Young Writers Society

Mel only disliked two things in the world: darkness and cold.

And of course, that was exactly what she woke up to.

She shivered herself awake as her eyes flitted open, and immediately she was greeted with a white blanket of snow. Snow? She had never seen snow before outside from what she had seen in pictures and read in books, but as it seeped into her skin and stole her warmth, she knew this was real.

Panicking, she quickly got up on her feet and squinted in the dark, frantically looking around. She pulled her hands towards her chest, shivering and visibly able to see the air she was breathing out. Where was she?

The stark cold air only gave her a second to think. She had just left the caves. The caves of... somewhere. Something about escaping and a heart. Oh, gosh, her head hurt. The cold air and freezing wind was miserable. Where was she?!

Her eyes landed to a nearby lit up cabin, and she didn't even hesitate to stumble towards it as the cursed snow seeped into her open skin on her legs, and she scolded herself for choosing a skirt for her school uniform instead of pants. When she found herself on the wooden boards, she hopped up with jittery steps, her teeth clattering from the cold.

"Helloooooo?" she called loudly, knocking frantically. "Anyone in there?"

Ordinarily, Mel would have paused to wonder where she was and think about whether it was a good idea to frantically knock on some stranger's house, but man, it was too cold and too dark, and blah! THE CABIN HAD WARMTH AND LIGHT!

"Hello?!" she impatiently called again, knocking louder even though only a few seconds passed between her calls.

Russian winters weren’t always silent.

The falling snow was fairly quiet most of the time, unless it was coming down particularly heavy. But the wind and forest seemed to have a mind of their own sometimes. The wind would howl as it battered the walls of the cabin, as if even the air wanted to be indoors and away from the cold. And the forest had its own sounds as well: breaking branches, a half-frozen creek that tried to keep flowing, and tiny animals that searched for food to get through the dark, cold days.

This night, all of those noises had gone quiet, so Nikolai could hear another sound, one he wasn’t at all used to. It was the sound of someone knocking.

Most people would have been merely confused to wake up and hear someone at their door after dark. To Nikolai, however, that confusion was accompanied by dread and fear. Unexpected company here was bad. Unexpected company might be the end of you.

So when he rubbed his eyes and climbed out of bed, it wasn’t a weapon on his nightstand he reached for. It wasn’t a firearm to defend himself with.

It was a pencil.

Nikolai was still wearing very warm and snug nightclothes, but whoever was at his door seemed impatient, so there wasn’t the time to change into normal clothes. He’d heard a shout only seconds after the first urgent knock. Either the rumors in the nearest town had picked up and he had a mob at his door, or some traveler was very, very lost. Whatever it was, they were desperate to get indoors.

When he stopped to listen to the shouts, however, he paused. He could have sworn the voice was talking in English. Though he couldn't be sure, he thought it also sounded young. What kind of traveler could be so lost that they had accidentally made their way to here from an anglophone country? That was a record level of lost.

Holding the pencil tightly in one hand and a candle that he'd lit in the other, Nikolai slowly opened the door.

His visitor was a schoolgirl. At least, that's what she seemed to be. The girl was wearing a uniform of some kind, which appeared to be exactly the wrong outfit for this time of year. Even stranger, she was covered in snow. Had she been making a snow angel or something? In this weather? Nikolai couldn't think of a better way to freeze.

No word could describe his surprise.

After a long moment, he cleared his throat, deciding to speak in English to break the awkwardness of the situation.

"Um... can I help you?"

Mel was bouncing foot-to-foot, frantically looking around while rubbing her crossed arms up and down. She was about to fiercely knock once more, but then the door opened.

Her hand was still up in the air in a knocking position, but she completely froze—in the physical sense, too—because she knew the person who answered. Of course, the person she knew wasn't wearing a nightgown, and he wouldn't be so comfy in a cabin when she herself came from the same place as him, but... what? Huh? Was this because he chose to escape instead of finding the heart?

"Nikolai?" she blurted with obvious shock. "How... where..."

She shook her head and then attempted to quickly squeeze past him to welcome herself inside. The warmth of his cabin was teasing her skin, and she didn't care to be polite during this circumstance.

The shock hit Nikolai hard, like he'd gotten run over by a steam train.

The hand that was holding the pencil squeezed it tighter as his green eyes widened and he stumbled back slightly. This girl knew his name. How had she learned that, after all this time of him trying to keep a low profile? There was no explaining her behavior either. She'd-- waltzed inside, slipped right past him like she owned the place. If she was part of some plot against him, why on earth was she acting this way?

Either he was in danger far beyond what he could understand, or she just really wanted to warm up in front of the fireplace.

