, perhaps from an emotion she refused to name.

Wilhelm glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

"And that's exactly why I love you." he said softly. "Because you don't believe in the end, even when it's standing on the threshold."

Tanya was silent for a long moment. Then she nodded.

"And I love you…" she whispered almost imperceptibly. "But when this is all over, I want to try. Even if we lose again. I want to raise walls. I want to build a chimney. And I want to see dawn in a city, not in a steel carriage."

Wilhelm smiled. Quietly. Oldly. And, against all odds, with hope.

"Alright, Tanya. If we survive this winter… we'll try to build your Frostpunk."

"Thanks." Tanya smiled faintly.

"As long as we don't die of hunger, cold, or scurvy." Wilhelm sighed sadly. "That's why… you have to board that train. You, not me."

Tanya frowned. Something in his tone unsettled her.

"Father…"

Wilhelm didn't reply as the guards opened the gate and they drove into the passenger zone.

The crowd beyond the fence roared, hurling bricks and bottles at the guards. The car growled laboriously; snow pelted the windshield as if trying to stop, pull back, freeze them in time. The steel colossus of the train advanced—its lights slicing through the white night like blades.

Tanya sat rigidly, staring out, until she finally spoke with cold irony:

"Even if you carry out your plan, even if they let you in… do you think Wilford will let you change anything? That man breathes pride. Social classes are his fetish."

Wilhelm didn't look at her right away. He gripped the wheel tightly. Finally he spoke softly, but with resolve:

"Maybe I can persuade him. If I show him the numbers. If I make him realize that this division is suicide by installments. That a caste system will spark revolt. That far too many will get far too little."

Tanya snorted hollowly, a shadow of pity—but also contempt—in her eyes.

"You won't succeed. He's already made his decisions. To him, the poor are just coal for his furnace. He's obsessed with control. He won't understand your charts, even if you hand them to him with nothing on."

"Tanya…" Wilhelm covered his face in pure embarrassment. "Young ladies shouldn't use such language…"

"What?" Tanya raised her eyebrows. "That I use inappropriate language?" she snorted, looking at him. "So tell me, who taught me that? Especially since I discovered your collection of... adult magazines." She looked at him with cold amusement. "Especially since you keep a whole collection of tapes in your secret basement..."

Wilhelm looked at her uncertainly.

"How much do you know?"

Tanya stared ahead through the frosted window, her expression icily calm.

"Enough to know that the 'Technical Library of Archival Security' is a piss-poor cover." she muttered. "And that some of those tapes are older than me."

Wilhelm froze. If the windows weren't steamed, you'd think his soul had just left his body. Red as a Christmas potato, he sighed heavily… then, with a soft thud, banged his forehead on the wheel.

"Ugh… you're too young to know about these things…" he groaned in despair more fitting a small boy than the head of humanity's rescue project.

"I'm officially the daughter of a great genius, a distinguished young scientist, and I graduated Harvard at fifteen." Tanya recited icily. "And you seriously think I can't handle knowing my own father has a weakness for anime catgirls?"

"It was one OVA!" Wilhelm cried out, still holding his head against the wheel. "One! And she didn't have cat ears! They were… biological thermal sensors, designed by scientists in Neo-Tokyo—it's completely different!"

Tanya finally snorted with laughter. Short, soft, but genuine.

"Sure. Biological sensors." She gave a theatrical nod. "Besides, I don't judge. In this world, everyone copes with loneliness the best way they can."

Wilhelm lifted his head slowly, as if weighing whether he could now die with dignity or if it was too soon:

"You know, I didn't imagine our last moments before separation like this." he muttered. "I had a plan: tearful farewell, maybe some lofty words, a symbolic gesture… not… this."

"Dad…" Tanya said suddenly, quietly this time, almost softly. "I don't want to be separated from you."

Silence fell. Even the engine seemed to quiet, as though honoring the moment.

"Me neither." Wilhelm finally answered. "But that's exactly why we must."

Outside, the Snowpiercer's lights dimmed; the train swallowed more vehicles like a steel monster—endless, heartless, but ordered.

"When you find a way to start your city… given that temperatures will finally start to rise—according to projections, exactly a hundred years from now…" he added, glancing at her sideways, "make sure there's room in it for oddballs like me. Maybe… with a warm library. With tea."

Tanya looked at him for a long moment, then gave a slight smile.

"But no magazines."

"No magazines." Wilhelm conceded humbly.

"And no cat-sensor anime." she added.

"Okay, okay…" he groaned, staring at the train.

A calm silence settled between them.

…

"You know this won't work, right?" Tanya asked slowly. "Convincing Wilford to let those people in?"

Wilhelm sighed deeply, as if something inside him had broken.

"I know." He reached into the glovebox. A plastic click, a metallic flash. He pulled out a pistol and checked the magazine. "That's why… in this conversation I may have to be more… 'firm.'"

Tanya turned slowly toward him, her gaze turning cold.

"You intend to threaten him?" she asked, intrigued. "That might not work on him—wouldn't it be better to just kill him and spin a story that 'Wilford was such a hedonist, he locked himself forever in the front cars,' so you could rule the train in secret?"

"Someone would notice," Wilhelm replied heavily. "Wilford has too many fanatical followers who see him as a messiah."

"You're right…" Tanya grimaced, disgusted by Wilford's twisted cult. He may have been a hedonist, but he was a master at brainwashing…

Wilhelm didn't answer immediately. He slipped the pistol into his coat's inner pocket.

"I intend to remind him the train wasn't built by him alone. That not everything on it belongs to him. And that…" He looked at her with a mixture of tenderness and sadness, "if I can't leave you a better world than this one, at least I'll give you the chance to build it someday."

The engine quieted. The car stopped before the frosty gate. Guards' shadows moved in the headlight glow.

Tanya stared at her father with something she couldn't name.

"This will end badly, Father."

"Everything ends someday. But not everything has to die, Tanya."

The doors opened. Time to move.

They both stepped out of the car, feeling the chill on their skin instantly. The temperature dropped with every passing minute…

Time was running out…

"Save us!"

"We beg you! Let our children in! Please!!"

"Oh merciful God, give us strength to endure this freeze…"

Wilhelm stood beside Tanya, both gazing at the writhing crowd. Behind the frozen fence, people screamed, wept, begged—hands stretched to the sky, to the train that was meant to save them, though for most it had become nothing more than a delayed funeral procession. Snow fell thickly; the wind swept across the fields like a ghost of the past.

The train stood majestic and indifferent, like a steel god. Smoke rose from its chimneys, slowly vanishing into the white sky.

Wilhelm sighed heavily. He watched in silence for a moment, then turned to his daughter and laid a chilled hand on her head. His fingers were numb, but the gesture was full of affection.

"I was a shitty father." he said quietly. "I spent too much time on schematics and too little on conversations."

Tanya raised an eyebrow, glancing at him sidelong. The wind lifted her hair. There was no anger in her eyes.

"That's not true." she replied softly. "You were good. Though… maybe a bit socially awkward."

Wilhelm snorted softly, unable to suppress a brief smile. He shook his head.

"It must be hereditary. And a trait of all great geniuses. Newton apparently couldn't recognize people he'd seen for years."

"But he built a world." Tanya murmured.

"And I only built a train." Wilhelm answered bitterly.

"That train might one day reach a world worth rebuilding."

Wilhelm looked at her long, with a mixture of awe, sorrow, and fear.

"I hope you'll still be in it then, my little logician devotée."

A shot rang out in the distance. Guards along the fence shifted nervously; the crowd pressed forward. Ice creaked under the weight of hope. Wilford had not yet appeared, but his shadow was already palpable.

"Let's go." Wilhelm said. "Time to make our final move."

Tanya nodded. And they walked together, father and daughter, toward a hell clad in steel and snow.

