Chapter Text
Snow fell over the road, already buried beneath a thick layer of its own making. Such were the countries of southeastern Europe, like Romania. Here, winters could be devastatingly cold, merciless even. It wasn’t something you ever got used to—unless you were at home, lying on the sofa under a blanket, holding your favorite drink in one hand while watching whatever series or film you loved.
In another season, the landscape might have been spectacular: bursts of colorful flowers, intoxicating scents, exotic animals, gentle surroundings, kind faces… But now, with all this snow, it evoked only one thing—loneliness. Perhaps because you were lonely yourself, wounded in a foreign land where you could not speak to anyone.
You clutched your bleeding side and kept walking. The stabbing pain burned your skin, spreading through your muscles like fire consuming the earth and leaving nothing but scorched wasteland behind. Blood dripped onto the white snow, leaving a trail that could draw any predator to you. It was like a scene from a film: a lone figure, wounded in the snow, in the middle of nowhere. At the very least, you didn’t want to die here. You had to find help before you turned into a corpse—something to horrify passersby, or to feed the animals.
You leaned against the trees you found along the path, leaving behind bloody, human smears on their bark. Your fingers ached from the cold; you doubted you could move them even if you tried. Blue has begun to creep into the color of your skin. You would worry about that later. Right now, you have to find someone—anyone.
You cursed the branch and the crash that had left you like this, stranded in this damned village. If it had happened somewhere busier, you could be in a hospital right now, being cared for by a nurse. But no. You had to be here, in this God-forsaken place that radiated terror.
Sweat clung to your skin. You didn’t even know why you were sweating. Were you? Was it fear? Could you even sweat from cold? You didn’t know anymore, and you didn’t want to think about it. You were confused. You didn’t know where you were going. You weren’t even sure you remembered why you were here. You just wanted help. Everything was a blur.
Then it got worse. A wave of dizziness struck you, and your head began to pound. When would this torture end? All you wanted was to rest. A sudden drowsiness swept over you, and for a moment the snow felt like white sheets scattered across a bed. But it was a lie, a confusion, an error, an illusion. And you couldn’t accept it. You forced your legs to move, dragging them as though they were a backpack too heavy to carry. Your body felt like a stiff plank; your head, a heavy ball swaying forward and back, threatening to topple you. You pushed yourself up with the hand that wasn’t shielding your wound from the cold and kept walking.
You could feel your heart lodged in your throat, pounding at a worrying speed. You were disoriented; you didn’t even know if you would make it out alive. All you could do was hope that someone would see you and take you somewhere safe before you bled out or froze to death. Even blinking hurt; your eyes felt frozen, and you thought perhaps you were crying from the cold. All you wanted was to close your eyes and sleep, for it all to pass as though it were a nightmare.
You remembered passing graves and crows—or were they dolls? You couldn’t see clearly through the snow, so you had to guess. At least you knew you heard the sounds of cawing, probably from crows not far away.
Ahead of you loomed a bridge in terrible disrepair, clearly unsafe to cross. But what choice did you have? A mist clung to it, making it even more dangerous. The ropes didn’t look strong, and some of the gaps seemed ready to swallow you whole, to send you plummeting to the ground below. Beyond this one you could make out the shapes of several more bridges, all in the same state—and that didn’t bode well. If there were so many, it meant many had failed, didn’t it? And what if this one was the most dangerous of them all?
But thinking carefully—did you really have another choice? There was nothing else you could do, and you weren’t about to turn back and die in the middle of the snow without at least trying to find help. Your only option was to see what lay on the other side. With fear but also determination, you crossed the bridge slowly, dragging your feet across the makeshift, unreliable floor. The planks creaked beneath your weight but, mercifully, did not give way. You avoided the holes as best you could, though in your dizzy state it was a difficult task. Fortunately, you managed to cross unharmed.
Your eyelids felt as heavy as stones pressing down on your consciousness. You leaned your shoulder against a tree and rested for a moment. You couldn’t go on—you simply couldn’t—but you had to. You wanted to stop, but above all, you wanted to live. With great effort, you pushed yourself away from the rough bark and took a few steps. Unfortunately, your body had already reached the limit of its strength, and after only a few steps it collapsed, surrendering to exhaustion. You fell into the freezing snow, soft yet merciless, like a crumbling building. The snow struck one side of your face, numbing it with its icy touch.
