My flesh monster stirred, ready to lash out in an instant. Tendrils of bone and sinew emerged from its form, coiling like great springs. The bone plates it’d used to cover my form reemerged, swarming and circling me. I was safe. We were safe. It would protect Olga, just as much as it would protect me. Still, I was afraid; the only thing I could count on to protect me was an actual freaking monster. It was strong and horrible, but I was neither of those things; a single bullet to the forehead would be all that’s needed to put me down for good.

The growing cold wasn’t making things easier for any of us; even Olga was shaking like a leaf in the wind, though her face betrayed none of the discomfort she was feeling. Honestly, was her face not attached to her body or something?

Out of the thicket of trees came a ragged, but familiar-looking child, tumbling and huffing as he rushed out of the woods. It was a boy, no older than myself. His eyes were filled with fear and I could tell immediately that he’d been running away from something or someone. He stumbled and would’ve died to a barrage of tendrils if I hadn’t stopped my flesh monster at the very last second.

He shrieked as soon as his bleary eyes landed on the mass of flesh and bone at my side. On the ground, the kid started crawling backwards, eyes wide and filled with tears. Snot dripped down his nose as he raised a hand and pointed a finger at the abominable flesh. “AAAAGH, another monster!”

I eyed him for a moment. He was ragged and dirty, looking as though he’d crawled across a field of mud and grime. His shirt, or the remains of it, was nothing but greyed and blackened tatters that more closely resembled a sack, whist his trousers looked more akin to a skirt.

“It’s not going to hurt you,” I said, though I’m not sure if I sounded believable when I said it. Naturally, the he bought none of it and screamed even more; I wasn’t even sure if he heard me. Panic was so abundantly clear on his face that no other emotion could be seen through the grime that covered his skin. The boy screamed so hard his throat must’ve bled from the effort. He was understandably scared, but I also wanted him to understand that he didn’t need to be afraid.

“He’s one of us,” Olga said. “I remember him in the auditorium.”

I raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, keeping him alive just became all the more a necessity; if he was anything like Olga and I, then we might just need him in the coming hours. He survived the first trial, which meant he had magic in him – or something. He was probably too scared of everything to display it.

“Wait, just calm down for a second; no one’s going to hurt you, I promise!”

“AAAAGH!” He pushed himself up, turned, ran, stumbled, and promptly smashed his head against a tree, before falling back down – unconscious.

I stared at him for a moment, before shrugging. I turned away from the downed idiot and began picking up whatever branches I could get my hands on, until they became too heavy for my arms to carry, in which case I piled them in front of Olga and promptly gathered more, until I reached the spot, where the kid from earlier lay unconscious, drool dripping from his mouth and a dark bruise forming on his forehead. There were several dried branches around him, however, which I then promptly picked off the ground and added to the bunch I already had in my arms.

“Are you going to use your fire thing?” After a minute of gathering, I figured the pile was probably already big enough. It was getting unbearably cold. Every movement made my bones ache in protest. My fingers were turning an unhealthy shade of purple and blue, and I could no longer feel my lips or my nose. Strangely, I couldn’t feel myself shaking anymore – as though my body had acclimated to the cold. I let out a cold breath of air, before allowing myself to fall to the ground, beside the kid who still hadn’t woken up.

The world seemed to fade away with every passing moment. My breaths came slower and slower. I felt stuck in a moment – that moment of pure bliss, between waking and dreaming, the scant few seconds before one truly falls asleep.

“I will try,” Olga nodded, before raising her right hand. Her voice wrung me out of the stupor that I’d fallen into. Multi-colored flames burned at her fingertips. She closed her eyes and stiffened. A fiery rainbow plume surged out of her hand and bathed the dry wood pile. A moment later, a multi-colored fire was burning atop the random sticks I’d gathered. I crawled towards it and breathed a sigh of relief at the warmth that radiated towards me. I breathed out a sigh of relief as the heat washed away the cold and I felt my fingers once more.

“Grab the kid. Don’t kill him. Put him near the fire, not on it.” I told the flesh monster. I could’ve done it myself, but I was far too tired to bother dragging some random stranger towards the fire. Still, I pulled myself onto a seated position and watched as tendrils emerged from the mass of flesh, wrapped themselves around the unconscious boy’s arms and legs, and dragged him all the way beside me, his face stopping mere inches from the fire.