As they moved toward the train, the noise hit them like a wave—no, like a wall of sound. The wailing of thousands of souls blended with the roar of the wind, but nature wasn't the loudest.

"Please! Please, my child is only three years old!" — a woman with a bloodied scarf on her shoulder knelt in the snow, clutching a baby wrapped in an old blanket.

"Take me instead! I beg you! Let them in!" — a man with a scratched-up face shouted at a soldier, who didn't even glance at him.

Children cried. Mothers screamed. Men growled at each other and at the guards. Some beat on the fence in despair, as if they could break through to paradise with their bare fists.

The soldiers held the line. They had rifles, thick coats, but eyes like hollow holes. Worn out, frozen, hardened. One of them was ramming his rifle butt into the stomach of a man who tried to climb a pole.

Wilhelm and Tanya walked in silence, as if separated from this hell by a thin, invisible pane of glass. But Tanya felt it crack with each step. Her gaze passed over hundreds of faces — so many people who could have mattered. Teachers, farmers, workers, programmers. So many could have survived. So many could have built something.

Now they would freeze.

Wasted potential.

"It's... such a waste," she said quietly.

Wilhelm only nodded, his lips pressed tight.

"Yes. Yes, Tanya. The greatest I've ever seen."

A guard approached their group. Tall, with a beard like ice and eyes devoid of empathy. He held out his hand.

"Tickets."

Wilhelm reached into his coat pocket and handed over the documents. The guard checked them in silence, scanning every detail. His fingers were cold and mechanical.

After a moment, he nodded: "First class. Follow me."

Tanya cast a fleeting glance at the sea of people: "Being X… you're really not going to do anything, are you? You're not a 'god', right? Are you willing to sacrifice all of them for some fucking test?" Anger and hatred toward her eternal enemy pulsed in her thoughts. "You're pathetic, Being X. A pathetic, worthless coward who would rather sacrifice these people in the name of what...? What the hell do you want, demon?"

The snow was no longer white. It was gray with ash, brown with mud, red where someone had fallen and been trampled.

"Allahu akbar... Allahu akbar..." — several men and women knelt on cardboard, faces to the ground, hands trembling on the ice. They spoke softly, as if afraid God wouldn't hear — or that He might hear too well.

"Hail Mary, full of grace..." — an elderly woman, maybe a teacher, maybe just a grandmother, whispered to herself, holding a rosary made of thread and buttons. Beside her, a young mother clutched a ten-year-old girl, pressing the child's head to her chest, as if to hide her from the world.

"Our Father, who art in heaven..." — voices came from all sides, in different languages. Faith was all they had left.

"Have mercy on us, Lord. Why do you put us through such suffering, O God?"

Off to the side, by the gate, sat an elderly couple—retirees. He wore an old military jacket from a time when wars were still fought for ideals. She was wrapped in a worn, red scarf. Between them stood a bottle of wine. They drank in turns.

They said nothing. Only watched. There were no more tears in their eyes.

"Take the child, please!" — a young woman with a blond braid tried to hand her baby to a soldier, who shoved her back roughly. The baby fell into the snow and cried with a thin voice, as if it didn't yet know that no one was coming.

"It's not fair! Fuck, fuck, fuck! They get tickets just because?!" — a red-haired boy shouted. Maybe he was twenty. Maybe less. Someone hit him in the face, and he fell to his knees, still spitting curses.

"This is the end. We're going to die here. All of us." — murmured a woman in a suit, her smeared makeup running down her face like black blood.

The young, the old, the poor, women and men, children and grandparents. They were all there. All standing before the train's gate — the gate to the ark. And the ark had no more room.

Tanya stopped for a moment, looking at it all. She said nothing. Her lips were pressed tight, her eyes cold. But inside, something was screaming along with them.

"Close your eyes," Wilhelm said quietly.

"I don't want to," she replied, just as softly.

The guard didn't wait. He nodded and led them forward.

The steel gates creaked and howled, as if they no longer wanted to let anyone through. They passed through them, and the screams of the crowd suddenly fell silent. Not because the people stopped screaming—but because the noise stayed behind. On the other side of the steel.

Tanya walked beside her father, among the warm lights of first class. It smelled of meat, tobacco, and hope. But there was something else in the air—the echo of souls who would never get in.

BOOM!

A loud crack split the air like lightning, followed by a metallic, hollow, piercing bang—and even before the echo faded, the carriage trembled beneath their feet. Tanya instinctively grabbed the rail, and her father was already turning around.

"What the…?" Wilhelm muttered.

They both looked through the tall, reinforced windows of the carriage. Beyond the fence—already meaningless, as it had collapsed like paper—was a yellow school bus, crushed at the front and dripping blood. It must have slammed into one of the weaker fence sections, toppling several guards like bowling pins.

From the vehicle—flung wide open, with the engine smoking and wailing—people began to pour out. There was no reason left in them, only raw desperation. Dressed in rags, eyes gleaming with madness, wielding knives, axes, sticks.

"They have nothing left to lose…" Tanya said softly, her eyes fixed on the scene outside.

Wilhelm clenched his jaw but said nothing. The guards tried to contain the breach. Gunshots rang out—short, chaotic. Someone screamed. Someone laughed. Someone fell to the ground, writhing in convulsions.

The first-class carriage was quiet. Too quiet.

"How tragic..." someone to the left muttered, more bored than moved.

"Tragic? More like inevitable. If you can't plan your life, you end up under the wheels of history," said a woman in a fur coat, not looking up from the glass of red wine she was pouring.

"The fence was too weak. I told them to use reinforced steel. But who listens to me at the Ministry of Resources?" grumbled an older man with a white beard, sipping tea from a porcelain cup.

"Let the guards have their fun. That's what they're paid for," scoffed another.

Tanya felt her fists clenching on their own. Her teeth ground together.

"You see this?" she said angrily, not even sure whether to herself or to her father. "So much potential. So many minds. So much talent. So much blood. And all of it spilled on the snow because a few people in first class thought they could decide who deserves a seat."

Wilhelm furrowed his brow. He stared for a long time. Finally, he spoke quietly:

"You know what's worst? That this… might work. This system. For a while. It might hold. But after that? It'll have to collapse."

Tanya didn't answer. She watched the guards brutally take down another intruder, watched the blood spray across the snow.

And the train stood still. Silent. Dignified. The ark. A body of steel with a conscience of ice.

In the first-class carriage, a cool calm prevailed. As if the world wasn't ending, as if people weren't dying just a few dozen meters away—as if it were just a play, and they were the audience in the best seats.

Death unfolded outside the window, the crowd's screams mixing with the dry cracks of rifles, the grinding of teeth, and pleas for life. Smoke, blood, and snow.

And here, in the carriage, French wine was being served. Poured into crystal glasses. Appetizers were laid out.

"Idiots..." chuckled a man in a navy-blue suit with a lapel pin of the American flag. "They knew not everyone would fit. And still they came. Thought their baby hands and tears would open the doors?"

"Shouldn't you… be worried?" asked the second man, his features sharp and his coat's Roman collar perfectly tailored. "After all, you were elected president. These are your voters."

The first man merely shrugged and laughed carelessly.

"They're all idiots. Without exception. They cried for free healthcare and voted for me because I had a dog and a smile like some fucking actor. Let them die. At least they won't get in the way."

From the side spoke a young aristocrat with cold eyes and a marble face—a prince from one of the old English houses.

"Such a shame about the staff… We had so many excellent footmen in London. Now we'll have to train new ones. I don't know who will polish my boots."

Next to him sat an Arab sheikh, his beard trimmed with pedantic precision and golden rings on every finger. He sighed at length.

"At least they could have let in a few young women. I could have made use of them. Pure genetics, beautiful eyes. They'd have been useful as extra wives."

Tanya sat rigid. Her fingers clenched the edge of the seat. She could feel her facial muscles trembling.

