Episode 5: Run Like Hell

  Inside the weathered wooden hut, heavy with the scent of firewood and medicinal herbs, an elderly woman—whose visage resembled that of a legendary witch—began to part her lips to recount a long-buried tale. The flickering lamplight danced within her clouded yet piercing eyes.

  “Some 5,000 years ago... no, we must go back even further to the very beginning, around 6,000 BCE...” she began her narration, her voice wavering yet resonating with authority. “In that era, we once resided within the world’s temperate zones... in the precise locations where the sun stood directly overhead every noon. Places where the seawater was as clear as glass and the freshwater lakes were of the purest quality. We lived nomadic lives, in harmony with nature; there was no war or slaughter, for the land was far too vast and bountiful for any one soul to claim.”

  She paused for a breath. Cris sat in hushed silence, listening as if under a spell.

  “We did not even know the concept of a spherical earth back then... Within the stone caverns, our ancestors inscribed messages to guide the generations to come. We are the Nenets... We expanded our tribes and intermingled until our numbers were vast, yet we remained but mere specks against the grandeur of this world. Though we split into many groups, we never forgot the roots of the first Nenets.”

  The old woman narrowed her eyes, as if witnessing a vision of the past.

  “Until, a few centuries later... a legend was passed down that something surged from the firmament! It was a fireball so brilliant it turned night into day across the entire sky, accompanied by a thunderous roar so violent it felt as if the earth would cleave apart—like dozens of volcanoes erupting in unison! But when it finally struck the ground... everything fell into a deathly silence. There were no flames, no traces of the combustion seen in the heavens, and darkness once again reclaimed the world... leaving behind only a mystery that would alter our destiny forever.”

  A delegation of Nenets representatives from various tribes was handpicked and dispatched to investigate. For months, they trekked through rugged mountains and vast plains, following the path described by the witnesses. Along the journey, they encountered ferocious prehistoric beasts—some fled from human presence, while others sought to claim them as prey. Their lives hung by a thread in these uncharted territories.

  Half a year had passed by modern standards. According to the records and oral traditions handed down through the ages, they finally discovered a "peculiar forest."

  From the outside, it appeared miraculously lush, vibrant, and thriving. Yet, the interior was void of the sounds of large animals; only ants and tiny insects remained active. As they ventured deeper, the atmosphere grew increasingly bone-chilling. They began to find the desiccated, brittle carcasses of wild animals at the bases of trees. Before long... they encountered human remains in the same haunting condition.

  The further they delved into the woods, the denser the corpses became, until the entire forest resembled a colossal graveyard. Most perplexing was the fact that none of the bodies bore signs of struggle or physical trauma. It was as if every living creature had walked into this place of its own volition, simply to "await death."

  The surroundings were terrifyingly tranquil. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the intermittent humming of insects. But what struck the greatest fear into the Nenet explorers was the "spiritual void." There was no sense of ancestral spirits or the life-force of wild animals left in the area—as if those souls had been erased from existence entirely. Only their own trembling spirits remained, haunted by a silence that gnawed at both the exterior world and the depths of their minds.

  At long last, we struggled to the very edge of that horrific forest... Spread out before us was a vast, sprawling plain that met the horizon of a warm, azure sea, as breathtakingly beautiful as a land within a dream. The area was meticulously organized; countless varieties of fruit-bearing trees were planted in perfect rows, resembling a gargantuan, well-tended orchard.

  Amidst these gardens, we saw groups of people who looked much like us, bowed low and working diligently. But what caused us to freeze in stunned silence were the "Overseers"... They were humans of immense stature, standing nearly three meters tall. Their skin was a deep, dark hue, though not entirely black, and they were clad in attire so bizarre and advanced we could not even fathom what material it was fashioned from.

  Driven by the hunger of our long journey, some of our companions attempted to sneak into the orchard to steal produce for survival, or tried to make contact with the gardeners who resembled our kin. However... communication was impossible. The language they spoke was far too alien for our Nenet ears to grasp—or perhaps we had simply wandered so far that we had slipped beyond the boundaries of the tongues we knew.

