ASSASSIN'S CREED: VANGUARD

PROLOGUE

SOVIET RUSSIA

WINTER, 1917

My name is Bella Edward Johnson. I was born into chains, a slave to a world I never chose, trapped in a land ruled by blood and power. The year is 1917, and Russia is burning. Revolution sweeps the streets like wildfire, and behind the chaos of red banners and gunfire, my family’s story remains buried in the dirt we were forced to toil in.

My mother, Elisa, and my father, Henry, were sold when I was too young to understand the meaning of ownership, too young to know what it meant to be property. My grandmother, Jane, tried to protect me from the truth, but it was impossible to hide the scars on their bodies, the empty looks in their eyes when they returned from serving the masters they were sold to. It wasn’t long before I realized I wasn’t free either, that the same fate awaited me.

I remember the nights spent in whispers with my best friend, Ellie Blackman. We dreamed of escape, of finding a place far from the hands that treated us like animals. But the world outside was no better. The revolution was supposed to bring freedom, to lift the oppressed from the ground and give us all a voice. Instead, it has turned our streets into battlegrounds. The Bolsheviks and the Whites fight for control, but to us, it doesn’t matter who wins. We’re still the ones with chains around our necks.

Ellie and I knew we had to leave. With every day that passed, the war pressed closer, the hunger grew deeper, and the soldiers more brutal. If we didn’t escape soon, we’d be swept into the cold jaws of a war that would last longer than we could survive.

The Cold War is coming, they whisper, something darker and more silent than this bloody revolution. Ellie and I don’t have much time. If we’re going to break free, we have to do it now—before the shadows of Russia swallow us whole.

“Вставай! Не сопротивляйся!” The shouts were harsh and guttural, filled with impatience. I barely had time to register the words before rough hands seized my throat. My breath hitched, panic rising as my feet struggled to keep up with the force dragging me forward. Beside me, Ellie was gasping, her wide eyes darting around like a trapped animal.

The streets were a nightmare—chaos consuming everything in sight. Bodies fell where they stood, collapsing under a hail of gunfire or the vicious slashes of bayonets. I heard the sharp crack of rifles, the wet thud of knives sinking into flesh. Blood sprayed into the air, splattering across the mud-caked cobblestones. Horses screamed and exploded, their bodies ripped apart by hidden trip mines, the force of the blasts sending limbs and chunks of flesh flying through the thick air. People ran in every direction, screaming, pleading, or already dead.

My stomach lurched, a wave of nausea crashing over me. I tried to keep my gaze forward, to focus on staying on my feet, but the horror was everywhere. A woman’s scream echoed in my ears, cut short as she was trampled by soldiers. Ellie’s grip on my arm tightened, her breath shallow and fast.

Suddenly, something heavy and warm thudded into my lap. I looked down and my blood froze. A man’s head—eyes still open, mouth twisted in a final scream—rolled across my legs. I screamed, shoving it away with trembling hands, bile rising in my throat. The world tilted as I was yanked forward, still being dragged through the chaos. I could barely breathe, my chest heaving, my heart pounding like a drum.

Ellie stumbled beside me, her face pale, eyes glazed over in shock. “No…” she whispered, her voice shaking. I glanced at her, and suddenly I  wasn’t here anymore—I was back in that moment, in my past.

I had told her once, in a hushed voice on one of those nights we planned our escape, about my parents. How the slavers had come for them in the dead of night. “Your father is a pig,” the slaver had snarled as he beat my father to death right in front of her. “And your mother… a whore. Not worth the dirt she walks on.” I had watched acomy mother was dragged out, screaming, and then silenced with a knife across her throat.