0 Prologue

Prologue The world, like a brand-new page, was white. A vast canvas of sky hung over the snowy landscape, decorated with a few pale brushstroke clouds. Everything was still. Suddenly, movement. A small, dark shape was carving a straight line across the valley. It was an animal of sorts, or at least a sketch of one. A scribble of fur with legs and a tail. A dog, maybe. Whatever it was, it moved with a distinct purpose: to escape whatever was chasing it. Its pointy ears were pressed flat against its head as it sprinted towards a small cluster of trees near a signpost. Every ten strides or so it looked back over its shoulder with fearful, inky eyes. Time seemed to slow as the distance between the dog and the trees got smaller. A hundred metres. Fifty metres.

Ten metres. Then... it flew into the graphite copse like a bullet. Ten seconds of silence. Then came the sound. You could feel it before you could hear it—a light fluttering sensation in the pit of your stomach, followed by a soft, deep hum. Gradually, it got louder. And louder. And louder. Within a minute, the whole valley shimmered as a billion snowflakes began to vibrate with the thrum. Then the enormous, monstrous, terrifying vehicle appeared on the horizon...