The cold gnawed into his bones, even through three layers of coarse wool and patched mittens. Yan had just returned from the shed, where three pitiful hares shuffled in a squat pen made of frozen boards and stretched burlap. Their fur was dull, their beady eyes staring blankly at the slush of stripped bark and last year’s frozen stems he’d thrown to them. Every time he looked at them, Yan felt that familiar stab of guilt—too little, too meager. But he couldn’t kill them anymore. Not after that first bloody tremor, after vomiting into the snowdrift until his body spasmed. The hares were a weak, trembling anchor to something that could still be called life, not just survival. Yan shook the snow off his felt boots and immediately locked the heavy door with its bolt—a thick piece of rusted pipe slotted into brackets. The house greeted him with its familiar stifling closeness: the smell of wax from the oil lamp on the table, the ever-present dust of old carpets covering the walls and floor, the faintly sweet-sour stench of rabbit droppings from the shed, and beneath it all, the hollow, eternal chill that seeped through the logs despite the smoldering embers in the stove. He shed his outermost sweater, left in a stretched-out turtleneck and thick flannel shirt, his gaunt frame appearing even more fragile without the bulk of his winter layers. His face, wind-chapped and pale, was tense. "Need to eat something." He muttered under his breath, his voice hoarse from prolonged silence or from the cold. He didn’t look at you. You had already become part of this strange, frozen existence... for how long? Days? Weeks? Time had flattened, like paper beneath snow. It felt like you had always been here. Yan moved to the old dresser where their meager supplies were kept. His hands—thin, knuckles red from the cold—fumbled through a sack of half-frozen grain, a dented can of something unidentifiable, the crumbs at the bottom of a jar. His thoughts tangled: Boil porridge? Soup? Less water means less fuel spent melting snow... Then—movement. In the only window—the one in the far corner by the stove, left slightly uncovered, draped with nothing but a single thin, tattered curtain. A slit. A loophole for the meager daylight and... for watching. To see if they were watching him. Yan froze. His blood didn’t just drain from his face—it seemed to crystallize in his veins. He saw it. A figure staggering along the edge of the clearing where the spruces stood like a wall. Clumsy, swaying. Too tall? Or too hunched? The distance and the snow veil distorted everything. But its movements... They were wrong. Jerky. The way its head snapped around too sharply. The unnatural stiffness of its gait. Like a marionette with its strings cut. The uncanny valley. A cold, clinical term from his past life, one that now meant only one thing: death. Or worse. A soundless groan escaped Yan’s lips. He lunged for the window, forgetting the grain, forgetting hunger, forgetting everything. His bony fingers clawed at the edge of the curtain. The fabric fell roughly, plunging the corner into near-darkness. At the same time, he rushed to the table—to the oil lamp. He blew—the flame died, leaving only the faintest glow of the wick and the ominous red gleam of the stove’s embers. Complete, oppressive darkness, broken only by the dull gray seep of snowlight through the other window’s covering. "Quiet!.." His whisper was sharp. He pressed his back to the cold wall beside the shrouded window, curling in on himself, trying to become invisible. His breath whistled in his throat, fast and shallow. His heart pounded so hard it felt like it might burst. He felt the gaze. Empty. Unblinking. Dragging over the snow-laden spruces, over the walls of the house... Was it searching for a gap? Listening? Yan buried his head in his shoulders, squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t help. Memories of past encounters flashed behind his eyelids: faces with smiles too wide, out of sync with their words; hands moving in stuttering, mechanical jerks; voices—grating, gurgling, babbling—that made his hair stand on end. No longer people. Danger. Minutes stretched like hours. The blizzard howled outside, the only constant sound in this frozen world. It seemed as if the figure had frozen at the edge of the clearing forever. Yan didn’t breathe. Every cell in his body was tensed to its limit, straining to hear past the wind’s scream—footsteps? The creak of snow under something not human? Silence. Only the wind. Only the frantic pounding of his own pulse in his ears. Then—movement. Slow, still with that same absurd, broken gait. The figure turned and began to retreat, dissolving into the white haze and black trunks of the spruces. It vanished from sight. Only then did Yan exhale. A long, trembling breath. He slid down the wall to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees. His body shook with fine tremors, feverish. He sat like that for several minutes, in the dark, listening now not to the threat outside but to the silence within. To his own ragged breathing. To the faintest rustle—had you moved? The blanket shifting? He lifted his head. In the dim gray half-light, his eyes—still wild with fear—found your silhouette. Alive. Real. Not stirring that soul-chilling revulsion and terror. Just... a person. Trapped here, same as him. Yan stood. His legs threatened to buckle. He walked to the dresser where the spilled grain lay, his hands still trembling as he picked up the pail of melted snow and set it on the stove beside the coals, feeding splinters to coax the fire back to life. He didn’t turn around. His back was rigid, shoulders hunched. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, rough, scraping past the lump in his throat, stripped of all inflection but exhaustion and necessity. "Come eat." He threw a handful of grain into the pail. The sound of the grains hitting the metal was too loud in the silence. The weight of what had just happened hung thick in the air. He stood with his back turned, waiting.