"A bunch of parasites…" she whispered.

"Excuse me?" one of the wealthy men asked nonchalantly, without taking his eyes off his phone screen.

"Nothing," she replied, gritting her teeth as Wilhelm placed a hand on her shoulder. He knew she was about to explode—and also knew they couldn't draw attention now.

On the other side of the window, a mother was shielding her two children with her body as bullets split the air. An old man with a cane fell to his knees, crying out a prayer in Latin.

And in first class, the world went on. Cold. Content. Saved.

Wilhelm only nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if any more would attract the attention of those… creatures. Without a word, he motioned for Tanya to follow him, and they left the compartment full of hissing, self-satisfied elites and passed through the massive door toward the front of the train—toward the control center. Toward Wilford.

The corridor was sound‑proofed, cold, and gleaming, filled with the soft hum of power cores. Every few dozen steps they passed armed first‑class guards, their helmets shining like glass and their faces scrubbed clean of emotion. None of them tried to stop the pair.

Wilhelm still had his pass. He still mattered.

Tanya followed a step behind him, silent. Thoughts buzzed in her mind, but she kept them sealed behind a tight mask. At last they reached the end of the corridor—massive doors bearing the train's command system emblem: CONTROL CENTER – AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.

Wilhelm withdrew his carefully sealed ID card from his pocket. He slid it into the reader, which pulsed with blue light.

The lock hissed. The doors parted slowly, revealing the dimly lit control room.

Silence.

Inside, half‑dark, lit only by screens pulsing with charts, temperature, speed, and resource data, sat—in a wide leather chair, wineglass in hand, a silk scarf draped casually over his shoulders—him.

Wilford.

A man in a fine dark suit, well‑groomed hair, and that merciless, unfeeling gaze devoid of any empathy.

Smiling. Shameless. Master of the lifeline.

He looked up from his glass of red wine.

"Wilhelm… and young Miss Degurechaff," he drawled, dragging each word like silk through fingers. "Have you come on your knees to beg for salvation… or rather armed with philosophy and rebellion?"

Tanya narrowed her eyes. Wilhelm stepped forward a few paces.

"We did not come to beg, Wilford," he said calmly. "We came to talk. About why everything we've built is heading for self‑destruction."

Wilford chuckled softly.

"Oh, Wilhelm… you're as much an idealist as ever. And that's why you always lose."

"And you're nothing but a clown with power. That's why you'll die last," Tanya replied quietly but pointedly.

Silence fell in the room.

Wilford simply raised an eyebrow in amusement, as if his favorite play were beginning.

Wilhelm moved deeper into the control room, folded his arms, and regarded Wilford like a failed symphony of human hubris.

"Are you… mentally retarded?" he finally asked slowly, as if truly wondering whether Wilford needed medical care rather than a throne.

Wilford raised his glass, swirled the wine lightly, and snorted with amusement.

"Hah… I don't think so. At least that's what the tests say. But why do you ask?"

Wilhelm sighed heavily, like a man who'd had enough.

"I don't know… maybe because you've fucked up all the plans for this train. This project was supposed to save us. The last plank for humanity. A balanced survival system based on efficiency, knowledge, and reason… not a fucking class carnival with you as the king of fools on an ice throne."

Wilford snorted and leaned back in his chair.

"Oh, Wilhelm… you underestimate the value of order. People need structures. Hierarchies. Someone to tell them their place."

"No," Wilhelm interrupted. "People need oxygen. Food. Clean water. And a system that works, not herds of idiots in furs sipping cognac while children die outside the window."

Tanya stood behind her father, silent, watching every word as if analyzing a mechanism about to explode. And she knew that if it did, they had to act swiftly and ruthlessly.

Wilford smiled lazily, tracing the rim of his glass with a fingertip.

"You speak as if you truly believe everyone could have been saved. But the truth is, Wilhelm… most of them were already dead. I simply gave this stinking world meaning. Style. Hierarchy."

Wilhelm stepped closer. Shadows fell across his face.

"That's not style, it's cancer. And I'm here today to tell you that this cancer is eating the train from within. And you're its metastasis."

Wilford raised an eyebrow, and Tanya—for the first time since entering—smiled coldly.

"You won't eat us all, Wilford," she said softly. "Though I know you're trying."

Wilford sighed theatrically, as if having to explain to a child that the world is more complicated than a picture in a textbook.

"Wilhelm… you're a clever man. Truly. Your father was a visionary, you're an engineer, and your daughter is… well, a living calculation in a dress." He glanced at Tanya with a faint smile, but she didn't react. "But you must start thinking like a politician, not a scientist."

He turned calmly in his chair and looked at one of the screens. The feed from an external camera showed hell: chaos, screams, flashbangs exploding, people rushing soldiers with scrap‑metal swords, kitchen knives, even their own teeth. Blood froze on the snow, children dragged their parents' bodies, women screamed, guards fell under the onslaught of the mob.

Wilford nodded as if watching the evening news.

"Even if we let in your ten thousand people… it would still be a dull affair, Wilhelm."

"Dull?" Wilhelm hissed, as if someone had spat on his child's corpse.

Wilford raised a hand, as if to silence him.

"Yes. Dull. Predictable. Those people wouldn't contribute anything but chaos, disease, unproductive rage. And the train… the train needs rhythm. It needs rules. It needs… a show." He smiled affectionately, as if speaking of a beloved child.

"It's not a show, it's a slaughter!" Wilhelm shouted, pounding the console with his fist.

Wilford looked at him coolly, but in his eyes lurked something… something between madness and amusement.

"You see, that's exactly what separates us, Wilhelm. You still try to build the future. I already control it."

Tanya narrowed her eyes, her voice dry as frost:

"So this is your new world, Wilford? Sterile ecstasy for the rich and death behind glass for the rest?"

Wilford raised his glass toward her.

"To the health of the world, my dear. A world that survived not by morality, but by cold selection."

"That's enough of this shit!" Wilhelm growled. "I've always fucking hated you!"

Suddenly he drew a pistol and wordlessly pressed it to Wilford's temple. His face was icy calm, his eyes shining with a determination that brooked no refusal.

"If you ever cared about the survival of the human race, hell, all of us, give the order to let those people into the carriages!" he said firmly, in a voice that would not tolerate dissent. "Immediately."

Wilford glanced at the barrel, then let out a soft snort, an inscrutable smile playing on his lips.

"No, Wilhelm. If you let them in, they'll starve to death within a week. This train isn't a miraculous spaceship—it's a microcosm of brutal reality."

Wilhelm reacted without hesitation. He spat straight into Wilford's face, his words striking like a fist.

"The food system I designed for you is efficient enough to feed everyone! But if you don't change your approach, it's you who will doom this train."

Wilford wiped the spit from his mustache, still looking at Wilhelm with a mixture of contempt and amusement—but in his eyes something troubling began to glint: the first crack in his apparent composure. He snorted softly, lifting an eyebrow as if amused by a private joke.

"I could have been someone greater, you know?" he said with an ironic smile. "I could have been the god of this new world, its master and creator."

Tanya, sitting in the corner of the room, broke the silence with ice-cold calm; her voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Abomination," she said quietly but clearly, hiding no scorn. "You who call yourself a god are nothing but a common tyrant with an inflated ego. I know what real power looks like. And there's no place in it for someone like you."

Wilford frowned, but a shadow of unease flickered in his eyes—a rare sight in a man who usually knew no fear.

"Are you really sure?" he asked, glancing at the pistol pressed to his temple. "These people already consider me their messiah, their savior," he sneered. "Do you want to be another Brutus? You kill Caesar and the people will hate you—and we all know that…"

Wilhelm's brow furrowed; his finger tensed on the trigger…

BANG!

But he never fired—the three bullets tore through Wilhelm's body first. He looked at the serene Wilford in shock, blood coughing up from his lips: "You bastard…"

"Always best to be prepared, Wilhelm." Wilford rolled his eyes calmly.