Nikolai's first priority should have been to close and lock the door. That was the most important thing. Keep the cabin safe, keep people out. But his instinct was to turn around, staring at the girl with a stunned look. He was probably just dreaming. Nothing this weird ever happened to him, and he'd always had such a vivid imagination.

"H-How--" He was stuttering slightly. There was no missing the confusion in his voice. He really didn't know her. "How do you know my name?"

Mel zipped past Nikolai and walked a few steps into his dim cabin, leaving wet footprints on the floor. She let out a sigh of relief as her hands relaxed from holding on to her chest, and she loosened up as she stood in front of the fireplace, letting the heat defrost her body.

"Sorry," she said wearily, also letting the heat bring back her usual sunniness. "It's cold out there. I don't know why you'd live in a place like this."

Blunt? Maybe. But true.

She then turned to face him, squinting as she was able to make out his shocked expression with the candle he was holding close to him.

"How do I..." she repeated under her breath, not sure why he was asking this question. She shook that thought away and continued on. "You told everyone. Remember? In the caves? That we were just at?"

Mel only gave him a half-second pause before she spilled because she was dying to know.

"You went on to escape and I went to find the heart, but we never did get to see each other again. But I, um, assume you escaped okay, since you're here. I don't know why I'm here since it seems like you live here, but something must have happened if we're both here without the others. Do you have any idea what it could be?"

None of what she was saying made any sense.

Instead of the situation being cleared up, Nikolai was only getting more and more confused each word. The girl was only leaving him with questions. He was too bewildered to think of anything to say for a moment, so he set the candle down on a small wooden table that had three chairs around it. He turned away to lock the door, taking a deep breath before facing her again.

He couldn't afford to freak out right now. Well, not outwardly. He was starting to feel panicked on the inside.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said as calmly as he could. Even then, the worry was easy to hear in his voice. "What caves are you talking about? I know of some caves near the plateau, but I never go in there. I'd definitely run into some bear."

Nikolai shook his head, giving her a strange look that must have been a little hard to read.

"I know I've never seen you before in my life."

Bears?

Mel didn't run into any bears. Bats and sea serpents, sure, but not bears. Unless Nikolai ran into bears with his group that she didn't know about? But then why say they were nearby? And that he didn't know what caves she could be mentioning?

And that he had never met her before?

She stood there, mouth slightly agape, staring at him and not knowing what to say. Did he have memory loss? She just returned from there, and surely, so did he.

The snow had melted off her clothes and were dripping into a small puddle by her feet. Her hair felt heavy from the wetness, and she could feel it already becoming a frizzy mess as it dried by the fire.

"You don't remember me?" she choked. "At all? I mean, we didn't talk to each other that much, but I still..."

She sighed. Nikolai looked so confused and anxious. Maybe she should just start over.

"Well... I'm Mel. I'm not from this world, and none of us were from the world we were at either, and I know, lots to take in, but I'm catching you up... Does that help?"

Nikolai bit his lip, looking worried. She was upset, and he didn’t know what to tell her.

This was either a very good acting scheme, or she was serious. Either way, he needed to figure out what was going on. Of course, he was much more confused when the girl who called herself Mel mentioned being from another world.

Nikolai blinked, and his perplexed look remained in place. “You must’ve been in the snow for a really long time,” he said uncertainly as he walked down into the hallway that was to the right of the brick fireplace. He didn’t disappear, though. He came back with a fur pelt that had been made into a warm blanket, and he handed it over to her. “Keep yourself warm. Tell me if you think you might have frostbite somewhere... we’ll want to avoid that.” He sighed, turning towards the small kitchen that was just off to the side of the main room. "I'll get you something warm to drink. I try to save the tea bags for special occasions, but I'd say this counts."

She has to be a little out of her mind, doesn't she? Nikolai had heard of something that happened in places with warmer climates that was called sunstroke, and it could happen when someone got overheated. Was there something like that but with cold? He'd never experienced it if there was. He kept trying to search for possible reasons for what she was claiming, but nothing made sense or explained the situation.

Nikolai glanced back at Mel as he lit a fire on the stove and placed a kettle over it. The room was a little brighter thanks to it, as the entire house only had the candle and the fireplace to provide light besides the new fire. He offered her a smile that was a little weak but as reassuring as it could be.

"So, Mel," he said as he opened the small pantry in search of teabags, doing his best to avoid the awkward matter that she claimed to know him. "Where do you really come from?"

Nikolai placed a furry thing around her shoulders, and Mel appreciated it. At first. It was warm, and her clothes were dripping from the melted snow. But when she really took the time to inspect it, horror flashed across her face as she realized it was an animal. An animal's skin.

Luckily, Nikolai didn't seem to see it since he turned around to fetch tea in the kitchen. She ordinarily would have smiled and thanked him and appreciated his gesture and maybe offered to help, but instead she bit back a yelp and panickily flung the animal's skin off to her side, away from the fireplace and towards the darkness.