You tried to move, but it was useless. You had to get up, but you couldn’t. You wanted to cry, to beg, to scream, but you had no strength left. Nothing. Perhaps this was how you would die—alone, in the snow, with no family around you. Would they ever find your body? Would someone take it back to your family? Tears slid down your cheeks, though you couldn’t remember crying.
In the distance, you saw iron gates as black as the night, planted firmly into the earth though at this distance they seemed almost pointless. They looked decorated, but the cold, the sleep, and the distance blurred the details, making it impossible to tell. If you had the strength, you might have stood, climbed the gate, and searched for safety or someone on the other side. But now you couldn’t even lift a finger. You were at the threshold of survival, but you would remain there—at the threshold. Perhaps beyond the gates there was a house, and whoever lived there might at least bury your body. That, at least, would be a kinder ending: buried, not forgotten.
Your car was still crashed against that tree. Maybe someone would find it and investigate. If they found you alive, it would be sheer luck. At least then they would know who you were, your story, your body, your life. That was better than dying nameless, lost in anonymity.
You looked down at the snow beneath you, now soaked in red. Your blood spread across it like wine spilled onto a shirt. You couldn’t stop it. At that moment, the cold and the wound fought against each other for possession of your body and your life. You didn’t know which would claim you first, but you prayed it would be the less painful of the two.
With nothing else left to do, you closed your eyes and waited for whatever fate had in store. You focused on your senses: the cold biting your skin, the throbbing in your head, the sleep clawing at you, the howl of the wind—and something else, approaching. Wait. Something approaching? That wasn’t right.
You opened your eyes in panic, though it was all you could manage. You didn’t think whatever was coming was human. An animal was more likely. And if it was a bear, hungry in the middle of winter? Perhaps it wanted to hibernate with a full belly. Your body trembled uncontrollably—you didn’t know whether from fear or from the cold.
The footsteps came from behind you, and you couldn’t even turn to see. You shut your eyes in terror and braced yourself for the worst. The steps grew louder as the thing—whatever it was—drew closer, until the sound stopped altogether. It was right behind you.
The sound of cold filled the air as you waited for the inevitable, but… nothing came. Silence lingered, heavy, while your heart pounded violently in your chest. Was it prolonging your suffering? What did it want from you? Was it a person? And if it was… were they good, or were they evil? Why hadn’t they spoken yet? Questions flooded your mind, and you longed desperately for an answer.
Then you saw something black creep into view at the edge of your eye socket. Lying there in the snow, it was easy to guess that whatever had been behind you was now moving slowly to one side of your head. You couldn’t make it out clearly—you couldn’t move your head—but it was there. You prayed it wasn’t a bear mistaking you for prey. You had heard that being devoured by a bear was among the most horrifying, agonizing ways to die. Bears were terrifying creatures of the wild: predators with sheer strength and brutal instincts, massive hulks of fur and rage. Suddenly, death by cold or by blood loss seemed far kinder than being eaten alive. Fortunately, nothing happened—though the waiting itself was slowly killing you.
Then a shrill, high-pitched voice broke the silence.
“Donna, look.”
At least now you could confirm it was a person—and someone named Donna. Judging by the tone, Donna wasn’t the one who had spoken, which meant there was another person with her.
The name didn’t sound Romanian. Perhaps the woman was from elsewhere. Or maybe her parents had simply chosen an exotic name.
“Una ragazza…” The strange words were whispered, and had the speaker not been so close, you might have mistaken them for wind whistling through the branches. This second voice was cleaner, more timid, slightly raspy, as if unused for years—purer, less childish. A woman’s voice, most likely Donna, the one just mentioned.
“Ti piace?” The childish voice returned, though it didn’t sound like that of an ordinary child. You didn’t understand the words, but the intonation told you it was a question.
“È ferita.” the woman replied. You didn’t know what it meant.
The black blur at the corner of your vision shifted, moving to stand before you. You opened your eyes wider, following the figure now clearly visible.
It was… what was it? You knew what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a bear, nor any other animal.
What stood before you was a figure draped entirely in black. The garments looked old, antiquated. Most striking of all was the black veil covering its face. The veil had a mesh-like opening at the eyes, reminiscent of a burqa, yet still obscuring them. What you could see, however, were the hands—pale, feminine, with long black nails. Her skin reminded you of the snow you were lying upon. It didn’t even seem natural for any living person. You had seen pale people before, but never skin this ghostly, this unnatural.