At that moment a guard emerged from the shadows, revolver in hand. Wilhelm fell, the bullets ripping through his back, and he lay on the floor as a pool of blood formed around him.

Tanya reacted instantly—she lunged at the guard, screaming, "No!"—and struck him squarely in the head, trying to incapacitate him before he could do more. The guard staggered but quickly regained his balance, grabbing Tanya by the arm and attempting to throw her down. Yet the girl was agile; with a determination she had never shown before, she twisted free of his grip and struck him again, this time aiming at his face.

Wilford watched the scene with undisturbed calm, as if it were part of a planned spectacle.

"Easy, Tanya," he said in an icy tone. "You're toiling needlessly. This world isn't meant for people like your father. And certainly not for you."

Tanya tore herself from the guard's grasp and stared Wilford straight in the eye, her look burning with anger and defiance.

"This world isn't meant for you, Wilford! It's your ego and hubris that doom us all," she snarled as she felled the guard and crushed his skull with a single boot strike.

"Wow… brutal," Wilford observed with curiosity. "But this isn't the time for Mortal Kombat." He snapped his fingers.

Three more guards burst in, drawn by the sounds of combat. Tanya knew there was no time for further confrontation—if she didn't stop them now, she'd end up like her father.

She grabbed Wilhelm's arm—he was already losing consciousness—and tried to drag him to safety, shouting, "Wilford betrayed you!"

Wilford, nevertheless, smiled mockingly.

"It's only the beginning, Tanya. Your rebellion changes nothing. The train moves on, with or without you."

Tanya fixed her gaze on Wilford and replied, "Then I'll make sure this train stops for good."

Wilford stepped slowly toward Tanya's face, a cold smile on his lips, and whispered,

"Maybe you'd like to embrace a new authority? We've got stocks of narcotics, vodka, alcohol—everything to keep them happy. And a young girl like you should be enjoying herself…"

Tanya was silent for a moment, looking him straight in the eyes, then suddenly clenched her jaw and bit off his nose with all her might.

CRACK!

"Goddamn it!!" Wilford growled in pain, his face contorted in shock and rage. "Seems you've got fighting spirit after all, ha!" he jeered with sadistic amusement, unmoved by his loss.

"But still… you idiot," he hissed, brushing blood from his face. "You don't know who you're messing with."

Tanya wouldn't back down.

"I know exactly who I'm messing with. And I won't let you play with this train anymore."

The guards immediately pounced on her. Tanya fought back, but when one struck her in the stomach with a baton, she fell in agony.

"Fucking young body…" she cursed weakly as they overpowered her and prepared to beat her to death.

"Hold on, hold on…" Wilford raised a hand, signaling them to stop. "You won't torture her here—she'll stain the carpet red." He grimaced in disgust, sipping his wine. "At least we can use her as a rat for a certain experiment?"

"What?" Tanya spat, furious. "What fucking experiment, you hedonistic lunatic!?"

Wilford stepped back, looking at her with pure disdain.

"This… is a prototype punishment for rebels," he announced with icy brutality, gesturing to a round hole drilled into the steel wall of the control room. "You can test how it works."

One guard held her by the waist; another grabbed her left arm, ripping the uniform's fabric from her shoulder. In the damp lamp light, her cold, bare skin was exposed. The second guard dipped the material in a bowl of ice-cold water, then forced Tanya's arm into the hole.

ICE.

PAIN.

Instantly, the frost began to bite her flesh. Tanya hissed in agony, gritting her teeth as the slit in the wall blasted freezing air against her body. Her muscles trembled from cold and anger; tears welled in her eyes. The guards shoved her in so deep that her prosthetic joint creaked in the ice, the world around her bleaching white, only the blood on her sleeve standing out.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!" she squealed in her mind, screaming as she felt her nerves freeze, her blood slow, her muscles turning to cold meat. For a moment, panic surged—how could this be happening to her? But then rage drowned it out. She wouldn't let her body give in without a fight.

"I'll kill you, Wilford, I'll kill you!!" Tanya took slow, deep breaths, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. But she had less strength than she thought.

After two minutes she couldn't endure it any longer. As the cold spread up her arm, cutting off her life's flow, Tanya screamed—not only from pain, but from helplessness that she usually hid behind her icy composure. That scream was her outburst, her manifesto of defiance against the brutality and cruelty that surrounded her now.

In her mind she repeated she must hold on, mustn't surrender, that even if her body weakened, her spirit would remain unbroken. Let this pain be her motivation, not her end.

Wilford looked away, weary of his own severity, and merely said,

"See how the system reacts when someone dares to take your place."

"Fuck you!" Tanya spat in his face. "I'll kill you, you hear me?!"

"Oh, the Degurechaff family…" Wilford chuckled, pressing a cloth to his broken nose. "You seem tough, relentless, unbeatable," he said with a cold smile. "But anyone can be broken—even the devil himself."

BANG!

"Hands off my daughter!" boomed a voice as two guards collapsed to the floor, bullets in their heads. Wilhelm struggled upright against the wall, barely able to stand but with determination burning in his eyes. In one hand he still gripped the pistol, glaring at Wilford.

Wilhelm coughed up blood, moving slowly through the pain, yet his gaze remained unbreakable—he had not spoken his last word. He leaned against the steel wall, gripping his pistol with a steadfast hold. His breaths were heavy, laden with pain, but his eyes burned with anger and desperation.

"Wilford…" he rasped, voice trembling but full of strength, "what you're doing… this isn't the future. It's tyranny. And I won't let you destroy everything we built together."

Wilford turned his head, surprise flickering across his face for a moment before a malicious smile returned.

"Ah, Wilhelm," he said slowly, with pronounced chill, "your idealism is as archaic as your ideas. This train doesn't need heroes or dreamers. It needs power and control"—he tapped his chest—"which I provide. But by all means, you can shoot me. What then?" He looked at Wilhelm calmly.

Tanya, still suffering from the icy agony in her arm, watched the scene with a mixture of disgust and determination. A fire burned in her eyes—an anger that would drive her further than anyone expected.

Wilford stepped closer, his figure seeming to dominate the space around them like an icebreaker. His eyes gleamed with a cold light, and his voice carried the tone of deadly seriousness.

"You can kill me, Wilhelm. Right now," he said slowly, each word deliberate. " But do you really believe it will change anything? After me comes chaos. Anarchy. A civil war on the rails. You have hundreds of cars, thousands of people—and no order. Who will take control? Who will stop the rest from tearing each other apart?"

Wilhelm still held his gun, but his shoulders sagged with exhaustion.

"Wilford, everyone is tired of this system. It won't last a decade."

Wilford merely smiled—bitterly, like someone who knows the price of that truth.

"That may be true, but it's not enough to destroy the train. You need more than dreams of change. You need an iron hand. Someone who holds the engine's keys and is ready to sacrifice everything to keep order. Without that…" He sighed, glancing around the car, " this train will be eaten alive by its own wheels."

Wilhelm lowered his gaze, weary and wounded.

Then Tanya snorted inwardly, though she knew Wilford was right—at least for now.

"But we have a plan. We must build supporters. We must plant hope where it's needed most—among the desperate, exhausted people on the brink of collapse." Tanya looked at one of the monitors, where dirty, frozen refugees were boarding at the very end of the train. "And she knew where to find them," she thought, fixing her eyes on a bearded man with an axe helping a Korean couple aboard. She saw people ready to kill for survival.

The will to survive is unstoppable.

Summoning the last of her strength despite the hellish pain and icy paralysis in her left arm, Tanya sprang forward with full desperation and headbutted the guard holding her. The guard lost his balance and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

"Got a hard head," Tanya smiled inwardly.

