"My beauty," the man gently reached out his hand, watching as the little white snake suspiciously coiled tighter in the terrarium. A long black tongue flicked out swiftly, tasting the air.
Finally, the snake recognized her owner and smoothly slid forward, beginning to wrap around the man's hand. Coil by coil, they covered the human limb. The white skin and white scales looked surprisingly harmonious together.
"You're the smartest snake of them all," Stas Ordyntsev proudly concluded, carefully starting to stroke his pet on the head with his fingertips. She gently closed her eyes, tightening her coils around the improvised "branch."
Without saying anything more, Ordyntsev sat down on the couch, reaching for his phone with his left hand. He fluffed a couple of pillows and turned on the e-reader on his smartphone. However, he tried to keep his right hand with his pet raised, so as not to disturb her.
The female Texas rat snake, noting that her fidgety human had finally stopped moving, slid forward as usual, making her way to the neck area.
The man didn't even look away from the screen. Reading had been his hobby for most of his life, so by the age of thirty-two, it was quite difficult to find a book that could truly interest him. Today, fortune smiled on him, and although it was already late, he still planned to read for a couple more hours.
Levi, as Stas had named his snake, hooked her white head onto the collar and began to crawl under the T-shirt as usual. Quite quickly, she completely disappeared inside, with only her tail flicking a brief farewell.
It was dark, warm, and smelled of her owner everywhere here. This could only mean one thing – she was in complete safety. Moreover, her stomach was still full.
Leviathan relaxed and calmed down. Perhaps by snake standards, this was the embodiment of true happiness.
Unfortunately, happy moments don't last too long.
A sudden ringtone shattered the tranquility of the moment. Stas looked at the phone with annoyance. He couldn't fathom who would call him at this hour. Nevertheless, the displayed number quickly clarified everything.
"Yes?" the heavy sarcasm in that single word was palpable even to the deaf.
"Stas, you're not asleep?"
"Not anymore. What's up?" Ordyntsev preferred to get straight to the point.
"I hate to call you now," the voice of the head of the surgical department was incredibly tired. "But you're urgently needed at the hospital. You understand, with the second wave of the coronavirus, we're short on doctors. Many have been retrained to assist in the department, and now Dmitry has broken his leg so untimely..."
With a heavy sigh, Stas hardly listened anymore. He had heard this tune many times before, and he wasn't the only one.
When Ordyntsev moved from Irkutsk to Moscow, he had been happy. The capital's hospitals were much better equipped and staffed than in the provinces, and the salaries were on a completely different level.
But when the epidemic hit, things took a grim turn. Suddenly, there was such a shortage of medics that even students were being called in. Not to mention the workload on experienced doctors.
One shouldn't forget that an epidemic always brings deaths. And doctors, being at the forefront of this terrible "war," see them more than anyone else.
And the longer this relentless horror continued, the less compassion and pity the man had left. Such strong emotions have a terrifying tendency to just burn out.
"Yes, I'm on my way. Forty minutes, and I'll be there." Reaching his work didn't take long since his rental place was nearby.
The man carefully pulled the disgruntled Levi from under his clothes and placed her on the couch. The snake was smart enough to find her way back to the terrarium if she wanted to.
Leviathan, annoyed by the disappearance of the free and so pleasant source of warmth, hissed softly.
Stas calmly began to dress. Jeans, a T-shirt, a sweater. He would change into a robe, mask, and gloves at the hospital.
Bending down to tie the lace on his second shoe, Ordyntsev noticed white scales right in front of him. While he moved around the apartment, Levi managed to crawl right up to him and was now examining the shoe with interest.
Stas smiled warmly and picked up his pet, stroking her head. Her coils tightened, not wanting to let go of her owner.
"You're being naughty," Stas's colleagues would have been surprised to see him smiling right now. Ordyntsev rarely smiled.
At that very moment, due to a random energy anomaly, Stas Ordyntsev disappeared from his world.
The anomaly simultaneously captured a door frame and part of the floor, leaving an ugly indent of indeterminate shape, as if someone carelessly removed a piece of reality with a giant eraser.
*****
In the future, Stas would consider this transition incredibly fortunate. In the grand scheme of things, the anomaly could have captured only half of his body, leaving the rest in the old world. Or worse, take, for example, his legs or an arm. Living as a cripple was, anyhow you look at it, a dubious prospect.
But writhing in monstrous pain on the forest floor, the man thought about something else. For instance, how to die as quickly as possible so that the excruciating anguish would finally go away.
