I'm sitting in a tree, and I'm thinking, how did I get to this life? I don't know how I got here, but now I'm in a tree, and there's a deer under the tree. And if I had someone to tell it to, I'd start like this. Listen, deer.
I woke up, and I didn't get it. I don't get it. Where am I, where is everyone, what's wrong with me, what to do? It seems I was sitting in front of the TV and drinking beer, but suddenly everything changed. The room expanded and stretched upward, the TV stopped working, and I almost dropped my beer. I think I was teleported somewhere. One of the nice things was that the bottle got bigger… oh no, it was me that got smaller! I looked at my hands - they were like chicken paws. I wiped the TV screen clean of dust with this paw, and looked in the mirror. Some mythological beast was looking at me from the depths: a bird's head and hands, a tuft of feathers. And legs - cat's paws, or dog's paws. (I didn't really like biology in school.) And this creature was wearing an alcoholic T-shirt and shorts, which at the moment were tending toward the floor. Hurriedly placing the beer bottle on the table, I pulled the shorts up and tied them on a string. But something was in the way: I had a tasseled tail growing out of my butt, and, incidentally, a pair of wings on my back. The wings didn't get in the way, though they were useless - I couldn't even wave them. But for the tail I had to cut a hole with a knife, as I used to cut sausage. There was no sausage, only a smudge of dirt on the table. When I had finished with the closet, I went to the window.
From my window, I could usually see the house across the street, gray, rectangular, dull. Now it was overshadowed by the trees that had grown tall. One of them had fallen right on top of the house, and it looked like a long time ago, but no one was in a hurry to remove it. And there was no one on the streets at all. Standing on my hind legs was uncomfortable; it looked like I had to walk on all fours now. I must be in a parallel world. Is there anyone alive? The more important question was whether there was beer. My gaze fell on the bottle on the table. There is for now, but it'll run out soon.
My beak, like in some cartoon, could open and curve in a different way than any other bird, as far as I could remember. I was able to grasp the neck of the bottle with my mouth, and squatting down and holding it with my paws, I drank all the beer in one gulp. Life got good and I threw the bottle out the window, forgetting it was closed. The glass shattered, and the wind blew through the hole, kicking up dust in the room. Somewhere down below the window there was the clinking of glass. It amused me so much that I laughed for almost half an hour before I wanted another beer. I staggered to the refrigerator. Walking on all fours was comfortable. Why hadn't I walked like this before? The only inconvenience was that everywhere was dirty and dusty, and the electricity didn't work. The refrigerator didn't work either, with only food stains inside, and bloated packages that were better left untouched. What to eat? I'm going to go to the store. I hope the locals, (and they are griffins apparently), eat sausage and drink beer.
The lock on the front door was jammed, I could barely open it. It looked as if the locals of this dimension did not keep order. Everything in the entryway was abandoned, the window broken and creaking in the wind. The ceiling was leaking, and there was dirt, moss, and old leaves on the concrete floor. I knocked on one of the doors just in case, but no one answered me. I went downstairs and went outside. The intercom, just like ours, didn't work, but the magnet on the door closer worked, so I propped the door up with a brick to keep it from slamming shut. The brick was just like in my home dimension, even with the word "fool" written on it. Walking with my hands on the pavement felt weird. But it felt natural. If you drink, it's easier to get home, and no one will look askew that you're on all fours.
For some reason, there was no one anywhere. The yard was like mine, but overgrown with undergrowth and some animal trails. I followed one of them to the store. There were no lights, and when I opened the door, it smelled musty. There were some decayed piles on the shelves, some scattered. There were remnants of cow bones. The liquor section looked intact, but the beer had corroded lids and had been sour and dry for a long time. And there were empty spaces on the shelves where liquor, vodka, cognac, whiskey and other things had been displayed before. It's like it's on purpose. I went back home, and I saw a nice picture. A fat dog chewing on something, and two chubby puppies frolicking nearby.
"Hi dog," I greeted her.