She dropped to her knees, fighting the world's spin. Every muscle begged for rest, but her heart pounded like a bell—wild, desperate, alive.

Not now. Not here.

Thoughts tore through her mind—fear, anger, resolve. This arm… this damned arm… it might never be the same. But there was no time for weakness. She would not stop. Not for pain. Not for her body.

With jaws clenched and gasping for breath, she slowly rose, bracing on her right hand. A shadow of determination painted her eyes as she lifted her head.

Wilhelm, having just regained the barest consciousness at the edge of passing out, blinked in disbelief. The sight of his daughter rising with her left arm hanging uselessly at her side stirred something deep within him.

"Oh God…" he murmured, stepping toward her with unsteady legs. His face was a mixture of terror and… guilt. "No… no, Tanya… your arm…"

He stopped before her, as if unsure whether to embrace her or to kneel.

Tanya looked at him coldly, but something flickered in her eyes—a barely visible spark of pain, instantly smothered.

"It'll heal," she said firmly. "It always heals."

Her voice was cold, stripped of emotion, as though issuing a command rather than seeking comfort.

"Tanya…" Wilhelm raised a hand, then hesitated. He didn't know if he was allowed.

"I'll manage," she cut him off. "I always manage."

A low, bored laugh sounded from the side. Wilford stood leaning against the car wall, wiping blood from his nose from the earlier incident. A malicious smile danced on his lips.

"Family drama moves me," he said icily. "But unfortunately… your time is up."

Without emotion, he pressed the red alarm button. A loud, piercing siren filled the car like the herald of doom.

"Alarm," he announced with mock solemnity. "Security will be here in five minutes. Maybe four, if they hurry." He sat in a chair, crossing one leg over the other. "So… any last words? A farewell letter? A plea for mercy?"

Wilhelm and Tanya exchanged a glance. No words—just a silent decision. There was no time for regrets. Time to flee.

Tanya glanced at the floor, then at the wall behind Wilford. Something clicked in her mind.

"This way," she hissed. "Behind the armor, on the right. There's a service hatch."

"What?" Wilhelm barely managed to ask as Tanya shoved down the technical panel with all her strength. To his surprise it gave way easily. The metal grated, revealing a narrow, dark service corridor that smelled of grease, dust, and stale air.

"Go," she said. "Now!"

Wilhelm obeyed without protest. He squeezed in behind her and the metal hatch slid closed.

From the car behind them came Wilford's voice, full of disbelief and rage.

"Wait a minute… there was a passage there?! What the fuck else were you hiding from me, Wilhelm!?"

The narrow corridor echoed with their footsteps. Their breaths were quick, uneven.

"That switch… Wilford didn't know about it?" Tanya whispered.

"It's an old emergency route from the first phase of construction. Only engineers knew the shortcuts between cars," Wilhelm groaned, leaning on the wall. "It was never logged in the central system…"

Behind them came the first heavy footsteps of the guards and the clang of doors opening.

"Faster, faster!" Tanya hissed as she led the way despite her useless arm. Sweat drenched her brow, breath shallow. "If we reach the medical zone, we can lose them."

"And then?"

Tanya glanced over her shoulder, her eyes flashing.

"Then we go to those who hate Wilford more than we do."

In the distance, sirens wailed and guards shouted as the train's engine roared like a wild beast.

[HALF AN HOUR LATER]

Half an hour later, the corridors behind the rear car dulled with the echo of their footsteps—metal groaned under the strain, and the thick air carried the scent of blood and burned oil. Tanya, weighed down with each step by her father's burden, slid along the side passage, guiding Wilhelm toward the designated spot.

At last they reached the medical car—the one marked on the schematics as a mobile aid station. Under the emergency lights, the walls gleamed with white paint; beside the door lay a folded stretcher and several motionless first‑aid kits.

Tanya bent over her father, propping him against the concrete step. His brow was slick with sweat; his breathing heavy and ragged.

"Hold on, Papa," she whispered, supporting his shoulders. "I'll carry you inside in a moment."

But Wilhelm no longer had the strength. He slowly lost his balance; his legs began to buckle. Tanya tried to steady him, but he sank to his knees and then—with a final, measured sigh—collapsed onto the floor.

Only a faint whisper escaped Wilhelm's lips:

"It's no use… I'm… dead."

His hands, trembling slightly, fell onto the cold floor, and his gaze fixed on the ceiling lights as if longing to glimpse that old world one last time. Tanya knelt beside him, her heart pounding, tears shimmering in her eyes.

"No…" she began, but her voice broke. "You can't… you have to live…"

She pressed her dirty cheek to his cold skin, feeling the frost seeping through the coat's fabric to her bones. Holding her breath, she gripped his shoulders:

"Papa… wake up…"

Ruthless silence answered her with the corridor's empty echo. Wilhelm lay motionless on the cold floor, three dark streams of blood oozing from his back. Each one was like a clock ticking down their dwindling time. Tanya knelt by his body, breathing shallowly, the chill of the steel floor penetrating her clothes—but she didn't feel it.

She stared at her father—his face pale, unnaturally serene. His eyes closed. Every inch of his body seemed already frozen by the ice of irreversible death. Yet he still breathed. Barely. Short, irregular breaths. Insufficient.

Tanya turned her gaze away, feeling tears burn her eyes. But she steeled herself. Not now. She couldn't fall apart.

She summoned the layout of the car with difficulty—the medical aid station lay just ahead. In a dark alcove, a few meters away, should stand an operating table and surgical tools. There was no time to wait for help. She had to carry him there. Alone.

She clenched her teeth and slipped her arms under his armpits, groaning with effort. Although he was much heavier than she, survival instinct and adrenaline kicked in. Get up! Move! Carry corpses as if carrying your weapon! screamed the inner voice—an echo of her old military training.

"Hold on, please…" she hissed through her teeth, dragging his body through the car. Blood streaked the floor, leaving a dark trail. "You won't die here on me, Wilhelm… Not yet…"

[FIVE MINUTES LATER]

"Faster, Tanya! Faster!" she screamed to herself, her breath ragged as she heaved the stretcher carrying her unconscious father toward the medbay.

The doors hissed open, and the cool light of the fluorescents flooded the room.

"Hold on…" she repeated over and over like a mantra.

She reached the operating table, yanked the bar, pulled the stretcher in, and flipped her father's body onto the hard surface. Blood immediately spread, staining the white table a dark crimson. His pulse—barely perceptible.

Tanya slid his coat off his shoulders and tore open his shirt. Three holes in his back—two at the lower ribs, one just beneath the shoulder blade. Each bled slowly but steadily. The bullets are inside… she thought feverishly. I have to remove them.

With trembling fingers she opened the drawer beneath the table. Scalpel. Probe. Magnetic forceps. Quick‑clot pack. She inhaled sharply and strapped an oxygen mask onto Wilhelm.

"You'll live. You'll live, do you hear me?" she said firmly, though her voice quivered. "I won't leave you. Not like this."

Using the auto‑arm, she swung a spotlight into place and activated the disinfection field. Her father's body twitched slightly as she pressed the device to the first wound.

"Work, work…" she whispered.

She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them wide. She inserted the probe into the first wound—slowly, carefully, but decisively. The monitor beside the table immediately displayed the projectile's location: deep, near a nerve.

"Damn…" she muttered. "I can't fuck this up."

Her hands shook. Every move could cost him his life. Yet she gritted her teeth and reached for the forceps. The metal instrument slipped inside. Tanya breathed through her nose, listening to the monitor's beeps.

"I've got you, you bastard…" she murmured as the forceps' tip trembled against the first bullet.

Crunch. Click.

"Come out…" she whispered, tugging the tool. The bullet slid free—black, caked in blood.

She dropped it into a bowl. Blood continued to seep. Tanya applied the plasma hemostat.

"Two more… just two…"

Sweat dripped from her brow. Wilhelm's chest rose slowly—he was still breathing.

