Kostya came to.

I’m alive was his first thought. Lucky me. Judging by how cramped his surroundings were, the car must’ve been seriously damaged.

Without opening his eyes, he listened to his body.

No pain. Just numbness in his fingers; he could barely move them. And the freezing cold. Why is it so cold? The day was warm and sunny.

The last moments before the accident flashed through his mind.

The sticky, viscous air inside his car.

The rough leather band in his hand.

The girl’s petrified face.

A brief, deft move of her hand starting the invisible blender that mixed sky and earth together into a homogenous brown matter.

And the crimson serpent from his nightmare, aiming at Kostya just like it had then, except this time the monster’s flattened head was right before his eyes, so close he could make out every scale on its nose. The beast seemed to fill the whole space inside his car. And at the window behind its back, the world was spinning like dirty laundry in a washing machine: the old, faded trainers of clouds; the sun-bleached camouflage gear of the grass; the gray overalls of asphalt.

He shifted his gaze back to the monster.

Its eyes. Blind and icy-white, so out-of-place on the monster’s crimson muzzle.

How come he had never noticed them before? These blind eyes without pupils, staring into the void, like those of ancient Greek statues, fixing him to the spot. He could feel this blind glare freeze his heart, but it was beyond him to look away.

I will freeze to death, he realized with a feeling of doom. Here. Inside this reversed washing machine that wouldn’t stop until the brown mess outside was as clean as the snowy whiteness of the serpent’s eyes.

“Wake up, or you’ll freeze to death,” a strange, rasping voice came, waking Kostya from his memories. He gave a start and opened his eyes.

So dark.

And cold.

So fucking cold. Where am I?

His crouching body was being clutched by some hard, protruding things barely visible in the semidarkness. They pressed down on his neck and back in a much different way than a car seat would.

What the hell’s going on? Why is it so dark? It must be daytime. Or...or have I been unconscious so long that it’s night now?

With the light coming from behind his back, his own shadow was obstructing his vision.

He turned his head with effort, wondering what had gotten inside his Golf that had changed it so strangely. His eyes barely focused on a polished wooden rail that looked like a long tree root standing right in front of his eyes.

WHERE THE HELL AM I?

He gave another start. With those wooden things clutching him from all around, he suddenly felt claustrophobic, fear pressing on his temples.

Then he suddenly remembered that rasping voice waking him and called out, “Hey! Anyone here?”

His voice came out desperate and very quiet. He could not take a proper breath because of his crouching position, his knees pressing into his chest.

“Ah. Are you awake?” The same senile voice raspily spoke from behind his back. “Wait a minute. You’re about to be born.”

Kostya froze, pondering over the meaning of these words. The tightness was driving him mad, muddying his thoughts.

Fuck it all. Let it be roots. Let it be called being born. Just get me out of here!

He no longer tried to scream; he just counted the seconds pulsing in his mind. It became dark as if something blocked the light.

A powerful animal smell came as if he were in a circus or a zoo. Some big, fluffy thing wrapped itself around his sides.

Kostya closed his eyes and clenched his teeth to contain a scream.

Shit. Shit. Shit. This word pounded in his head like a drumroll.

The big, fluffy thing gave him a mighty tug, the wooden rails sliding painfully across his back and sides.

In a moment, Kostya felt like he was being carried. He balled up in expectation of falling.

Several endless seconds later, his assisted flight ended with his feet touching a hard surface.

Not so hard, actually; it gave a little under his weight.

He straightened up and opened his eyes.

And was immediately dazzled by the bright light. Shielding his eyes with a hand, he looked down.

There was snow. Dazzling white snow. With two oval craters from his black shoes in the even, fluffy blanket. The bottoms of the legs of his jeans were sprinkled with white. He could feel the snow melting into his socks, soaking them through.

“Hi, Kosta. Remember your past lives, don’t you?” The voice came from behind his back.

He shrunk away with surprise while turning to look. With his feet stuck in the snow, his legs got entangled together, causing him to fall flat on his side.

Standing over him was a small, lean old man in faded rags. Gaunt face with deep wrinkles. Black beads of slanting eyes.

Towering behind the old man was a massive hulk of a monster covered in long, ashy-gray hair: either a bear or a giant ape or…a human?

Kostya remembered some blurry photos from old newspaper clippings in which a similar stooping figure was making its way through the woods. The clippings had headlines like “Abominable Snowman,” “Scientific Expedition,” and “The Himalayas.”

He looked into the monster’s eyes. Deep-set, they had an unmistakable gleam of intelligence, leaving no room for doubt that this creature was sapient.