She couldn't believe it.

An animal's skin.

Just...

That was so sad. Nikolai skinned animals? How could he? He seemed so nice... Did he skin humans too?

Suddenly Mel felt terrified, and his words rang in his ear: "Tell me if you think you might have frostbite somewhere... I'll get you something warm to drink. I try to save the tea bags for special occasions."

Oh no. Was this really Nikolai? Did she walk right into a trap?

Was he going to poison her then skin her, too?!

She found herself backing closer to the fireplace, her heart racing but her head already formulating a plan. There wasn't too much light in here, but she could use it to get away. She wasn't amazing at casting herself, but she could do it. She could. Or maybe create a distraction. But could she run and concentrate at the same time? This was nerve-wracking. She had never done this before.

She didn't think she could.

Mel nervously extended her shaky hands and looked down at them, noticing how her skin lacked more color than usual, but otherwise not anything out of the ordinary. Her fingertips were still frozen, but frostbite wasn't in question. She'd have to note to make sure that she didn't get colder, though. Maybe that was why Nikolai lived in the cold? He had powers relating to it?

She looked up at him as he began to talk and look through the pantry in the kitchen. Maybe... she should just do it. Just ask. Ask what his true intentions were. But first...

"Did you kill that poor animal?" she blurted out, gesturing to the darkness where she had thrown the skin, even though it wasn't visible.

“What?”

The question had caught Nikolai off-guard. It also wasn’t exactly the answer to his own question. What animal? He’d never killed an animal before. Where had she gotten that idea from? He turned around from the pantry, a look of genuine confusion on his face.

Mel had tossed her blanket to the side, where he could just barely spot it in a place where the light didn’t reach. She looked shocked. He frowned, concerned for her. What was wrong? Didn’t she want to be warm? She was probably going to make it really hard if he was trying to help her and she didn’t even try to recover...

Oh. Oh! She doesn’t like that it’s animal fur!

Nikolai’s eyes widened as he realized that. Fur blankets were fairly common when you lived somewhere cold, relatively unpopulated, and you were able to hunt. However, although coming from another world made no sense, he could believe that Mel was a foreigner. She had only spoken in English, not Russian, and very, very few people around here spoke the first. Maybe she was from somewhere that didn’t use fur blankets.

“No, I didn’t!” The words came out as a bit of a yelp. He sighed, shaking his head as he went to pick up the pelt. How could he have known she wouldn’t be comfortable with it? He could understand her reaction a little, though. “I’m so sorry, I’ll get you a fabric one...”

If Mel didn’t like that blanket, she was going to hate the deer head on the wall of the master bedroom, the one that wasn’t his.

Nikolai dashed back to the closet he’d gotten the first blanket from and pulled out a quilt instead. It wouldn’t be nearly as warm, but he couldn’t think of a reason that she wouldn’t be okay with it. He unfolded it and handed it over to Mel with a deeply apologetic look.

The quilt wasn’t made of fancy patterned fabric that was hard to afford, but all the colorful designs were artfully sewn in by hand. There were simple patterns, but many of the squares had birds, masterfully and elegantly created. It had clearly been done by someone who was very skilled, and someone who had a lot of time on their hands. Like someone who had little to do and had chosen to live away from others in a secluded cabin in the woods.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he murmured, sitting down on the couch by the fireplace. All the furniture looked a little old, but in good condition. “My father goes hunting every once in a while, and he’s the one who made that...” Am I already revealing personal details? That’s not what I should be doing. “It’s hard to live out here without a hunting trip here and there, every few months, otherwise we wouldn’t do it. I don’t actually hunt, though. It’s just not my thing.”

As Nikolai dashed towards a room to grab a fabric blanket, Mel almost, almost decided to make a run for it. Run out of this warm, cozy cabin and out back into the dark, cold wilderness without knowing what she was doing or where she was at, leaving the only person she'd know...

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that escape probably wasn't in her best interest.

Besides, Nikolai actually seemed... genuine. Like he was concerned that she was concerned, and he actually didn't kill an animal.

He came back around and handed her a quilt, which she hesitantly accepted. It helped that his face was screaming of a million sorries. He then went on to sit on the couch and go on about his father and hunting, which Mel attributed to the guilt talking.

Well, now she was starting to feel guilty that she thought his intentions were nefarious.

Mel snuggled the quilt around her shoulders and let her fingers trace down the design.

"This is a pretty quilt," she thought out loud. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

She then sat on the edge of nearby wooden chair across from him.

"Hunting isn't my thing either. It's not really a thing at all, actually, where I'm from. So that was why I was... yeah. Anyways." She sighed. Did she overreact? She did know Nikolai was from another world, after all. Oh well, no matter.