Every cell and bone in his godforsaken body ached.
It felt as though a powerful current of something akin to electricity was coursing through him.
Ordyntsev couldn't even scream, only convulsing and bouncing on the ground, hitting it with his head and heels.
To a random observer, a truly gruesome scene would unfold. The bodies of a man and a snake were connected by a strange, smoky three-end rope. The energy flowed in both directions, from the man to the snake and vice versa. The third end went into the ground.
Fortunately, the seizure eventually began to subside. The man stretched out on the foliage with relief, breathing heavily.
Gradually, the pain began to fade. Consciousness also started to clear.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Suddenly, his hearing caught a faint hissing to the side.
'Levi!' Ordyntsev was struck by fear for his pet: 'At that moment, when it happened, I was holding her in my hands!'
Struggling, Stas turned his head to see Leviathan. She lay on the ground, completely exhausted, just quietly hissing in pain. Her coils were still occasionally twitching from residual convulsions.
'Is it me, or has she become smaller?' Ordyntsev frowned, examining his beloved: 'Alright, enough lying around. Let's try to at least stand up.'
With an effort, the man rolled onto his side; a few more attempts, stars before his eyes, and teeth-gritting before he finally managed to get on his knees and then sit.
"Damn," he exhaled. "That was harder than I expected."
Everywhere he looked, a dense green forest stretched out. And judging by its appearance, this place had little contact with humans. There were no bottles, trash bags, or even a stray cigarette butt in sight.
Judging by the temperature and the leaves, it was the height of summer. This seemed particularly strange since autumn had just been outside.
Ordyntsev involuntarily speculated that he might have been thrown into some tropics.
Suddenly, something caught Stas's attention. Moreover, he was surprised that he hadn't noticed it from the start. The clothes he was wearing were much larger.
'Or not,' the man realized with a sinking heart, skeptically examining his hands. Those hands definitely no longer belonged to a thirty-two-year-old man. Thin bones, smooth skin, no familiar scars, neat nails.
Further inspection only confirmed his suspicion. Undoubtedly, it was still his body, at least on the outside, but it had definitely become younger by at least ten years, if not more.
And the longer he looked at himself, the more questions piled up. This was definitely his rejuvenated body. But in that case, where did the excess biomass go? Why, although he was covered in sweat, was his body so clean?
Stas leaned over and carefully picked up Levi, examining her closely. The white snake had not changed at all, except for becoming much smaller, which again confirmed Stas's conclusions.
Although no, along the top of her head emerged two strange horn-like plates resembling a small crown.
Ordyntsev's face twisted into a triumphant smirk, and he laughed softly: 'Fascinating! It seems I've managed to find a genuine way to rejuvenate.'
The man tried to calm down, but the satisfied smile refused to leave his face. Undoubtedly, he didn't know where he was or what the nature of the transfer and rejuvenation process was. But even so, in his eyes, it was secondary.
What was important was that he now knew for sure that in the world there was a possibility of becoming younger.
And that, in turn, opened the doors for Stas and humanity that had been alluring people throughout their existence. A mystery that the best minds had struggled with, both a couple of hundred years ago and now – immortality.
Immortality was possible, and this fact changed everything. It remained to figure out the principle of this natural wonder, and one could rush to take a place on the Olympus of medicine.
Even if in the shadows – Ordyntsev doubted that the knowledge of the technology of new youth would be entrusted to the broader public. And Stas himself would do everything possible to become an indispensable part of this discovery. Who but him knew what passions raged among scientists and how easily discoveries changed their owners.
However, the man pushed all these grandiose plans aside. For now, nothing could be taken for granted. It was quite possible that his body, while looking young, was actually a kind of deception, and he would die at any moment.
Plus, it was time to figure out where he had been taken.
Stanislav's body was seemingly trembling with the energy that filled him – an unimaginable thing, he had somehow successfully teleported in space and survived.
Ordyntsev shook his head. He was glad that he didn't end up on top of a mountain or in Antarctica. In his clothes, he wouldn't have lasted an hour there.
The man easily got up. The body obeyed excellently as if there hadn't been a mystical torture just minutes ago. Stas grinned, imagining how those wealthy people who also craved new youth would squirm in pain just the same.
Leviathan was still asleep, so Stas carefully, so as not to wake her, tucked her under his shirt. For this, he twisted the T-shirt at the stomach into a knot so that the pet wouldn't fall out.