"Hold on… Dad… just a moment longer…"

The entire car was deathly silent. Only the pulse‑ox's rhythmic beeps and her shallow breaths marked the tempo of this battle—not against an enemy, but against time. Soon she'd know if she'd won.

Tanya's hands shook, but they moved with incredible precision. Though she was drenched in sweat and blood, and her hand nearly refused to obey, she kept going. She slid to the second wound—a deep, irregular laceration ringed with charred flesh. That bullet must have passed through more than just muscle.

"Focus… focus…" she whispered, drawing air between clenched teeth.

The probe slid in again. For a moment it felt as if it hit something—but no… just a blockage. The probe emerged empty. Once more. Again…

Crunch. Click. Metal met metal.

"I've got you…!" she hissed, grasping the bullet.

A deft twist of her wrist. The bullet came free. She dropped it into the bowl. Without pausing, she clamped the hemostat on the second wound, stemming the bleeding. No time to breathe. Last one.

The third wound was smaller but deeper. She guided the probe almost mechanically. She felt her world shrink to this single moment, this single gesture. Everything else—cold, pain, fear, blood on her face—ceased to exist.

"Where are you… where are you…" she whispered urgently.

Beep. Beep. The screen blinked—metal.

She gripped, yanked. The bullet emerged.

"I've… got you!" she shouted with fierce satisfaction, tossing the bullet into the bowl with a clatter.

Without hesitation she grabbed a sterile, hemostatic bandage. She wrapped Wilhelm's torso tightly. Then more dressings on his back. The bleeding slowed. Pulse…?

She placed two fingers at her father's neck. Silence. Maybe she was wrong… maybe she was in the wrong spot… She pressed her ear to his chest.

Nothing.

No rhythm. No sign of life.

Time stood still.

"Dad…?" she whispered.

Silence held him. As if the whole world had stopped breathing.

"Dad, hey… I did it. I did it, you understand?" she tried to smile, but her facial muscles wouldn't obey. Her voice echoed off the walls.

She stared at his pale face. His eyelids still. His chest still.

She sank lower, pressing her head to his chest as she had when she was little and afraid of thunderstorms.

"Breathe…" she whispered. "Please… breathe…"

There was nothing. Only cold. And silence.

Tanya remained like that for a long, timeless moment. Even as alarms began to wail in the distance. Even as the world reminded her that the war still raged. She stayed by his body, leaning over him as if her forehead's warmth could protect him.

But it was too late.

She was too late.

"…Dad…" she said once more, almost inaudibly—and the whisper shattered like ash in the cold, metal air of the medbay.

…

Tanya pressed her hand to her mouth, biting her lip to stifle a scream of despair. Wilhelm lay motionless on the table; any attempt at resuscitation was already late. His face, pale and still, stared at the medbay ceiling—the final proof that he was gone.

After a moment Tanya looked away, struck by the weight of solitude. She drew a breath, brushed off her hands, and rose. Her own arm still throbbed with icy pain—the limb that life had long since abandoned, cold and lifeless.

She quietly opened the medbay door. In the emergency light she spotted the conical instrument on the tray—a medical amputation saw. The metal gleamed cold, its blade's shine a promise of relief… and of agony.

Tanya's gaze drifted over the corridor lined with first‑aid kits and splints. Her eyes returned to the dangling, dead arm.

"It will hurt," she whispered to herself, feeling resolve harden within her. "But if I leave this part behind… I will die with it."

She tightened her coat and walked toward the operating table. Each step felt weighed down by a ton of ice, each breath burned her diaphragm.

Seated at the table, she drew the saw and placed it against her left arm—where the flesh was cold and dead. She took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said softly, her voice touched by humility and a burned‑out courage, "but it's the only way."

She closed her eyes and felt a tingling spread through her shoulder. The saw vibrated lightly in her hand as if waiting.

"Three… two… one…"

And with a hard, steady gaze, Tanya began to cut—a short, precise motion meant to free her from the frozen limb and give herself a chance… at a new life.

...

....

...

....

...

....

[PRESENT]

The inspector sat across from Tanya, one leg crossed over the other, his hat dipped into shadow. His uniform was neat but worn, and the badge gleamed in the dim light like a knife's edge. He took a deep drag and exhaled smoke with a quiet sigh.

"So that's how I ended up here," Tanya concluded, coldly, matter-of-factly. Her gaze was fixed on the space between them, as if the story were just a fragment of an equation she was still solving in her mind.

The inspector snorted.

"Sounds like a tragedy from a cheap wartime romance," he muttered. "Father killed, hand chopped off, god-savior shot. The heroine left alone."

He blinked, tilted his head, and looked her directly in the eyes.

"But that still doesn't explain how the hell you adapted to the tail section. How you convinced those savages at the back of the train not to toss you out the doors. How you survived the first week there with nothing but half a face full of resolve and a dead arm."

Tanya raised an eyebrow. Her face didn't twitch, but something disturbing — almost grotesque — flickered in her eyes.

"Food."

The interrogation room hummed quietly with the buzz of fluorescent lights. A metal table split the space in two — a cold, merciless wall between the investigator and what was left of Tanya Degurechaff.

The inspector leaned back in his chair, slowly puffing on his cigar. The smoke drifted down like fog, settling in the air thick with subtext. He looked at her with a raised brow.

"So... you promised them food?" he asked in disbelief. "Those tail-end savages? I thought they wanted freedom, revenge, ideas." He scoffed in disgust. "What, eating some baby wasn't enough for them or what?"

Tanya smiled faintly. Pale. Her face was swollen from earlier interrogations, but a spark of something danced in her eyes — something that unsettled even the inspector.

"I promised them exactly what they needed." Her voice was calm, almost gentle. "Food. Warm meals. Every day. Nothing more."

The inspector snorted.

"There was nothing back there. The tail was doomed to starvation from the start. No supplies, no support."

Tanya didn't answer right away.

That's when the screams erupted beyond the door. Not just raised voices — shrieks. Gunfire. Rushing footsteps. Someone yelling in panic, another howling in fury. Someone begging for help.

The inspector froze. He looked at the door, then back at her.

"What the hell is going on out there?"

Tanya leaned back comfortably in her chair, as if all of it were just background noise, a play she'd memorized long ago.

"There was one thing nobody knew," she said softly. "When I designed the micro-farm system in the rear part of the train... my father left me something. Data, algorithms, a hidden access code to a sealed food section Wilford didn't even know existed. For emergencies, he said. For those who survive the longest."

The inspector stared at her with growing horror.

"You... you activated it?"

"Mhm." Tanya nodded with satisfaction.

"I gave them food. And trust. Then I taught them that they could take it from others."

The scream outside turned into an agonized wail. Something slammed into the metal wall. Blood spread like a shadow beneath the door.

The inspector looked at it, then back at her — and for the first time, reached for his weapon.

Tanya looked him straight in the eyes.

"Wilford built a caste system. I just showed them how to climb."

The inspector glanced nervously at the door, swallowing quietly.

"Yeah, the guards will handle that little riot," he told himself as he snorted and flicked ash from his cigar onto the metal table.

"Food?" he scoffed with contempt. "Don't make me laugh, girl. There's nothing at the end of the train. Not a single sack of flour. Wilford turned it into a desert."

Tanya tilted her head. That characteristic, cold smile appeared on her face — the kind that never boded well.

"And that's exactly why they sent you here… remember?" she said sweetly. "That little order from the conductors about those strange disturbances?" Tanya winked at him, a spark in her eyes.

"Just conductor bullshit, bored out of their minds," the inspector muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Those 'disturbances,' as you so nicely put it... weren't an accident," she continued, unfazed. "They were the result of my father's contingency plan. One Wilford never approved — but one that, as he predicted, might one day come in handy."

