The Snow Leopard

I’ve been sitting in this tiny boat in this lake for a while now, contemplating whether or not I should drown myself as I had done many times before. For as long as I remember having these tendencies, I’ve always come up with an excuse to stay alive. What I can be certain of is that after the last twenty-four hours, I know that the rest of my life will be filled with pain and misery.

This place, the Altai mountain range is where all of my torment began. Long before my battles with anxiety, and fear of crowded places and unexpected loud noises. Long ago, I’ve been through hell and back in my backyard.

I’m getting ahead of myself, however.

Yesterday, in the afternoon, hell came knocking on my door once more and I couldn’t resist its advances. Just a few short hours ago, all the missing pieces came into place and the puzzle that is my mind was complete for the first time in a long time.

Unfortunately.

Yesterday, I went mountain trekking with my family; for old time’s sake. It was pretty refreshing to get away from the bustling city life for a change. Even better was the fact that this is where I grew up. I knew this place almost like I knew the back of my hand. I guess my memory wasn’t as sharp as I thought it to be.

Long story short, the trek was mostly fine. I say mostly because I ended up messing up pretty badly, the moment I spotted a snow leopard. These magnificent feline bastards are extremely rare and sighting one is notoriously impossible just because they are that elusive, so I had to catch a better look at this natural marvel. Allowing my childlike impulsivity to overtake my rationality I raced after the far more agile animal and ended up tripping and rolling down a small slope. I hit about every possible part of my body on the rocks below me. The worst part was hitting my head, but it wasn’t anything serious as far as I know.

I was out for a while it seems.

The fact I was the last member of the column didn’t help either, luckily enough, my wife noticed my absence pretty quickly and the rest of the clan made their way back to find me lying face-up on the snow-covered rocks. Needless to say, I didn’t exactly finish the trek, my lower back and legs were killing me as a result of that fall. I'm still in tremendous pain, but that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, the juicy bits of my story happened during the time I was out. Turns out I wasn’t out for that long, just a few minutes at the longest. Inside my mind though, it felt a hell of a lot longer.

After taking that fall, I didn’t even know I was out, I just kind of got up and started climbing back up. The first thing I noticed is that I was completely alone.

Just me, the rocks and the snow.

Once the realization of my lonesomeness set in, my heartbeat began steadily rising as I called out the names of my wife and kids.

My head started racing towards the darkest places quickly after no responses came.

Everything was eerily quiet.

It was so quiet my ears started hurting as the silence caused a sort of tinnitus.

I began walking around the snow, calling out the names of my relatives, but no response came. I was worried something might’ve happened but in my heart of hearts, I knew that couldn’t be the case as I had just fallen. There was no way I could manage to cover so much ground in such a short time. Could there be?

Shortly after I felt the sweat making its way down my skin. It was definitely way too cold to be sweating, but my body was on fire because of the stress. My back and chest began feeling almost damp and chilly because of the sweat staining my clothes. My muscles started aching from the amount of stress imposed on them by my racing mind.

For what seemed like the longest time; I couldn’t see anything other than endless blankets of the white powder that covered these mountains. Post adrenaline blues soon replaced stress and adrenaline. I was beginning to tire and my body felt like it was being crushed by the cinder blocks. The whole time, my mind was racing to all these dark places. I was sure something had happened to my family. With the withdrawal of the stress hormones however, I was thinking about more melancholic outcomes; I was thinking about how would I deal with the death of this family member or the other. When it came to my wife and three children, I felt the tears slowly streaming down from my eyes. Not that I don’t love my old man any less, but come on, he’s an old man, and he’s not my wife or kids. He would understand.

My mom’s been gone for a while now, but that’s beside the point.

As I was sinking into my reoccurring depression, something caught my attention.

Something was moving in the snow not too far away from me, something small and rather quiet. I had seen the little thing moving around, but I couldn’t really hear it. Almost as if my hearing had betrayed me.

I walked closer to the moving object as the curiosity took over my mind.