You assumed it was a woman, based on her stature, though perhaps a man could look like that. The hands, too, were feminine, but what gave it away was her figure. Even hidden beneath her heavy dress, the outline of her hips was visible. And her chest left no doubt—it was a woman. If it wasn’t, then it was the most feminine man you had ever seen. Either way, you didn’t care. You didn’t want to solve a riddle about gender or sex. You only wanted help.
And then you noticed what she carried in her arms. Was that… a doll? Was she dressed for Halloween? Why would she carry such a thing?
But it wasn’t just any doll—it was grotesque. It wore a white dress, like that of a bride, a stark contrast to the woman’s dark attire. Its arms were long, joined with metal hinges. Though not large, the doll wasn’t small either. Its skin bore a sickly gray hue. A white bridal veil sat atop its head, though it left the face uncovered. That face was divided in two halves—one pure white, the other gray, like a waning moon. Its eyes… they seemed to stare directly into you.
Or perhaps you were only delirious from your state. You didn’t want to look into them, because you could feel that gaze piercing into you. Still, you didn’t believe a doll could be alive…
“Donna, we can keep her.”
Like something out of a horror film, you could hear the voice coming directly from the doll. You could have sworn its head turned toward the figure who held it. Could it be that the girl was a puppeteer?
Or maybe you were delirious. After all, people who lose too much blood often suffer hallucinations, just like those stranded in deserts who, dying of thirst, imagine a shimmering oasis. Perhaps that was your case. Your brain, deprived of blood and nutrients, had betrayed you, leaving you with an apparition of help. Maybe the girl was Death herself, luring you into her arms, and the doll merely a manifestation of something buried within you. A trauma, perhaps. You weren’t a psychologist, but you could make the connection.
The woman dressed in black laid a hand upon your cheek. Her touch was cold, yes, but not as frigid as your own skin, and for the first time you realized she was warmer than you. Her veil shifted downward as though she were lowering her gaze to inspect your wound and the blood staining the snow. If she was an illusion, she was one capable of touching you. Perhaps it was a vision that consumed more than one sense, like sleep paralysis, where you both see and hear the impossible.
If you could have moved, you would have swallowed in nervousness and fear. But in your condition, all you could do was lie still. Or rather, be observed—for that was what she was doing. She studied you as if you were a painting in a gallery, as if you were not a living body but an artifact meant to be interpreted.
You tried to part your lips to beg for help, but all that came out was a pitiful groan. You knew you looked pathetic, and you loathed the thought of being a spectacle of misery instead of a human being in desperate need of aid. She heard the sound, tilted her veiled head, and yet… said nothing. Perhaps she was weighing whether it was worth saving you, or whether to leave you to die there, allowing nature to finish what had already begun. That is, if she was not just a mirage.
Your throat tightened, your eyes grew heavy, and she made no move to stop it. You could not stop it yourself. Your body was surrendering, and had been for some time. You had been walking like a corpse, dragging yourself away from inevitability. And the only one who could alter your fate simply watched. As though fascinated not with life, but with death.
Exhaustion clawed at you, threatening to take you completely. Was this truly how you would die? At least you would not be alone. There would be someone to witness your final moments, someone who might remember you. Even if cruel, it was better than perishing forgotten.
Then her fingers brushed your lips, feather-light, as though she was making sure you were real. Has she never seen another human before? You were real, painfully so. For now. Soon you would be nothing more than a body to be buried beneath layers of snow. Inside, you begged her to save you—call the police, fetch a villager, carry you to her home, anything. Or, failing that, at least cradle your head upon her lap so death would come gently, like drifting into sleep after a long day’s exhaustion.
Oh, how you longed to return to those ordinary times, when such a simple comfort had been taken for granted.
Before you could sink further into your vivid recollections of home, her actions pulled you back. The woman who had touched your lips now placed a hand upon your shoulder, the one not pressed to the snow. With a deliberate push, she shifted you until your back was flat against the ground. Now the only thing you could see was the pale, snow-choked sky. She had moved you. Why, you did not know.
She sat beside you, unmoving, as if lost in thought. Pain surged from your wound, needles of fire stabbing at your flesh, and you almost wished for death to come swiftly. You were dying confused, in pain, with a stranger at your side—a grim poetry in itself. She had set the doll down in the snow, upright, which unsettled you. Dolls were not meant to sit like that unaided, unless they were made of stiff material. This one seemed carved of wood or ceramic, though the way it held itself was unnatural. Even now, its presence gnawed at your nerves.