The inspector furrowed his brow, beginning to feel the conversation slipping from his control.

Tanya, meanwhile, kept speaking — slowly, calmly, almost proudly:

"Three hidden cars. From the outside, they look like scrap or old tech storage. But inside? Seventy hens, ten roosters. Twenty pigs. A mechanized mini-farm for potatoes, tomatoes, onions. Hydroponic system, closed water circuit. A solar panel on each roof, just enough to power the sensors and auto-feeders. And all of it... masked, hidden in technical plans only I had access to."

The inspector looked at her skeptically, but something in her eyes — that certainty, that steel — made it impossible to scoff.

The screams beyond the door began to fade, as if the air had thickened with something intangible. Tanya leaned slightly over the table, like she was sharing a secret.

"They had nothing. Just hunger and despair. I gave them food. Then I gave them purpose." Her voice dropped to a slow, deliberate rhythm. "You know what people do when they stop starving?"

She scratched her chin in mock thought.

"They start asking questions:

"Why were we starving?"

"Why do our children grow up like rats that have never seen the sun?"

"Why do fat men who've done nothing get to feast?"

"Why not change that?"

The inspector looked up as his radio crackled to life with a desperate voice:

"Section C3... repeat, Section C3 has been breached... they... they have weapons!"

The inspector exhaled cigar smoke and snorted in disbelief, tilting his head as if to mock her.

"So what? If there was food back there, they'd have eaten you raw on the first day. You'd have been nothing more than lean meat to divide up."

Tanya didn't react with anger. On the contrary — she smiled like a teacher at a particularly dense student.

"If they could've gotten in, maybe they would have. But access to those cars was sealed. Biometric lock. DNA, retina, voice. It only worked for me. My father knew Wilford's system wasn't a stable empire. It was theater. And he knew that when it all came crashing down, only one thing would matter: who has the food."

The inspector scowled.

"So what, you locked yourself in there and ate like a queen while they begged outside?"

Tanya smiled wider, as if he'd just passed a test.

"No. I cooked. Every day. Broth from chicken necks and carcasses, potatoes with bacon, tomato soup, roasted pork. Even pancakes. A starving, broken man who's been chewing his own nails for months will sell his soul for a bowl of warm soup."

Laughter and shouts echoed from beyond the door. Someone cried out:

"For Tanya!!"

Another:

"Kill them all!"

The inspector looked toward the door in confusion, but Tanya continued, her voice now taking on a colder tone:

"Of course, not everyone was grateful. There was that traitor. Gilliam. Wilford's dog. Pretended to starve like the others, but his eyes... his hands — too clean. Too steady. He whispered to the people that it was all just theater, that they should remove me and take everything."

Tanya looked away. Her face hardened, as if she were remembering something.

"So... I had to silence him. Quietly. Quickly. Without a fuss. Just like Wilford used to silence the inconvenient. Only I left something behind.

A hanging body on a pole, with a sign: 'Traitor.'"

The inspector fell silent. For a moment, he looked at the girl as if he had just seen something real for the first time — something terrifyingly human, brutal, and logical all at once.

"Is that when... they started believing you?"

Tanya shrugged slightly, shifting in her chair.

"They didn't have to. They just... stopped starving."

The inspector suddenly leapt up, his chair skidding back and slamming into the wall with a metallic clang. He pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it straight at Tanya. The barrel gleamed under the harsh, cold light.

"Enough of this farce!" he snarled. "You think this will save you? That a few chicken coops and a pig carcass make you a queen?"

Tanya sat still, unmoving. Her eyes — those cold, war-hardened eyes — showed no fear. Only that calm, familiar half-smile that was more infuriating than terrifying.

And then it began.

Screams.

One, then another.

Wild shrieks echoed from behind the door, the thud of falling bodies, commands that no one obeyed. Somewhere, someone shouted:

"Leave him! Don't touch her! She feeds us!"

"Take the gun from that bastard!"

"Kill them! Kill them all!"

"For our survival!!"

The inspector whipped around, the barrel of his gun trembling, his arm taut. The shouting grew louder — male, female, even children's voices. Boots thundered on the floor, metal groaned under the impact. The sounds of a lynching... or something worse.

"What... what's going on out there?" he hissed through clenched teeth, stepping back a pace, still aiming.

Tanya rose slowly from her chair. She looked like a frail girl with a metal prosthetic for a left arm. Harmless. And yet she looked as if she had just taken control of the entire world.

"I told you, Inspector," she said quietly. "You don't kidnap the cook. Especially not the only cook on the train who can make more than algae protein soup."

"You... you did something to them..." the inspector spat, glancing once more at the door shaking from the impact.

"No," Tanya said. "I just fed them."

From outside came a shout:

"SHE FEEDS US! SHE SAVES US!"

"LONG LIVE TANYA! TRUE RULER OF THE TRAIN!!"

Tanya stepped closer, and the inspector backed away until his spine hit the wall.

"And now, Inspector... you can eat your gun. Because in a moment, the people behind that door are going to get really hungry. And you've got nothing left to stop them."

The door lock clicked softly.

The doors began to open slowly.

The inspector narrowed his eyes, still aiming at her. The door slammed shut again — someone on the other side had held the mob back for a moment. But the screaming and muffled shouts didn't stop.

Tanya just looked at him with that cold calm that resembled not a child, but someone... someone much older in spirit.

"People don't listen to a kid," the inspector finally scoffed, a slight note of doubt in his voice. "No matter how hard you tried. You can't control a mob without fear."

Tanya tilted her head, as if she'd just heard something stupid.

"A kid?" she repeated softly, almost amused. "No, Inspector. Not a kid. A general."

"A general?" he snorted, shaking his head.

"A general," she confirmed coolly. "Discipline. Etiquette. Morning drills at dawn, rationed meals, orders and duties. These people were feral, starving, broken. And now? Now they wear uniforms, clean their dens, know basic hand-to-hand combat, they understand what a salute means. Survival needs structure. And I gave them purpose."

The inspector stared at her in disbelief for a moment, but then his face stiffened, as if something suddenly clicked.

"...Fascism," he whispered.

The word echoed in the stifling air of the room like an oil slick on water.

Tanya smiled, but there wasn't a shred of warmth in that smile.

"Or maybe... just order, Inspector. While Wilford and the rest of your 'elites' descended into chaos, hedonism, and self-destruction... I chose survival. Discipline." She stood tall. "Especially since none of this mess would've happened if Wilford had just once listened to my father!!!" she screamed in raw fury, slamming her fist on the table. "No one listens! Ever, goddamn it, ever! In my first life, my bosses. In my second, the imperial high command. And in this one, a fucking hedonist!!!" she shouted in pure rage. "What the fuck is this, huh?! Don't they see the logic!? No... none of them did." She clenched her right fist until blood began to drip to the floor. "Never, never, no one listens. That's why..." — she took a slow breath — "...you left me no choice. We could've built a stable system here, with a free market... but..." she looked at the inspector with pure disgust. "You fucked it up, and I'm fucking done cleaning up your shit."

She stepped closer, completely unfazed.

"They needed a leader. And I needed an army."

The inspector stepped half a pace back, his face filled not with fear of her — but of what he now understood:

"You... you actually think you can run all this... like you've got an army?"

Tanya looked at him with utter calm.

"I do have an army."

From beyond the door came rhythmic chanting. As if hundreds of voices repeated one word. One command.

"Cook... Cook... Cook..."

"Their cook. My platoon," said Tanya with quiet, dangerous triumph. "And you, Inspector, are about to become either a meal... or a lesson. The choice is yours."

The inspector took a step back, sensing the change in her stance — but it was too late.

"Fuck you," he growled through clenched teeth. "May you rot in hell!" he shouted as he pulled the trigger.

Tanya, fast as lightning, closed the distance in a single step. Her dead, numb left hand — now a steel prosthesis, built from hastily scavenged materials from the train's medical car — swung in a brutal arc and struck the inspector's face with a metallic crash.