Yes, it seems silly now, but at the time a brilliant thought occurred to me. If I look like a birdcat, maybe the dog isn't a dog either, but just looks like one?
The dog raised its head and growled muffledly. Dropping whatever hoof it was gnawing on, the dog stood up and grinned menacingly. Both of its offspring snarled at me and came around on either side of me.
"I apologize for that mis…under…standing!" I finished that sentence on the run, racing through the bushes toward home. As it turned out, I lost my course, and got stuck in some unexpected bushes. The barking sounded from the right, then from the left, and I got out of the bushes, where I had left my hair, feathers, and pieces of my T-shirt, and in a panic ran wherever I could see. But it was the opposite of luck, I jumped out of the bushes right to the entrance, snuck inside, threw the brick away, and closed the door tightly.
Yeah, trouble. I suddenly realized that this world must be an abandoned world. All the inhabitants were dematerialized by aliens or divine forces, and I was brought here to revive civilization. And I'm all alone, not counting the dogs who want cat and chicken. But maybe they didn't, but my cat part triggered their irresistible stalking reflex? Whatever. I'm human (not really), the crown of creation (not sure), and I'm not supposed to be running from dogs.
So, I searched the whole apartment (surprisingly similar to mine), and found all the thick jackets, cotton pants, tarpaulin mittens and such. In a couple of hours I was wrapped up in something like a movie-goer's costume when he's portraying an intruder at a performance. I put an earflap on my head and wrapped a scarf around it.
Got a spacesuit - ready for adventure!
There was a sporting goods store very nearby. Tennis rackets, dumbbells, balls, swimsuits - not what you need to survive. However, there were more interesting items. Crossbows, air rifles, bows. Things I didn't have money for, and here I can get it all for free!
Why would I go anywhere from a safe apartment? Well… My stomach was calling me to find something to eat. I hadn't had anything but leftover beer or food in half a day. And creatures like me were predators - I was hungry for meat. I took off my mittens and, tearing off a piece of wallpaper, wrote a small list on it:
1. Dogs.
They're the only animals I've seen so far, that's why they're the first. I think the Koreans or the Vietnamese eat them. But so far they think I'm food.
2. Cows sheep goats.
Some of it might be edible. I have no idea how I'm gonna take down a cow. A goat could kill me. Sheep would be fine. But where to find them?
3. Reindeer, seals.
That's how I labeled the game. I don't think we've ever had seals. Deer, roe deer, moose, that's a great source of sirloin. But of those, I should only target the first two. Moose would crush me and not notice.
I'm a little small for deer, too. Maybe the locals have guns, too. I wrote on the edge of a piece of wallpaper:
4. Check the house, look for a shotgun.
That was the end of the piece of wallpaper and the plans too.
Unwinding from my spacesuit, I went to check the apartments. Only one, on the first floor, was unlocked. Where had all the natives gone, I wondered? The apartment was just like my world, also human-sized. There were shards of glass on the floor, a trampled photo frame. I didn't bother looking to see who was in the photo, lest I cut myself. It was silly to dream of finding a gun all of a sudden, but I was surprisingly lucky: under the bed, among the boxes, one of them had a crossbow.
Well, watch out, you dogs!
I was hungry as hell. I climbed out through the hatch to the roof. In my world there would have been a lot of pigeons, but here I was half bird, and there were no pigeons. Too bad, I was so hungry I would have gladly eaten a pigeon. However, there were a few trees and grass growing on the roof, on a little layer of wind-blown earth. One of them was a scarlet tree, and a pretty ripe one at that. Having had enough of it, with my beak I was only spitting out the pips. Well, now I was temporarily fed up, and ready to move on.
Taking the telescopic sight out of the crossbow box, I looked around the neighborhood. The surrounding reality was very similar to my home neighborhood, but, as parallel reality should be, with some differences. The houses were all abandoned, some with broken windows. The yards were overgrown with grass and bushes. I stared through the eyepiece for a long time, but I didn't see anyone. Even the dogs were gone. There was some movement in the undergrowth behind the unfinished building. A little more, and among the bushes appeared fat thighs and branchy antlers. They were deer!