“You were close to death, Uriel,” Olga suddenly said, shivering as she spoke. Her eyes were distant, staring into the fading sky. “The cold death had nearly overtaken you. I’ve seen it before in Stalingrad; many of them were my neighbors.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you talking about? I was fine.”

She shook her head. “You have never met the snow before, have you?”

“I haven’t,” I answered. “It doesn’t snow where I’m from. There are a lot of rains, though.”

“When you wear thin clothing in the open and snow is falling from the sky, your bones will freeze, your ears, your nose, and your lips will fall off. You will become drowsy and weak, and then you will sleep and never wake up,” She said, turning away from the sky and staring into the dazzling fire. “That is the cold death, the curse of winter. It killed my mother. Fire keeps it away and thick clothes.”

I nodded, but otherwise stayed quiet. She knew more about the cold than I did, being a European and all, so I saw no reason to distrust her. However, we only had one of two things that supposedly kept away the cold death. The thin rags I had on couldn’t protect me from a harsh breeze, much less a cold one. I turned away and glanced at the kid from before and he was still fast asleep. We’d have to leave him here if he doesn’t wake up soon, even if he was one of us. Having my flesh monster carry Olga around was beneficial, precisely because she was useful; this kid bonked himself on the head by accident. I wasn’t too sure if he could contribute anything.

And so we stayed quiet for a while, doing nothing, just staring into the fire as the forest grumbled and groaned, the trees swaying with the wind; it was… nice, even if the cold was uncomfortable, foreign, and unwanted. We weren’t friends, Olga and I, but it felt like it; and it felt nice.

Just as all seemed well, however, a powerful gust of freezing winds swept across the clearing; a blanket of white snow followed it, smothering out our fire as it came and covered everything and everyone. The soothing heat vanished immediately; a cold darkness soon enveloped us, colder than anything I have ever known. I couldn’t move, no matter how hard I tried. And I heard nothing, save for the harsh whistling of the winds and the rustling of the trees. My hands froze and turned purple-black once more. A sudden weakness overtook me. I drew breath and sighed as the world seemed to turn into silver glass.

“My, my, three children, lost and alone, in my neck of the woods, their souls touched by the dark powers; not good for eating, they are.” There was a raspy voice in the shadows, an old woman. I heard her faint footsteps in the snow, but I was too tired to offer her a glance. She cackled and the world seemed to bend at her voice. “Quite an odd lot, you three are; this must be your second trial, I assume? Oh, of course it is! The presence of the dark powers within you, however paltry, marks you as dark mages.”

Whoever this person was, she knew about magic; she was one of them. I wasn’t certain if that meant we were safe or if we were definitely screwed now. She walked and stopped beside me. I saw only the silhouette of an old woman, whose nose extended unnaturally from her face. She didn’t seem at all disturbed by the biting cold. “Fascinating, a natural Flesh-Crafter hasn’t been seen, since the Third Blood War; you presence should prove interesting, young one. Hah, now I really can’t just leave you to die; and the little girl’s capable of producing Chaos Fire.”

The woman paused for a moment.

“Tsk, congratulations, children; you are now being rescued. Please, offer no resistance.” She laughed. My eyes flickered open and close; and my mind strayed to the land of dreams. “And here I was hoping for an easy dinner; how’s an old lady supposed to eat in these conditions? HAHAHAHAHAH!”

The world seemed to fade. I glanced down and one of my fingers fell off, breaking apart as though it was made of ice. The last thing I saw before all colors drifted into black was a giant pot, descending from the sky.

Turn your back on the forest, your front to me.

I awoke to the sound of screams. I tried pushing myself up, even before my eyes could open fully. But I couldn’t move. My hands and feet were bound. The screams continued; it was accompanied by the raucous laughter of an old woman, who was enjoying herself. I also heard a bubbling sound that could’ve only been from a simmering cauldron. The smell of garlic, spring onions, and other spices in the air made it clear that something was being cooked.

The screams intensified.

