In the damp, grey corridors of our legal system, where the ink is as cold as the hearts of the accused, a new petition has surfaced. Alexander Pichushkin—the creature known to the shivering public as the Bitsevo Maniac—has cast his plea to the Supreme Court of Russia. This wretch, condemned to linger in the shadows of a life sentence, seeks one thing: to be hauled from his desolate exile to a colony closer to the smog and bustle of Moscow.

The High Court has duly registered the complaint, though no date has been set for the hearing. One wonders what the detectives and constables of the city think of such a request. The man is a phantom of slaughter, a wolf in human skin who once prowled the districts of Northern Butovo.

It was but December of last year that the Moscow City Court stood firm, upholding the decision of the prison authorities. They denied him the transfer, and right they were. For eighteen long years, this monster has been caged in the 'Polar Owl'—a place where the wind howls like the souls of his victims. Forty-nine lives were snuffed out by his hand; forty-nine tragedies etched into the grime of the city streets.

Yet, while the killer rots in his cell, a strange twist of fate awaits his kin. It has come to light that the drab, panelled tenement where Pichushkin once dwelt with his mother has been swept up in the city's grand scheme of renovation. While the son lingers in the iron grip of the law, the mother shall be ushered into a fresh dwelling, far from the stench of the old slums and the memory of her son's blood-stained legacy.