The cold hit Damon like a physical blow the moment his feet touched the frozen ground.
It wasn't the sharp bite of winter air he remembered from life, this was something deeper, more malevolent.
The kind of cold that seemed to reach through skin and muscle straight to the bone, wrapping around his soul with icy fingers that promised eternity without warmth.
He understood now why the woman at the processing office had told him to keep warm.
The memory felt like a cruel joke as he pulled his thin grey gown tighter around his shivering frame.
The fabric offered about as much protection as tissue paper against this supernatural winter.
Around him, other souls were jumping from the train cars, their faces immediately twisting with shock at the brutal temperature.
Damon tried to count them as they gathered in the snow, hundreds, certainly, but nowhere near the tens of thousands who had crowded the station.
Maybe eight thousand at most made it here, out of what had to have been thirty thousand or more back at the platform.
The rest had stayed behind. Now Damon wondered if they had been the smart ones after all. It seemed like the entire journey was designed to kill them, one way or another.
His fingers were already going numb despite being tucked under his arms.
When he pulled them out to examine them, the tips were turning an alarming shade of blue-white.
Without thinking, he brought them to his mouth and began sucking on them, trying to force some warmth back into the extremities.
The taste of his own skin was bitter and metallic.
Frostbite, he realized with growing horror.
The landscape around them was a nightmare of white and grey, an endless expanse of snow broken only by dark shapes jutting up from the frozen ground.
As his eyes adjusted to the harsh glare, Damon began to make out what those shapes were.
Bones.
Not a few, thousands upon thousands of bones, scattered across the wasteland like the remnants of some ancient battlefield. Skulls grinned up at him through masks of ice, their empty sockets filled with snow.
Had they died of the cold? Or was there something else stalking this frozen hell, something that left behind these grisly reminders of mortality even in death?
The newly arrived souls began moving forward instinctively, though none seemed to know where they were going.
They clung to their grey gowns and each other, a ragged parade of the damned shuffling through knee-deep snow.
The silence was oppressive, broken only by the crunch of footsteps and the occasional whimper of fear or pain.
Then a voice rose above the crowd, rough and commanding, with the authority of someone used to being heard.
"Everyone listen up!" The shout came from a middle-aged man with a shaggy beard that was already collecting snowflakes. A tattoo of a bird, some kind of raptor was visible on his neck above the collar of his gown.
"We need to cluster together if we want to survive this. Weasels do it all the time in the wild, body heat keeps the group alive."
There was a moment of hesitation, then the crowd began to comply.
Damon found himself pressed against strangers, their combined warmth creating a small pocket of relative comfort in the midst of the frozen wasteland.
The bearded man had positioned himself near the front of the group, clearly taking charge of the situation.
It was a sound strategy, Damon had to admit. If they were going to be trapped in this place for eternity, they'd need to work together to...
The howl cut through the air like a blade, long and mournful and absolutely terrifying.
It echoed across the wasteland, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"What the fuck was that?" a teenager near Damon whispered, his voice cracking with fear.
Another howl answered the first, then another. The sound was getting closer, and with each call, the pitch grew higher, more urgent. More hungry.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the teenager began chanting, his eyes wide with panic. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
"Shut up!" An old woman yelled from behind Damon.
The crowd pressed together even tighter, their human warmth suddenly feeling pathetically inadequate against whatever was making those sounds.
Damon could feel the tension rippling through the group like electricity, fear spreading from person to person until the entire mass of souls was trembling with more than just cold.
Through the swirling snow, something began to take shape in the distance.
At first, Damon thought it was a mountain or cliff face, something massive and dark rising from the white landscape. But as the wind shifted and the snow cleared momentarily, he realized what he was looking at.
A gate. Enormous and made of what looked like black ice, it stretched upward until it disappeared into the grey sky above.
Along its ramparts, tiny figures moved, guards of some kind, watching the approaching crowd with interest.
"There!" the bearded man shouted, pointing toward the structure. "That's got to be where we're supposed to go!"
One of the guards on the wall had spotted them.
Damon could hear him calling to his companions, though the words were lost in the wind. More figures appeared along the ramparts, all of them staring down at the huddled mass of souls.
The gate began to grind open with a sound like breaking bones. But the guards didn't move from their positions, they simply stood there, watching and waiting.
The bearded man waved his arms above his head, trying to get their attention. "Hey! We need help down here! We're freezing!"
The guards didn't respond. They remained motionless on their perches, silhouettes against the grey sky.
"Adrian Hands," the bearded man called out, apparently deciding introductions were in order. "Used to run construction crews back in the world. We need help if we're going to make it to that gate alive! We are tired and hungry."
Still no response from above. Adrian's voice took on an edge of irritation. "Come on! Just a little help here would be appreciated!"
That's when Damon noticed the guards beginning to talk among themselves, their voices carrying a note of excitement that made his blood run cold.
They weren't looking at the crowd anymore, they were looking past it, toward something approaching from behind.
The howls came again, much closer now and accompanied by a new sound, the rhythmic thudding of heavy paws in snow.
Damon turned slowly, dreading what he might see.
The wolves emerged from the swirling white like nightmares given form.
They were massive. Easily the size of adult elephants. With fur so dark it seemed to absorb the light around them.
The lead wolf's mouth hung open, revealing teeth like ivory daggers, saliva dripping from its jaws to freeze before it hit the snow.
About ten of them. Maybe more. And they were moving with the patient, purposeful gait of predators who knew their prey had nowhere to run.
Someone at the back of the crowd screamed, a raw, primal sound of pure terror.
The cry seemed to break whatever spell had held the group frozen, and suddenly everyone was moving at once.
"Run!" Adrian bellowed, his leadership instincts kicking in even in the face of impossible odds. "Everyone run!"
Panic exploded through the crowd like a bomb. Souls scattered in all directions, most heading for the gate. others simply running in confusion, heading anywhere that might take them away from the approaching wolves.
Damon slapped himself hard across the face, the sharp pain cutting through his paralyzing fear and shock.
Move! he ordered himself. Survive.
The gate was maybe two and a half miles away across treacherous, snow-covered terrain.
In good conditions, with proper clothing and footwear, he might make it in fifteen minutes. But these weren't good conditions. The snow was deep, his thin gown provided no protection against the elements, and his body was already weakened by the cold.
Twenty minutes, minimum. Probably more, but he would not count on it.
Behind him, he could hear the wolves picking up their pace, their massive forms closing the distance with terrifying speed.
One of the souls at the rear of the group let out a guttural scream that was cut short with a wet, tearing sound that made Damon's stomach lurch.
Someone was already dead
The guards on the ramparts were moving now, but not to help. They seemed to chattering among themselves.
They seemed to be taking positions to watch the coming slaughter, like spectators at some twisted sporting event.
Damon forced his legs to pump faster, his breath coming in sharp puffs that crystallized instantly in the frigid air.
All around him, other souls were falling behind, their strength already sapped by the cold or their resolve broken by fear.
Twenty minutes to the gate. Ten wolves behind them. Eight thousand souls, most of whom wouldn't make it halfway.
"We're all fucking dead," Damon whispered through chattering teeth.