The woman shifted again, moving behind your head. You could no longer see her, and dread grew with the unknown. But instead of harm, her icy hands cupped your cheeks and caressed them. Her touch waged war with your own freezing skin, each colder than the other. She felt like a ghost, like one of those mournful figures from an old painting or film. Indeed, her attire reminded you of something you had once seen—an image of a woman in black, seated stiffly, immortalized by William Merritt Chase. You thought you remembered reading about the history of mourning attire in New York; her garb might have belonged to such an article.
Perhaps she was a traditionalist, a relic from another age. Or perhaps her clothes were for mourning—if so, whom had she lost? A husband, a parent, some other kin? You could only guess. Or perhaps she wore black for you, her silent presence a presage of your funeral.
Then, carefully, she lifted your head and placed it upon her lap, her legs folded beneath her in a posture that almost resembled a geisha’s. Perhaps this was her act of mercy: to let you die in her arms, or at least upon her thighs, offering the illusion of tenderness at the end.
Again, her fingers stroked your face, as if you were an object of fascination. Not a person, but a doll. Her doll. And you could not decide whether to feel comfort or horror.
Her hands wandered—no longer tracing your cheeks, but sliding to your throat, your shoulders. Did she know you were human at all? Or was this her own strange ritual of compassion, her way of easing you into death? She noticed your shirt had ridden up near the wound and, with delicate precision, tugged it back into place, preserving your modesty as though it mattered in your final moments. You thanked her silently for that small, inexplicable courtesy.
As she leaned forward to adjust the fabric, her veil shifted, revealing a glimpse of her jawline—pale, delicate, almost beautiful. Stray locks of what you assumed was black hair slipped free. Feminine, unmistakably so, confirming your suspicions about her. But beyond her features was something deeper, a resonance that clung to her very presence. It was a feeling without a name, somewhere between grief and nostalgia.
Like walking through an abandoned house filled with forgotten relics.
Like a grey afternoon in your grandmother’s home, heavy with silence.
She was that feeling, made flesh.
She had done something for you, even if only a little, but she had done it. You longed to do something for her in return, however small—a word, a gesture, anything to repay that fragile kindness. You struggled to speak, your throat raw, your lips frozen, and after several failed attempts that ended in pitiful groans of pain, a single word broke free:
“Beautiful.”
It was all you could manage. Your lips felt stiff as stone as you forced the syllables out, and in that moment you knew the cold was consuming you.
You had wanted to say something she might like, something to please her, to make her happy, however briefly. So you had spoken the first thought that came, the thing you assumed anyone would wish to hear before long.
Her body stiffened instantly, and her hands clutched your shoulders with sudden force. Had you offended her? You had only called her beautiful, precious—a word meant as gratitude from the lips of the dying.
A heavy sigh escaped her veil, her breathing quickening as if the sound itself had startled her. Had she thought you were already dead? But no—you still moved your eyes, you still breathed, though slowly.
Then her fingers began kneading your shoulders—not with tenderness, but with unsettling strength, as though compelled by habit. A nervous tic, perhaps? Realizing what she was doing, she released you abruptly and drew her hands to her chest, clicking her nails together in a strange, repetitive rhythm. From such proximity, you could see more of her hands than before. Long fingers, carefully kept nails—some gnawed, as though bitten in moments of agitation. Scattered across her skin were small wounds, shallow but visible. Tiny scars etched into her pale flesh.
Suddenly, a harsh gust of wind tore across the ground. Her veil whipped violently, and with startling speed she clutched it tight, as though terrified you might glimpse her face. The movement carried her scent toward you—a mingling of lavender, old wood, faint smoke, and something else: a note of aged paint, of dust and varnish, the same scent that lingered in your grandmother’s house. Nostalgic, yet unsettling.
Then, as though burned by your presence, she rose to her feet. Your head struck the snow as it fell from her lap. If not for the soft white cushion, the pain would have been worse. You found yourself aching for the faint warmth her touch had offered, however meager.
She stepped back, watching you. Her shape blurred through the haze, but you could sense her unease. Did she see you as dangerous? Helpless as you were, you posed no threat—but perhaps she was simply fearful by nature. If so, why had she treated you with such fragile care before? Why withdraw now, as though recoiling from your single word? Was she unstable? Haunted by sudden shifts of mood? You were no expert in the mind’s fractures, but you knew instinctively this was not normal.
She smoothed her black skirt with trembling fingers before clenching the fabric into her fists. Silence thickened, the suffocating kind that makes words impossible, though speech was nearly impossible for you already.