It didn’t feel right how quiet that thing had been.

I made my way towards the alien thing cautiously, trying to stay as quiet as I could. My mind racing with speculations. For some reason, dread crept up on me from the back of my mind. There was nothing inherently dangerous or alarming about the satiation.

Something still felt wrong.

That’s when I saw it; it was the snow leopard.

The cat’s green eyes locked in with mine and it ran off.

Something in me told me to follow; and before I could notice my legs were moving on their own. I reasoned that a few more moments away from my family wouldn’t do any more harm. The ounce gracefully made its way through the snowy rocks as I clumsily struggled to keep up with it. For the first time during the whole experience, my mind went quiet. There were no depressive thoughts, not morbid thoughts, I was at peace. Finally.

That was not to last, however.

A few moments after I had started following the animal, I found myself at a cliff-side that I’ve never been to. It seemed familiar, however, something that I couldn’t really pinpoint. It felt almost nostalgic. Something was off about that feeling. It felt strange as if I was supposed to know this place. The mental background noise returned. I was trying to piece together some semblance of an idea about this specific cliff-side, but nothing came up. There was a gloomy aura to that place. Something felt very wrong in these parts of the mountain.

The ounce called out to me, it’s call sounding like a cat’s meowing turning into a child’s pained cry curled into a rather unimpressive roar. My eyes turned towards the cat and in the distance, I saw two figures on the edge of the cliff-side.

Without thinking another moment, I raced as fast as I could towards the figures shouting at them to be careful as they seemed to be dangerously close to falling over the mountainous edge.

They didn’t heed my warnings.

Just as I reached the two figures, they both slumped down the cliff-side.

All I could do was watch as they both hit the ground below with a sickening thump emanating from their bodies.

I just watched as these two poor boys laid there, motionless, a few good meters below me.

Sorrow overcame me.

If I had only been quicker if I had only been louder.

That’s when something odd happened; as I was staring down the cliff-side and at the fallen boys below me, I noticed one of them suddenly dissipated away like the snow all around him.

The odd occurrence took me aback, and I took a few steps backward, as I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things. Lo and behold, there was only one body lying below me.

The longer I looked at the remaining body.

The more I felt something out of place.

Something almost nostalgic.

Painful.

It was almost familiar.

The longer I looked at it the more familiar it had become.

Something starting clicking in my mind, something that made little sense at all.

Visions almost.

Another young man and me, we were racing around some mountainside, it was green with vegetation. It was fun. My head started pounding at this point. The visions wouldn’t stop. The headache just kept getting worse. Something was really off there. Something was broken. We ran in my vision. We bounced around. Carelessly. I landed wrong once and flew off the cliff-side. My head was banging something awful. I grabbed at the other young man, and he fell with me. A cracking noise shook me out of the visions.

It hit me.

I knew what it was.

I knew it.

Memories.

That kid.

My friend.

Mikhail Chernov.

Misha.

Died.

Because of me.

I broke down into tears as I kept staring into the ravine below. Memories flooding my mind, memories I never knew I had.

My head was pounding furiously as if I was suffering from some divine retribution.

Then a horrible smell crept up on me, like rotten eggs mixed in with iron and rotten fish. Abhorrent smell. It was coming from behind me. A cold chill gripped my frame and a feeling that felt like a fist clenching around my heart formed inside my ribcage.

Some sort of unexplainable fear gripped at my psyche – almost crushing my consciousness.

I couldn’t properly breathe anymore.

I was beginning to shake as the smell got worse with each passing moment.

At a certain point, I felt as if the skin of my face was melting off because of the potency of that smell. It was like a gas agent eating away at my being.

Left with little choice, I turned around, cautiously, painfully so.

I froze.

I froze at the sight that unfolded before me.

In front of me stood a green-pale humanoid thing with tattered summer clothes, it was a tall young man, or at least, appeared to be. Extremely thin, unnaturally so. The skin was pressed so tightly around its skeletal frame I could see the ribs and pelvis pushing against the clothing.