My eyes snapped open. To my left was Olga; she was still asleep. Her shoulder and her legs appeared free of injuries, when I remembered both parts of her being very broken. To my right was the kid from earlier; he was still unconscious, but the bruise on his forehead was gone.

I glanced further down and my face twisted as I bore witness to something that could’ve only been from the depths of my nightmares. A cackling old woman with a nose like a tree branch, whose skin was so dried and wrinkled that it could’ve been mistaken for the bark of a dying tree, continuously pushed down a child, who was trying so desperately to escape, down a boiling cauldron. Much of his skin had melted off, alongside half of his face, revealing quite a bit of bones, but the horror and the pain on the child’s eyes was unmistakable. He screamed for help, reaching out with blistered hands, before a slew of carrots and cabbages silenced him, dumped from atop by a floating basket, filled with vegetables.

The old woman cackled.

I screamed.

Olga and the other kid woke up. The child in the cauldron tried pulling himself out for the last time, before the old woman bonked his head with a rolling pin.

We all screamed.

“Oy, be quiet, the lot of you!” The old woman snapped. And I felt my mouth close shut against my will; the same thing must’ve happened to Olga and the other kid, because they suddenly fell quiet. She held up a ladle and shook her head, before taking a very large lid and slamming it right over the cauldron and sealing it shut. I could still hear the child’s scream. Her long white hair seemed to float behind her, as though it was caught in a perpetual breeze and never once let down. “Don’t start screaming at me; I’ve got no plans to eat the lot of you, Neophytes. Dark Mages are hard to come by; they’d have my head if I started killing ye; so, calm down and go back to sleep. Dinner will be ready, soon.”

She then turned her attention back to the pot, opening it slightly to reveal the child’s boiled face – dead.

I did not calm down and I definitely did not go back to sleep. Olga and I locked eyes. Somehow, I could tell that she was afraid, even if it did not show on her face. My hands shook and it wasn’t because of the cold. I swallowed a lump in my throat and glanced around for anything that might just save our lives from the monster in front of us.

Around us was an assortment of things I didn’t recognize. But, discounting the screaming child in the bubbling cauldron, the place could’ve honestly been categorized as ‘nice’, like the house of an old grandmother, who never bothered modernizing. Fruits and vegetables were aplenty, placed in weaved baskets. Dried meats of questionable origin hung from the ceiling. But there were also other things that marked this place as unnatural; steaming brews and bubbling liquids in the colors of purple, green, blue, red, and even white in equally strange containers dotted the place

“Don’t bother, little Flesh-Crafter,” The old woman’s voice returned. “You’ll find nothing to help you escape – not unless you’re planning to cut your way out of here, using carrots and potatoes, hmm? No, you’re staying there until I let you out.”

I glanced down again, averting my eyes from the cauldron as I did, and focused on the actual binds. They were made of metal and wrapped so perfectly around my wrist that made it impossible to pull my hands out, even if they weren’t exactly tight; the same could be said about my feet.

I was definitely stuck here, while a monster of a grandma cooked a child in the biggest pot I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“She’s not going to kill us,” Olga said. Her voice was soft and tired. “She’s like them; I believe that she kept us alive for a reason. Otherwise, we would’ve suffered the fate of that boy in the cauldron.”

The other kid kept screaming anyway. I nodded at her. “Do you believe we’re safe here?”

“No,” She said plainly. “But neither are we safe out there. I think, at the very least, she wouldn’t try to shoot us, like the Red Army might.”

I breathed out. Her words made sense. If that monstrous hag wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Instead, she healed our wounds and bound us in place. Still, leaving things to chance did not sit right with me. And, even then, our chances of walking out of this place alive were already quite low. “Alright, but we’re busting out of here when we get the chance.”

She nodded.

The old woman grinned and shook her head as she slowly walked towards her. Her gaits were uneven and unbalanced – as though her legs were bent at wrong angles. Though it was impossible to confirm it, given the withered and ragged dress she had on. “You naughty children, you are; I didn’t waste my magic on ye, just to kill ye. No, that’d be stupid, it’d be. I am known by many names, but the mortals call me… Baba Yaga.”

Olga gasped and fainted.