The old man was staring at Kostya. This stare had the surprising effect of calming him down and taking away his burning desire to ask any questions about what kind of place they were in, who that furry giant was, or why he was here.

This old wise man—or whatever he was—wasn’t even looking directly at Kostya but through his body. Passing through Kostya, this stare left an invisible, warm ball of understanding inside his chest, slowing down the beat of his racing heart. A warm tingle spread to his numb fingers.

Kostya looked down at his right hand and saw that he was still holding that leather band he had ripped off the girl’s hair. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised by it; he just shifted it from his fingers to his wrist.

The serpent’s tiny teeth dug into its tail with a barely audible click.

Everything going on around him seemed natural, this feeling growing with every passing second.

He took a look around. On his left was a colossal mountain, its foot encircled in oddly-shaped, snow-capped rocks. The mountain rose to the sky as a shear wall, its flattened top looking like the crown of a giant tooth with deep furrows running across it from side to side.

Several feet to his right was a stocky tree, its trunk broad and cracked; its bare, knotty branches looked like an older person’s fingers affected by arthritis.

In the tree was a big, gaping hollow, six or seven feet above the ground, the cracks around it forming deep wrinkles, making it look like a wide, screaming, toothless mouth.

So that’s the womb they took me from. He had no doubt who had assisted his birth into this world; no one but the furry snowman could have possibly done it.

Running into the distance behind the tree were the long lines of identical snow-capped hillocks that looked like small graves.

“Juel is coming,” the old man said, breaking the silence. He no longer looked at Kostya; he had turned to the tree as though addressing it.

Kostya followed his gaze into the gaping hollow screaming its silent Ooooooooh.

Watching the tree for another minute, the old man turned to Kostya. “Juel is here. Take her to the sea to die. That will help you.”

Kostya looked back with a silent question in his eyes. Help me? What is he talking about?

“About your cravings in the world from which you came,” the old man explained, stunning Kostya. He continued before he could ask any questions. “Take Juel to the sea. That might heal you. But hurry, or she will die before reaching it. And don’t overthink—that will bring you more harm than good.”

The wise man turned to the furry giant and gave a slight nod, pointing his chin at the hollow.

The snowman reached the tree in two strides and took something out of the gaping hollow. The thing must’ve been much smaller than Kostya as it was completely hidden in the giant hands holding it.

Trying to see what it was, Kostya stood up.

The snowman approached and handed him…a baby! A tiny, naked baby. A girl, Kostya noted as the baby stared at him closely from beneath her swollen eyelids, vapor rising from her pink body.

Kostya took the baby clumsily and turned to the wise man, but he saw only a small pile of dust and the old man’s rags on the snow. No trace. As if the old man had appeared out of the blue on this snowy plateau and disappeared into thin air.

Or maybe he’d been standing here even before this plateau, next to the North Peak, was covered with snow?

Kostya realized he somehow knew the name of the tooth-crown mountain towering over the snowy waves of the endless plateau. The realization didn’t faze him. He just looked up at the giant who stood in front of him, handing him a clay bowl that looked like a thimble in its giant hand.

Cuddling the baby close with one arm, Kostya accepted the bowl and took several sips, staring at the small pile of dust, the wind already blowing it all around.

Water. Right on time.

He looked down into the bowl, and a pang of terror shot through his temples.

Staring back from the reflection was an ancient, wrinkled old man with hollow cheeks and dark holes instead of eyes.

He screamed, throwing the bowl away, barely keeping the baby in his arms, and stared at his…his dark, gnarled, ancient fingers.

The snowman didn’t move. Just stared at Kostya, unblinking.

He closed his eyes and hastily began to feel his face with his numb fingers, trying to determine what his skin felt like now.

In his mind, he saw toothless mummies grinning at him as they flashed by, their bony arms reaching for him in a silent prayer. He tried to escape, keeping his face shielded with his hands, but his feet just wouldn’t move.

An eternity passed before Kostya realized his skin was the same as before.

Removing his hands warily, he opened his eyes. His fingers were normal.

He looked up and around. The North Peak was far behind. He had no idea how he had come to be so far away.

Stop. Where’s the baby?

He wheeled around.

Several feet behind him stood a girl of about four, dressed in the same rags that the old man had been wearing.

Don’t overthink—that will bring you more harm than good.

Kostya approached her. “Come, Juel,” he said. Then added under his breath, “To the sea, to die.”

The snowy surface down here was more rigid. Hard enough to endure his weight, his feet no longer sank into the snow.

Kostya put the child on his shoulders and walked on the rough ice crust covering the snow toward the distant mountain ridge with gray puffs of smoke rising over it.

Hurry, or she will die before reaching it.

He already had a theory about what the old man had meant by those words.