Taking a deep breath, he resolutely moved toward the sun. Yes, he knew it would shift, changing the overall vector, but it would still mark the general direction of movement for him.
And although Ordyntsev felt a bit uneasy, he tried not to think about all the potential problems that awaited him on this path. Right now, it wouldn't help him anyway, so he could waste time being horrified sometime later.
Suddenly, something busily rustled on his belly. Stopping, Stas pulled out a slightly crumpled Levi.
Leviathan gloomily surveyed the overly bright world with cold eyes. She looked exactly like Stas's ex when she woke up grumpily early in the morning for work.
Although, in Ordyntsev's humble opinion, Levi was a dozen times better than that woman. However, as they say, he was a biased party. Besides, she didn't become his ex for nothing.
"S-s-s," the snake complained, tasting the air with her tongue. The abundance of completely unknown smells and tastes agitated the reptile's receptors. Moreover, any change in the usual environment is a big stress for snakes, so Levi felt uncomfortable.
"I understand; I'm shocked, too. But now's not the best time to talk, so climb back in." Stas scratched Levi between the newly appeared plates on her head with his fingertip.
Leviathan looked at her human with attention, then, without any objections, was tucked back in.
The path wasn't always smooth. Frequently, it was crossed by deep ravines, almost impossible to pass without climbing.
All this time, Stas carefully observed the area, trying to understand where he was. Unfortunately, he wasn't a big fan of hiking, so his successes were not great.
But one didn't have to be a botanist to start suspecting something was off. The trees surrounding him were exceedingly strange. Ordyntsev did not remember such tall trunks and branches in Russia, which only grew starting from a height of three to four meters.
Considering that it was, after all, autumn in Moscow, everything became all the more disturbing.
Plus, the flying and chirping birds above were also unfamiliar to him. What to say of the huge birds resembling black crows, which for some time escorted him with watchful gazes. Fortunately, listening to something, they flew in the direction Stas was heading.
The only thing Stanislav could hope for was that he was still on Earth. His love for reading fantasy created too many unpleasant suspicions that he didn't like at all.
Being a character transported to another world is fun and interesting only when you are reading about it, sitting in a warm and familiar home.
However, he didn't have time to fully contemplate this thought when a powerful explosion somewhere in the distance made him crouch down alertly.
And "powerful" wasn't an exaggeration - the impact generated such a strong shockwave that it knocked down several leaves even here.
After another dozen seconds, the next sonic boom followed, although way weaker. Then someone clearly got into the groove - a series of weak bangs sounded almost continuously. Considering the distance, somewhere far away, a battle was raging, not for life, but to the death.
Unfortunately, Ordyntsev had no choice. He wouldn't survive in the wild anyway, so he had to reach out to people and civilization. At least, he very much hoped that it was indeed people.
The man hurried toward the fading cannonade. Although it was dangerous there, it was at least some direction to move in. If the sound disappeared, Stas doubted he could maintain the correct vector for long.
He sensed trouble well in advance. Just at the moment when he almost burst onto the forest edge, a few dozen meters from him, a multi-ton, compacted earth slab crashed down.
The monstrous chunk of earth, rolling forward a bit, shattered dozens of trees to splinters and came to a halt a mere few meters in front of the stunned Ordyntsev, showering him with a stream of leaves and broken branches.
The desire to meet the sentient beings of this world smoothly diminished. Nevertheless, Stas clenched all his courage and cautiously began to approach the slab, meanwhile trying to understand what it was.
What he saw did not please him. Judging by the surface of the giant projectile, it had once been part of the forest floor with grass growing on it. As if an invisible giant scooped up a clump of earth and threw it forward with all his might.
But why didn't the earth crumble in flight or upon impact? What force made the soil compress so much?
A new series of explosions shook the ground, and Stas caught the smell of something burnt.
Then, as if that wasn't enough, a unified war cry of thousands of - probably human - throats sounded in the distance. There was something furious, primitive in that howl that instinctively made you clench your fists tighter and bare your teeth.
Stanislav collapsed onto his stomach, having moved Leviathan to his back, and hurriedly crawled forward to the edge of the slab. Once there, the man looked out with utmost caution, assessing the situation.
Unfortunately, his vantage point was not the highest, but even what he saw was enough to understand that he was definitely not on Earth.
And the realization of this fact evoked in him both fear and the anticipation of a scientist standing before a monumental discovery that should change the life of all humanity.