It had no leg and no arm.

Just strands of brownish flesh hanging from a stump where a limb used to be, softly swinging as the increasingly loud wings banged against its form.

Its face…

That bloody face.

If I could even call what that was an actual face.

There wasn’t as much as a face; more so a disgusting mas...

Dried up and bloody…

Raw flesh compressed and contorted on the front of his face…

I-I…

It…

That…

Th h the moment I saw that thing, I felt as if someone had blasted me in the face with a five-kilo hammer. I was relieving a sudden rush of terrible memories. I knew what this was. I knew who this was. It couldn’t be true. There it was. It was standing in front of me. My worst failure. My very own slice of hell on earth.

I know… I know… I know…

I know what this was.

I know all too well.

That was Misha… That was him. I did it. I did it to him. I did it to him. I killed him. I did it. I caused it. I fell, I dragged him down with me. His spine shattered. I killed him. I was hurt. Couldn’t really walk. Couldn’t climb. Couldn’t do anything. So much pain. Stuck. With no one to help. Afraid of dying. I didn’t wanna die. I didn’t wanna. Screamed for help. Begged. Cried. Moaned. Pain was so bad. I couldn’t do anything. Hunger came soon. Nothing to eat. I did the worst possible thing. I ate him. I ate him. I ate his arm. His leg. I ate it all. I didn’t wanna die. Couldn’t... Couldn't stand looking at his face as I... As I... Ate him. I bashed his head in until there was nothing but a pile of pulp left.

I broke down into wailing and fell on my knees as the undead apparition of my deceased friend stood there, staring at me with its disfigured head. It felt as if it was mocking my suffering. I begged and pleaded with the thing for forgiveness. I didn’t even think about how ridiculous the whole situation was.

I’m sorry, brother, I’m sorry I did all of this to you.

The thing stood there, for what seemed like hours as I begged and moaned chocked up apologies to it.

Suddenly, it cocked its head back and let out a blood-curdling wail that shook the whole scenery around us.

I fell down and hit my head again, that’s when I heard the voice of my wife calling out to the rest of the family over me. I struggled to hug my wife tightly as the whole clan gathered around me. Trying to reassure them everything was fine I was lying through my teeth, internally I was shattered. Memories I had probably surpassed for decades were now floating back towards my consciousness. I tried making everything seem fine as if I just took a minor fall. Like nothing was eating away at me.

Alas, my body couldn’t sustain the mental turmoil I had endured and my lumbar flared up sending an agonizing solar flare through my lower body, making me groan in pain as if I were many years older than I am. Interestingly enough, as I was trying to beat my aching body into submission, I noticed something in the corner of my eye; a snow leopard.

I didn’t tell anyone about the… Dream… I guess, not until I’ve reached the flat we’ve leased for the trip. There, at night, after everyone went to bed, I spoke to my old man about it. He told me there was a whole scene about the event and that a search party had been organized and it took them three days to find me; apparently, I was almost delirious when they found me. Dad said that the Chernovs didn’t blame me, at least not outwardly. Still, they moved away shortly after. He said most people understood it was just an accident and that I was the lucky one to survive. According to him, I was lucky enough we lived in a small community so the whole thing died down rather quickly. He didn’t really seem too concerned with the whole incident now, but he noted that even though I was able to surpass the memories almost completely; the trauma was probably what pushed me to my less than healthy career choices.

I’ve heard once that you experience so much trauma you develop a kind of selective amnesia around it. I forgot everything about the experience at some point. I guess that notion is true.

Interestingly enough, when I asked the old man about how everyone reacted to me eating my best friend’s remains, he turned his face away from me. Prompting me to ask him if he felt bad about it. A solemn expression formed on his face as he told me that it wasn't him that felt anything particularly negative about it.

When I asked him why the long face then, he forced a little smirk and told me that no one else understood that his little boy only did what he had to do to survive.