To Escape Hell

Prologue

•Prologue•

1918

     It was a cold night, the brisk winter air bit at her skin, she stood at the gates of the grand palace of the Romanov estate in Yekaterinburg Russia.

     The snow fell peacefully, yet the scene around her was anything but.

     Men shouted, guns raised, torches burning, and Sophia? She waited patiently, going over her plan and tuning out the loud voices of the wrathful Bolsheviks all around her.

     She silently slipped through the crowd, weaving through bodies until she reached the gates. She hastily got to work. Within minutes, unlocked the gates, allowing the violent revolution to finish her work, destroying the Imperial family forever.

•••

     "Anna Rustov, I need a train." Sophia said flatly to the man. He looked down at her from his booth.

     He looked her up and down before turning his attention back to the papers in his hands.

     "Do you have travel papers and passport?" He asked unconcerned by the well-dressed woman traveling without a companion and with no luggage, in wee hours of the morning. Sophia leaned in, to whisper into the booth. It was nearly dawn, word of the Tzar's death had not traveled yet.

     The man leaned forward. She opened her mouth as if to begin a sentence, instead she took him by the collar and pulled his head into the cold metal bars. His nose crunched as she repeatedly wrenched him forward. 

Bang. Bang. Bang.

     Blood oozed from his freshly cracked scull. Sophia grimaced; she did have some scruples about killing, but she pushed them aside for now. 

     She reached through the opening in the metal bars once more, snatching a ticket from the desk, the red puddle slowly growing around the unmoving clerk. 

     Sophia ran, wiping her bloodied hand on her bodice, hoping no one would notice the wet stain against the dark fabric. She slowed as she approached the train, the steam and whistling growing louder. A young man in uniform leaned against the train, head drooping low against his chest in apparent drowsiness. She walked past him into the carriage of the train. She had to get out of Russia as fast as possible. 

     The German Empire was close, if not currently in shambles. The war continued to rage, despite the United States slow response to the conflict. Though last Sophia had heard, Wilhelm had called retreat, Austria-Hungary was in shambles, and the Ottoman Empire fallen. It was still a war-zone, but one she could use to escape.

     She was given a job by the newly empowered Soviet Party. Lenin himself, had tasked her with hammering this final nail into the Romanov tomb. For it was a tomb, a large, ornate structure built on the bones of Russian men and women, sacrificed for the hubris of an impotent emperor during the War to End All Wars. The train whistle screeched as she sat, the young conductor jumped to his feet, startled by the loud sound. 

     The few other travelers mostly dozed, one old man read a small red book with a hat sat low on his forehead. She pretended she didn't track the movement of the man's head as he glanced up at her, or the small boy softly mumbling in his sleep, resting on his mothers lap, or even the light flutter of sound that came from below the seat to her right--likely a rat. Sophia simply turned her head to the left, gazing out the window to the dimly lit train platform on the other side of the tracks. A man stood under the flickering gas light, shadows danced at his feet. 

The train gave a lurch as it began its dangerous journey to the border, then to Germany if the way was clear, beyond that, the US, where she would wait for new orders.