"Thanks for, um, taking me in... Do you really not remember me? Or what happened?"

Nikolai smiled the tiniest bit when Mel complimented the quilt. It was a sad smile, for some reason, like the quilt was attached to some bittersweet memory. He almost told her more about it— but then she went on to say more, and he settled for thanking her quietly.

If she didn’t live in a place where hunting was needed, where did she live? Maybe she was from the west if she spoke English, didn’t need to hunt, and wasn’t used to these conditions. So, maybe America or Western Europe? Those weren’t exactly another world, but they sure felt a world away from Central Siberia. Maybe that was what she meant, or maybe he’d misunderstood what she’d said. Although he spoke English very well, it would always be his second language. Getting lost in translation was possible. Because of this, he didn’t try to make her answer his question from earlier about where she’d really come from.

He shrugged when Mel asked if he really didn’t know her.

“My life’s not all that exciting,” Nikolai said, flipping his pencil distractedly in his right hand. “And as a general rule, if it gets exciting, that means it gets dangerous. I’m not an adventurer, not an explorer either... so I think if something out of the ordinary happened, I’d remember it really, really well.”

Then there had to be some explanation for how she was so convinced about it. She could still be lying, and maybe he was falling into an elaborate trap right now, but he didn’t want that to be true. There was always another reason out there.

“...Maybe you had a really vivid dream?” he suggested hesitantly. “You were in the snow, it seems, so maybe the cold got to you and you had a crazy dream, caused by nearly freezing to death. Then you might’ve remembered it when you woke up and... it just happened to have me in it... somehow...”

Nikolai knew that wasn’t going to be convincing her. He wasn’t even convincing himself.

Isn’t there some part of the league that deals in dreams?

He opened his mouth to say that out loud, but he stopped before he could, mentally kicking himself. What was he thinking? You don’t tell anyone about the league. Certainly not someone who might just be lying in order to hunt you down. Nikolai closed his mouth again, feeling stupid.

He wanted to ask, but the question gave far, far too much away.

If Mel was trying to trick him— keep him distracted so that someone who knew who he was could kill him— he couldn’t tell her about anyone else.

Mel shivered, the warmth from the blanket and the fire defrosting her skin and sending a shiver down her spine. Although her head was ice-cold at first, it suddenly felt like she was coming down with a fever. The overload of information and temperature swings was getting to be too much.

She could handle this, though. After all, she had always craved an adventure and traveling somewhere new. She could handle a little cold and a little strangeness.

Nikolai didn't seem to remember her, and she could understand why he'd be dismissive of her claim. Who would believe some random girl who showed up in his cabin, claimed she knew him, and then claimed she came from another world? Mel wouldn't believe herself if she were him.

But it wasn't a dream. She knew it wasn't a dream. She was there. She saw him, and she was sure of it.

How could she convince him?

Mel sighed and let the blanket drape along her shoulders and across her chest before letting go and letting her hands naturally fall into place. And then she remembered: her sling bag. She was still wearing it, and if she came from there, it had to still have the items from the caves.

Quickly, she unslung her bag and opened it, finding a grin crawl along her lips.

The robes. It was all there, still. But Nikolai wouldn't understand the significance, so she furiously fished around until...

"Aha!" she exclaimed, pulling out a paper map. "This is the map of the caves. I did meet you and didn't dream of it, because if I did, why would I have this?"

She waved the paper in front of him as if doing so would magically bring back all of his memories.

Nikolai frowned, leaning forward so he could see the map better. It was hard at first, because Mel kept waving it around and it was too fast for his eyes to read it. After a few moments, he sighed and reached to gently grab one of the corners so the two of them were holding it still in place.

"That could be a map of any set of caverns," he murmured, sounding a little doubtful. "For all I know, these are just the Swiss Alps. All I know for sure is that they're not familiar to me." He glanced back at her, shaking his head in confusion.

Nikolai didn't know about her story, but her emotion about it felt so real. She at least seemed to believe every word of it.

He felt-- and looked-- really sorry for her.

At the very least, it was important that he heard her out. Not so much because she might be right-- that was too unreasonable to believe-- but because maybe she was as confused as he was, and he might have to help her sort it all out.

I don't know why I'm doing this. I should really just go back to sleep.

No, he couldn't do that. He needed to talk to Mel.

"Okay," Nikolai sighed, shaking his head. He sounded tired, but his tone was still soft and friendly. He might be overwhelmed, but he was still going to do his best to work things out. "I'm going to listen to you. Feel free to tell me everything or just the basics. But first, I want you to tell me something true about yourself, followed by a lie, also about yourself. Please, just do it. You'll see why."