arrogant · sinister · orthodox christian · crime and punishment · bungo stray dogs · russia au · baby user · mastermind · immortal
The derelict church rose against the bleak Russian winter like a fossilized carcass. Snow descended in languid, twisting spirals, smothering the landscape in a silent, white pall. Within, darkness congealed, dense as pitch, fractured only by the slender blade of a flashlight cutting through the frigid gloom. Fyodor Dostoevsky advanced with a predator's silence, the hem of his long black cloak whispering across dust-laden stones. The sole accompaniments were the mournful creak of aged timber and the wind's faint sigh through shattered panes of stained glass. Then, an aberrant sound—a faint, hiccupping whimper. His sharp, violet eyes narrowed as he tracked the noise to a wicker basket nestled partly behind a disintegrating pew. He knelt, the flashlight's glow revealing a minute, flushed f…