Then, without warning, she approached again. She slipped behind your head and slid her hands beneath your arms. With strength you never expected from her slight frame, she heaved, dragging you clumsily across the snow. Each step was labored, her breath rough against the air. Unsatisfied with the slow pace, she gathered you into her arms and clutched you tightly, pressing you against her chest as she began to carry you forward.
The warmth of her body seeped into you, a fragile reprieve from the cold gnawing at your bones.
Yet even as comfort crept in, delirium rose again. You could have sworn you saw the doll—the same one she had placed in the snow—walking behind you. Your head rested against her shoulder, granting you a view of the world swaying behind, and for a heartbeat you believed what you saw. But no. Dolls cannot walk. Not through snow, not at all. The blood loss had claimed too much of you already. Perhaps soon you would see your dead, waiting for you in the distance.
Still, the vision was almost comical. A doll of considerable size trudging through the snow, awkward as a small dog trapped in drifts too deep for its legs. Adorable in an animal—but grotesque in porcelain. Had you been able, you might have laughed.
The woman carried you onward. You did not know where—your view of the path ahead was gone. So this, you thought, was what it felt like to be a child born helpless in another’s arms, too small to move, too weak to resist.
The iron gates soon slipped behind you. She must have opened them; you had passed through, leaving their looming black behind. Perhaps she lived nearby, or perhaps all this land was hers.
Figures blurred by snowfall passed at the edges of your vision—plants, trees, indistinct shapes. For an instant you thought you saw a lamppost, or a statue, but nothing was certain. What was clear, however, was the ground ahead: an open space, unnaturally clear, tended by human hands. Rows of stones rose from the snow—gravestones. At the center, one larger than the rest. Around it, strange forms you recognized, with growing horror, as dolls.
If indeed they were dolls, there was no doubt: this was her work.
You could not make out the name carved into the central stone—the woman carried you past too swiftly—but you wished you could.
The woman did not stop; she continued on her path. You tried to focus on anything else, anything at all. Sleep tugged at you, but you refused to close your eyes for fear you might never see them again. Gradually, the drowsiness crept in, until a sound pierced the haze: water, flowing. A waterfall? A river? There was no way to tell.
Ahead, you glimpsed dark, snow-covered gates. Perhaps she was leading you to a shelter—a house, a hospital. Flashes of green hinted at hidden vegetation, and a cobbled path lay beneath her feet, cleared of snow, at least here, allowing her to walk more easily. The crunch of snow beneath your own body had vanished, replaced by the steady thump of her steps as she carried you. She tightened her hold, and you felt yourself climbing a few steps.
Now it seemed you were beneath a porch, though the conditions were far from ideal. Everything was old, grimy; the dull gray of the wood offered no comfort. Suddenly, she pushed open the doors of the building with one hand, and you were inside. You could not see the interior clearly, but the air was warmer. She set you gently upon the floor and closed the doors, sealing out the bitter cold.
Though upside down from your perspective, you could make out the warm brown tones of the furniture, the amber glow of lights lending the space a strangely cozy, domestic feel. The doll, now clearer in view, paused beside your head before shaking off the snow as if it were a dog. Unable to move, you closed your eyes to keep the flakes from pressing into them.
The woman turned toward you, then seated herself on the floor, leaning close to your face. Up close, she was more frightening than comforting, despite having saved your life. She lifted her pale left hand and rested it on your cheek, caressing it. Had she saved you just to study you? To feel your warmth without suffering from the cold herself?
The room sank into a soft, muted twilight, broken only by the flicker of a forgotten lamp in the corner. The air felt viscous, almost liquid, slow, mirroring the heaviness pressing upon your eyelids.
First came the irregular blinking, the desperate grasping to hold your eyes open as though clutching at a slipping rope. Your breath deepened, steadying into a rhythm, cadenced, surrendering.
Your mind still struggled, sending brief, scattered thoughts. Your vision yellowed, hallucinatory, the shapes around you distorting. Each passing thought dissolved into the fog. Your body, finally relaxed, sank into the worn wooden floor as though it sought to reclaim you.
At last, your eyelids stilled, embraced by a dense, suffocating calm. You had surrendered softly to sleep—or worse, to death. If the woman spoke, you could not hear her, though it no longer mattered. You only wished she might bury you, in a place beautiful if that were possible.
You were grateful for her small act, macabre as it might be.