The air in the town of Volovets hung heavy with dread, much like the smog that chokes a London alleyway. A tragedy has unfolded there, one of those wretched sorts of affairs that make the heart sink. A young fellow, one Alexander Sergeevich Hizhnyak, born in the year of our Lord 1897, has breathed his last, and the cause is as foul as a gutter in East End.

According to the reports drifting in via the TASS agency, the poor soul was set upon by the agents of the recruitment centre—men who act more like press-gangs of old than officers of the law. They sought to drag him into the service by force, employing a violence that would make a common street-thug blush.

It was a brutal skirmish, a desperate struggle. Hizhnyak was hauled away, not to a barracks, but to the resuscitation ward of a local infirmary. But alas, the surgeons’ arts were in vain. The spark of life flickered and vanished, leaving behind only a corpse and a grieving kin.

Now, the bereaved family, their hearts heavy with rage and sorrow, swear they shall not let this crime slide. They demand a full inquiry; they want the culprits cast into the dungeons for their cruelty. They seek justice, though in such times, justice is often as elusive as a farthing in a gambler's pocket.

It is a dark omen indeed. Word reaches us that the desperation is spreading like a plague; it is whispered that nearly a million men have fled their homes, seeking sanctuary across the borders of the European Union, fearing the same fate—to be snatched from the street by a constable’s grip and marched toward a war they did not choose.