In my imagination, a blue arrow laid out the route. So, while the dogs were gone, we had to act! Rolling down the ladder from the attic, I raced in the direction I wanted to go, not wasting time on a hazmat suit. In my world, it was the woods behind the building materials mall. The path went through two overgrown yards and past a kindergarten, around a garbage dump… After making two turns down the street, I was there. Now I had to sneak up and take the shot.
The deer ate grass between the bushes, under the old wild apple trees. Aha, that fat deer over there would be good for a kebab! I, pretending to be a partisan, crawled up to the victim, and began to shove my crossbow through the blackberry bushes in front of me. As is usually the case at such moments, things did not go according to plan. The crossbow snagged on a branch, I started to unhook and accidentally hit the trigger. The bolt hit my claws, which made me howl and grab my arm (or paw?), the bolt flew somewhere with a whistle, without hitting anyone, but it was impossible not to notice it. When I looked up, I saw that the whole herd (deer have a herd, don't they?) was looking at me, and I swear, with an inexpressibly grim expression. Feeling uncomfortable, I backed up and found a deer behind me, pointing its antlers at me.
-Hey, where do you think you're going? - The deer said, and hit me with its antlers and threw me somewhere.
Oh, my head! Now I'd like a beer… I opened my eyes and realized that my headache was not a hangover. Well, it better be a hangover. I was stuck between the branches of an apple tree, and a deer was standing on the ground below, looking angry. Staggering over, I began to disentangle myself from the branches and the situation. Surprisingly, I didn't break anything. Not even the stupid wings I had now, as if in mockery of my fear of heights. Oh, did I mention I'm afraid of heights? Once back in my student days, during a summer part-time job I was sent by the foreman to drill a hole in the ceiling. I climbed up a three-meter ladder and realized that I could hardly get back down, let alone drill something.
I looked down, and the urge to go down vanished as soon as I felt dizzy. I clung to the branch with all my strength, my limbs wobbly as they were.
Meanwhile, the deer had gathered under a tree and were watching me.
"What's going on here?"
"There's another one…"
"Will he fly away now?"
"No, it won't."
"He doesn't seem to know how."
"What a stupid…"
"Hey, shut up! I'm gonna shoot!" That's when I realized I still had my crossbow with me.
"You should learn to shoot, hen," The deer were not embarrassed by the arabalet, but they were tired of looking at me, and they dispersed to graze among the apple trees, but remained in sight. They were not going to let me go.
Why do deer talk and dogs don't? Although dogs would probably swear in general.
The morning dawned with the pinkish haze of dawn… I was in a poetic mood from the cold. There was fog and the treetops were floating somewhere on white waves. I felt like I'd fallen overboard in the Titanic wreck. If I hadn't been wearing clothes, I would have frozen long ago. Eh, it seems that I will not see more beer in this life… Reaching to a neighboring branch I picked an apple. It was uncomfortable to bite from it with my beak, but I was hungry. After eating a couple of sour apples, I looked down very carefully. There were no deer in sight, but there was no telling what was lurking in the fog. I swung around and threw the stumps into the white fog.
We didn't have to wait long, the antlers came out of the fog, and then the whole deer.
"Hey, are you still here? Why didn't you run away?"
"I like it here, you're warm-hearted, and your jokes are great."
"Did I come at you with a crossbow?"
"How did I know you were intelligent?"
"You're a lot dumber than we are."
"It's not that, in our dimension deer don't talk…"
"What dimension?"
"Parallel. Although, you, deer - deer, don't study physics, how can you know such words.
I've learned a lot more than that, by the way. Where did you come from, you savage?"
"I'm Vasya, I used to be a human, in my dimension, and now here I am".
Briefly I recounted my misadventures to the deer.