The crunch of shattered bones. The sick snap of a broken nose.

The inspector dropped to his knees, collapsing with a groan and blood pouring from his mouth. His eyes widened in pain and horror as he saw Tanya standing over him — cold, composed, and completely... bored.

"So much waste..." she said, her voice barely a whisper. "All this revolt. So many corpses, screams, broken children. And all it would've taken was to give me what I wanted. An option."

She slowly sank to one knee, picking up the gun he had aimed at her face moments before. She stared into his eyes, her expression cold as ice, with a trace of that damned smile only demons could wear.

"But don't worry..." she whispered, leaning close to his ear. He felt her breath on his cheek. "...you're still useful."

Her eyes gleamed, as if she had just made a decision.

As if in her twisted, brutal logic... even someone as useless as him had a purpose.

From beyond the door came the sound of footsteps — heavy boots, rhythmic pounding on metal. Her people were coming.

Tanya adjusted her uniform, stood up, and added with firm conviction:

"Every revolution needs a public sacrifice. And let me guess... you've got just the kind of face that looks good on a poster."

[HALF AN HOUR LATER]

Half an hour later, in one of the storage train cars, the fat guard Lamm was sitting at a makeshift table, playing cards with a colleague. The fluorescent lights cast a dull, yellowish glow on their faces, and the smell of smoke and mildew hung over the table.

"So, then…" muttered Lamm, yawning deeply. "What do you think, inspector — will I kill the 'cook'?"

"Maybe…" shrugged the other guard. "We're going to be in deep shit if the people at the tail find out about this."

"Eh… don't worry." Lamm waved his hand dismissively. "We still have some rifle ammo left…" — suddenly Lamm noticed a figure approaching from the far end of the car.

"Hey, look!" he said, waving at the approaching figure.

But as the inspector's figure drew closer, Lamm noticed something disturbing — the man's mouth was sewn shut with thick thread, and he was sitting in a strange wheelchair.

"HMMM! HMMM! HMMM!" the inspector tried to scream, but his lips were stitched. "HMM! HMMM!?"

"What's wrong?" Guard Lamm slowly raised his hand toward his pistol. "Inspector?"

"HMMM! HMM! HMM!" the inspector yelled with tears in his eyes, strapped to the wheelchair, but it was useless.

At that moment, the wheelchair suddenly began to howl — its jet engines, made from assorted scrap and train parts hastily assembled into something resembling an experimental machine, roared to life.

The wheelchair lunged forcefully at the train car door, which slammed open under the pressure with a loud crash. The doors creaked and flew apart violently, revealing a passage to the next car.

Lamm and his colleague exchanged worried looks as the still-disabled inspector tried to wave and shout as much as his sewn mouth allowed.

"HMM! HMMM!"

"What the…" Lamm began, but his words were drowned out by the noise of the speeding wheelchair rushing down the corridor of cars.

"HMMMMMMM!" came a prolonged, desperate sound as the wheelchair gained dizzying speed, sliding along rusty rails of the storage car. Sparks flew from the wheels, and the air filled with the smell of burnt grease and engine oil.

Lamm jumped up, knocking over his chair.

"What the fuck…?!" he roared, reaching for his pistol.

The other guard was about to raise his weapon when a high-pitched modulated beep came from inside the wheelchair — bip. bip. bip.

"Bomb!!!" Lamm screamed, but it was too late.

BOOM!

The explosion tore the metal train car doors apart with a deafening blast.

The shockwave threw Lamm into the air like a rag doll. His body slammed into the wall with a dull crack, then collapsed motionless to the floor, bleeding heavily.

The second guard didn't even have time to scream — a wave of heat engulfed him in an instant. Pieces of the wheelchair, metal screws, and shards of a gas pipe pierced everything in their path, cutting through the metal like paper.

The car trembled, the whole train trembled.

Smoke, fire, and dust filled the space, and the echo of the explosion reverberated hollowly along the tracks.

From the hole in the metal door wall, where the makeshift table had been moments before, a streak of fire rose. Suspended oddly in one place, as if deliberately aimed — like a warning. Or a message.

Outside the car, a few compartments down, the rest of the guards raised the alarm. Shouts, clattering locks, and sirens rang out. Amid the chaos, one officer recognized the inspector whose burnt body dangled halfway from the metal throne-wheelchair — the face was unrecognizable, and the sewn lips had burst in a final, mute act of despair.

"Oh God…" whispered one of the younger guards. "He didn't do anything… He just… He was crying…"

"Who did this?!" the guard commander shouted, pushing through the crowd. "WHO THE FUCK PLANTED THAT BOMB?!"

Before anyone could answer, something whistled through the air.

SLAP! — One of the guard officers staggered backward, dropping his weapon. He trembled as if unsure what had just happened… until a red stream flowed from his right eye. A long, crooked arrow stuck out of his eye socket, still wobbling slightly.

"AAAAAAH!" he screamed, falling to his knees. His cry turned to gurgling moans until he finally collapsed lifelessly to the side.

The guards around froze. One let out a shaky breath. Another slowly raised his rifle. Then they heard them.

They were coming.

At first like a storm. Like a herd. Like an earthquake.

Then they saw them: a crowd of people — dirty, covered in soot, wounds, rags instead of uniforms, with eyes filled only with fury and hunger for revenge. In their hands, all kinds of weapons — handmade crossbows from wire and wood, metal clubs from springs, rusty axes, kitchen knives attached to broomsticks, heated steam pipes, improvised flamethrowers from industrial spirit bottles.

And at their head — a woman in a dirty uniform with a prosthetic left arm, her face smeared with soot and a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around a broken head. Her eyes burned.

"FOR SURVIVAL!!!" she roared, raising a crude harpoon.

"FOR TANYA! FOR TANYA!" the crowd echoed, their screams carrying through the whole train, bouncing off the walls like the roar of hellish legions.

The guards stepped back, terrified. No orders were given. No commands issued. The bodies of two dead comrades and the inspector — their own inspector — still smoked.

The guard commander finally raised his weapon, his hands trembling.

"F-fire! SHOOT! SHOOT THOSE FUCKING TRAITORS!" he howled, but no one moved.

Because they were already here.

First fell Sergeant Kolek — the harpoon pierced his chest and lifted him up like a trophy. He howled, spitting blood, then went silent.

Then two more fell, impaled on spikes made from steel rails, pressed against the wall like puppets.

With fire in their eyes and screams in their mouths, the people from the tail of the train charged through the car doors, their cries ringing out like a verdict:

"FOR TANYA!"

Blood poured down the walls. The guards' screams quickly drowned out their own pleas for mercy.

When the smoke settled and the fire still licked the metal floor, among dead guards, burnt radios, and crushed barrels, silence fell inside the car.

Only the woman in uniform still stood, her face turned toward the cars lying further ahead, harpoon in hand. She looked at one of the young men with a crossbow.

"Not over yet," she said quietly. "We'll take the train back into the hands of the rightful rulers." — she looked at the guards' bodies and smiled.

She let out a small, quiet laugh.

A quiet, cold, childish laugh.

"Dad… I'll take back this train and finally bring real order to this chaos…" Tanya said, staring ahead as more guards ran and her people moved forward with screams of rage. "Wilford…" — she growled the name of her hated enemy "I'll show you what a real war is." she muttered slowly. "I will ensure the survival of the human race… even if I have to drown the entire first class in blood… I will ensure humanity's survival. For us! For future children! For our survival!"

The inspector's death was only the beginning.

Time to take back the train throne.

Note:

And that's where the first Snowpiercer Oneshot ends, next chapter we'll see Tanya in the world of the living dead!

Chapter II: "Among the Whispers of the Dead" (The Walking Dead)

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Chapter 1527 - 2.5