  But strangely, those who looked like us were incredibly kind. The orchard’s bounty was so immense that they willingly offered us food for free, leaving us with no need to steal... There was, however, one condition they struggled to convey through frantic gestures: “Whatever you do, do not let the Tall Ones see you.”

  We remained in quiet concealment at the forest’s edge, gradually learning their hand signs and coded gestures until we could exchange basic language. They referred to those three-meter-tall beings simply as “The Giants.” One thing we noted with growing unease was that only males inhabited the orchard; not once did we witness a woman or a child. Whenever a worker grew frail with age, the Giants would summon them back “Inside”—to a mystical city encircled by stone walls that reached toward the heavens. Those walls stood so deep within the territory that our eyes at the forest's perimeter could not even glimpse their peaks. And every time an elder was taken back, a fresh group of robust, young men would be sent out to replace them. It was a cycle that operated with chilling, systematic mystery.

  We kept our vigil for months, until a pivotal day arrived...

  A vast number of Giants marched toward the edge of the forest where we lay hidden. We scrambled to retreat as deep as possible into the thicket for safety. They brought with them bizarrely shaped machinery; the moment the machines were ignited, their roar thundered, vibrating through the very soul of the woods. They began to demolish the ancient trees, razing the original forest to expand their agricultural reaches even further. Occasionally, a Giant would catch sight of us lurking in the shadows, but strangely, they acted as if they didn't care—as if we were merely insignificant insects. they labored tirelessly until dusk, then retreated to their base behind those monolithic stone walls.

  For nearly a full year, we remained embedded there, observing. Seeing that the situation remained unchanged, we finally decided to disperse and begin the long journey back to our homeland.

  We spent as much time traveling back as we did arriving. At last, we returned to recount what we had witnessed, inscribing every detail onto the cavern walls as a legacy for our descendants. Afterward, we Nenets returned to our peaceful, simple lives for many years to follow…

  However, that peace was short-lived... One day, a sound we had never forgotten drifted toward us on the wind. It was the mechanical roar of the Giants' machinery. Even though it was still leagues away on the horizon, we recognized it instantly—there was no mistaking it.

  “The Giants... they are expanding their orchards toward our homes!”

  The grim news spread like wildfire. Representatives from hundreds of Nenet clans gathered for a tense, emergency council. The reason we chose to fight to the death rather than flee like our ancestors was that we had learned the secrets of cultivation from those workers in the Giants' gardens. We no longer led nomadic lives following the migrations of wild herds. Every tribe had begun to settle, tilling the land and raising livestock... We now had "homes" and "possessions"—things we cherished too much to simply abandon and wander aimlessly again.

  And so, it marked the birth of the "first army in our history."

  We attempted to rally able-bodied men from every clan. Though it was not a grand or formidable force—numbering only in the dozens to a few hundred—the heart of every man beat with a single resolve: to never return to a life of wandering. We dispatched our forces to harass the Giants' expansion, utilizing everything at our disposal—stones sharpened into blades and wooden spears tipped with potent venom. We launched our assaults with desperate fury.

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  But... those weapons failed to leave even a scratch on their hides. The Giants displayed no sign of pain, not even a flicker of annoyance. They merely paused, looking down at us with hollow, empty gazes for a brief moment before turning back to their labor and their machines. It was as if we were nothing more than specks of dust that had chanced to settle upon their shins.

  Time flowed on until the hope of defending our lands began to wither and die. We were forced to surrender to that invisible, overwhelming power and return once more to a nomadic existence. We fled far from the Giants' expanding territories, reaching the very edge of the sea, and began to trek along the coastline until we encountered new tribes and new tongues.

  However... these people were not like the kind souls we had met in the first orchard. This group was fierce; they repelled us violently, attempting to drive us back to where we came from. It was only when we began to grasp each other’s language that a tragic truth emerged: “They, too, had been driven out by Giants from the opposite direction.”

  People from every corner of the world began to converge and crowd together. The forests that had once seemed boundless were no longer enough to sustain everyone. The peace we had known was replaced by savagery; humans began to compete and slaughter one another for mere survival. Seeing the tides turn for the worse, our Nenet clan decided to split. Some headed south, but our most steadfast group chose to “venture North.”