"What a fool you are, Vasya," the deer laughed. "You are not in another dimension, but in your own. Only in 70 years later".
According to the deer (his name was Chestnut, stupid name) all the people disappeared at the same time in May 2015, and from that moment all sorts of nonsense began. People coming back turned into little horses, griffins (that's a thing like I am now), minotaurs, and other weird weirdos. And people were scattered through time. And then there's magic now. So deer and zebras and horses have learned to talk. And animals have gotten smarter. I'm the opposite, according to Chestnut. Well, the last thing I want to know is what Chestnut says.
"Listen, are you gonna get off?"
"I'll just sit there and cry, why bother," I looked at the deer, trying not to look straight down. Eagles have mega super-duper eyesight, and the ground was immediately approaching in a threatening way that made me want to let go of the branch, fall and crash, and vomit.
"In fact, I'll get off, and you'll start beating me up. Or dogs will attack me, or wolves. No, no, no".
"What wolves, there are no wolves here!"
"What's over there?"
I thought the deer could see them, but they didn't. The dark figures came out of the mist all at once. Just then I saw only the silhouette of pointed ears and the lights of eyes, and suddenly it was three wolves surrounding Chestnut.
The deer had already noticed them too; it was clear that all his instincts were screaming at him: - Run! But he did not run, and with his mind he was trying to figure out how to get out of this situation. Meeting my gaze, he whispered: - Shoot the left one!
"Oh, my God, that's right, I have a crossbow!"
I drew my crossbow, put a bolt in it, and, taking aim, squeezed the trigger. The bolt struck the left wolf in the neck, and at the same moment Chestnut swung over the falling beast and disappeared into the fog.
I didn't realize I was such a good shot. Maybe I have a talent.
The wolves scurried off into the fog after Chestnut. Even though he was an asshole, I wished him luck.
I had to mind my own business. I tried to turn around on the branch, and I dropped all my arrows down. Oh, man! And, just as badly, two wolves appeared out of the mist. The beasts stopped and looked at me with their yellow eyes with a very angry expression. It seemed Chestnut had gotten away. But what should I do?
One of the wolves approached the third, dead one, nudged him with a paw. without waiting for a response, he turned and looked at me angrily again. It looked like I wasn't going to live.
I was sitting in the tree again, shivering with fear and cold. The wolves were lying there, not taking their eyes off me. Hunger made my stomach cramp, the cold made my feet cold. Time dragged on, the sun had passed noon and was creeping towards sunset. Damn deer, it's all because of them!
Well, I just mentioned them, and there they are: like a forest of horns in the fog. What's that hill with them? Holy shit!
The wolves jumped up and roared. There were a lot of deer, and they were in some kind of armor, and there were moose with them, and a beast I'd only seen in the zoo. A huge bull, brown and red, like a shaggy mountain. Here the wolves didn't wait any longer, they took off. But I knew they wouldn't forget me.
"Hey, Vasya! Get down, they're gone!" shouted to me a deer covered with armor, seemingly made from pieces of buckets and basins. I recognized him as Chestnut.
"Imagine, I can't. I'm afraid of heights." I replied grimly.
Then all the reindeer laughed, and the elk, and the bull too, in a resounding bass. What's so funny?
"Oh, really? But you're a griffin! That's not normal for a griffin!"
"How do I know what's normal for them? You better take my picture!"
"Well, friend, you have wings; take it and come down!"
"Eh, no, you'd better take it off…" I didn't have time to finish. The big red bull sped up and hit the trunk of the apple tree with his forehead. The tree deflected and then shook in the opposite direction. I, who had not expected such meanness, slid off the branch and flew forward like an arrow from a bow. In fear, I clambered up; spreading all my limbs, I fell forward, and the wind sang in my wings. I was falling… falling… something long… No, I was flying! Opening my eyes, I flapped my wings, intuitively knowing what to do, and flying over the very tips of the antlers of deer, elk, and bison, flew upward, into the sky!
Well, then I did fall, of course.