  We wandered further North, settling only briefly before being invaded by other tribes, forcing us to flee again. Eventually, the air shifted into a biting cold. Amidst towering, strange mountain ranges, we encountered prehistoric beasts with appearances unlike anything we had ever seen. And it was here... that we first became acquainted with something called “frost.”

  By the time we reached 5,000 BCE... heavy rumors drifted from the south. It was said that the two groups of Giants, having expanded their territories until they collided, were not of the same faction—or perhaps they once were, but had fractured over a conflict of interests. A brutal war between the Giants erupted, resulting in staggering losses to their forces.

  While the Giants slaughtered one another, the displaced humans in the south began to learn the art of crafting deadlier weapons: spears, sharpened stone blades, and bows. They began to domesticate animals as mounts, preparing for a changing era. As for us in the far North, though we watched from a distance, we absorbed and learned everything, while the bitter cold tempered our spirits, making us stronger…

  The battlefield of the Giants became a golden opportunity for the humans of the South. They seized the moment while those divine monsters slaughtered one another, reclaiming territories, expanding cities, and erecting towering stone walls to defend against both rival human factions and the surviving Giants. The more they fought, the stronger and more ruthless they became. Soon, the tide of war surged northward, forcing us Nenets to flee deeper into lands where no man dared to tread.

  We eventually reached a colossal natural barrier... a range of peaks so high they pierced the heavens, shrouded in eternal snow and ice, stretching endlessly like the very edge of the world.

  Many clans chose to skirt along the seemingly endless foothills, but a few desperate groups chose the "Path of Death"—climbing directly over the frozen summits. That decision cost tens of thousands of lives, their bodies left as frozen sentinels of the peaks, claimed by the biting cold and exhaustion. However, for those who survived the crossing, they were met with a shocking reality: the other side was already occupied by a "Third Group of Giants!" Similarly, those of us who had skirted the lowlands encountered a "Fourth Group." It was out of the frying pan and into the fire... the world seemed to be entirely claimed by Giants in every direction.

  Yet, in the darkness, a glimmer of light remained. The survivors from both the mountain path and the plains crossed paths once again. By a stroke of fortune, we discovered a "Hidden Valley" of immense fertility—a sanctuary beyond the reach of the Giants' grasping shadows.

  We began to utilize the knowledge we had covertly observed from the Giants' cities and the Southern tribes to build our own small settlements. Hundreds, then thousands of souls united to lay down a solid foundation. Several small towns were eventually linked, forming a peaceful kingdom. We believed this place was too remote for the roar of the Giants' machinery to ever reach... Peace finally returned to the Nenets, and it endured for several hundred years, during which we heard no news of any Giant group—as if they had vanished from the face of the earth entirely.

  Hundreds of years of tranquility shattered in an instant when, one day... a colossal figure beyond all comprehension appeared on the horizon. It was a Giant standing nearly ten meters tall! Every footfall it pressed into the earth sent tremors like minor earthquakes through our great city. Terror pierced our very souls, for this Giant was several times larger than the three-meter ones we had encountered before.

  But what left us even more breathless with shock was the sight of a man who appeared no larger than a small child, standing only 80 centimeters tall. His skin was a pristine, pale white, like that of an albino, with hair cropped so short it clung to his scalp. His eyes were a vivid, crystalline azure, and he wore a garment of spotless white, form-fitting and pure. He was "flying," gliding effortlessly past the towering Giant like a bird in flight.

  “Ghosts... Demons!” we cried out in terror, prostrating ourselves upon the ground.

  However, as the man descended to stand lightly upon the earth, he spoke our Nenet tongue with a fluency that rivaled our own.

  “We are the rulers of this domain...” his voice was resonant and powerful. “Whenever you face dire hardship, or encounter problems beyond your strength to resolve, remember our name. Worship us, call upon us, and we shall appear to aid you instantly.”

  He paused for a moment before leaving us with a statement that perplexed us most: “And you shall call us... Nenets.”

  The name he commanded us to use was identical to the name of our own race! After that faith-shaking proclamation, the flying man and the ten-meter Giant vanished into the distance, leaving us standing in utter bewilderment. We wondered... was this a savior sent to deliver us, or merely the beginning of a new kind of bondage?

  “Not long after... strange occurrences began to plague our villages,” the elderly woman shifted her weight with great effort. “Inexplicable deaths occurred; strangers lurked in the shadows to steal, plunder, and kill, creating such chaos that our people could neither eat nor sleep. Finally, out of sheer desperation, we decided to do as he had instructed... We began to prostrate ourselves and call out his name.”

  She paused, her gaze drifting as if witnessing the scenes of the past. “And he truly came. The moment that white-clad sorcerer appeared, all the evil vanished as if by a miracle. He then advised us to appoint a ‘Supreme Leader’ to oversee all our villages systematically.”

  “The selection of representatives from each clan was conducted with apparent fairness, and in the end... a representative from our own Nenet lineage was chosen. He possessed a lifespan spanning centuries, with wisdom and experiences gathered from observing countless generations. The Sorcerer commanded us to craft idols of his likeness, installing them in every corner of the city, and to create small effigies for worship within our homes... He promised that simply by thinking of him and calling his name, he would surely come. And it was always so. Every few months, whenever trouble arose, the Sorcerer ‘Nenet’ would manifest to handle everything like a routine...”

  The old woman stopped abruptly, rubbing her withered throat and swallowing with difficulty. “Bring me a glass of water, my throat is parched... and don't forget to prepare food for young Cris!” she barked at the other elders in the house.

  “Be quick about it! His physical vessel truly needs some real sustenance to nourish it now.”

  The old woman turned back to Chris with a profound, piercing look, preparing to unveil the next chapter of this bloody history. Meanwhile, the other elders sat in a concentrated circle, listening intently. Only a single young boy among the group sat in hushed silence, his eyes brooding and tense—as if he had long since glimpsed the ‘truth’ hidden beneath the Sorcerer Nenet’s mask.

  An hour passed. Everyone finished their meal until they were fully satisfied, including Cris, who was tasting real food for the first time in an age.

  “Not quite to your liking, is it?” the old woman asked, observing his reaction.

  “No, it’s good... but in a strange way. Maybe because I’ve never eaten anything like this before,” Cris replied politely.

  “This is called Pelmeni. It’s our traditional dish, famous all throughout Russia, mind you,” she smiled with pride. But before she could boast further...

  RUMBLE!!

  The ground beneath them shook violently, causing the dishes on the table to rattle and clatter. The elders turned pale with dread. Chris instantly sprang to his feet, bracing for the worst. Yet, the mysterious young boy remained perfectly still, his eyes closed as if focusing his entire being on the vibrations.

  “No mistake... they are here,” the boy murmured.

  “Who is here?!” everyone blurted out in unison.

  “The ones who use ‘Giant Polar Bears’ as their mounts.”

  The moment the boy finished speaking, a fear-stricken silence blanketed the room. Cris’s heart hammered against his ribs at the sheer scale of the vibrations. “How do you know?” he asked.

  “You fool... you stupid boy! They’ve come for you, you fool!”

  BANG!!!

  The front door was slammed open by the sheer force of a colossal black snout! Cris stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the sight before him. “It’s massive... is that a nose or a giant rice pot?” he muttered to himself.

  The group of elders scrambled to hide behind the young boy in a frantic rush. Cris slowly retreated, maintaining his distance. Suddenly, the giant polar bear—towering as high as the house itself—lowered its body onto the snow before the doorway.

  “Greetings... greetings... It has been a very, very long time.”

  A deep, smooth voice echoed from outside as a figure descended gracefully from the head of the white titan. He stepped onto its snout before gliding down to stand lightly upon the ground. The man had pristine, pale skin and shimmering deep-blue eyes. He wore a spotless, white form-fitting suit, devoid of gloves or footwear, appearing utterly unfazed by the sub-zero temperatures.

  However... his stature was only 80 centimeters tall!

  “Who is this kid?” Cris whispered to the witch-like old woman in confusion.

  The old woman, now trembling with a terror that reached its peak, replied in a voice that barely escaped her throat...

  “The... Sorcerer Nenet!”

  —————————————————————————— Ruth VT-Hin ————————