Suddenly, there was a rustle behind him, the cat made a stand on the fence, and his eyes became fiercely tense, the fur on his spine stood on end, and his tail fluffed out and became as thick as his mother's leg. A wave of such horror came from Gina that I turned sharply in my friend's direction. And I saw a face distorted in a grimace and bulging eyes, staring somewhere behind my back. Turning around and looking down, I saw... a nightmare come to life! From a distance of about five meters, a hefty rat looked at me, about a meter at the withers, covered with dense black hair, a body about two meters long, and an equally long, hairy tail with a tassel at the end. Its typically rat-like face, with glowing red eyes, was decorated with a mouth studded with a palisade of long needle-shaped teeth. The creature opened its mouth, stuck out a long purple tongue and, making something like a "SNUFFLE", trotted towards us. A wave of anticipation came from her, and I clearly realized that they wanted to DEVOUR me!

My memory went on in spurts. Here I see Gina, jumping off the fence and screeching on the verge of ultrasound, running away to her house at full speed. Here is our courtyard tree in front of me, I jump up, grab the lower branch, pull myself up and quickly climb to the top, while there is some kind of ringing in my ears. Here Gina jumps onto the porch with an incredible leap, hits the door opening sensor and, without stopping screaming, disappears into the house, slipping through the crack of the barely opened door. There is silence. Only rustling and sounds come from the road: "snuffle, snuffle, snuffle." My throat is scratchy, my arms and legs are shaking, and a Bars is sitting on a branch next to me with its fur on end and making a low throaty hum, interspersed with a powerful hiss.

A few seconds later, the door of the neighbor's house opens, and from there, in sweatpants, an elongated T-shirt and slippers on bare feet, but with a hunting carbine in his hands, Uncle Coel looks out.

"Eugene?" He says softly. "Eugene, where are you?

"I'm here," I hiss back, "in a tree, Uncle Kol."

"What's wrong with your voice?"

"I don't know!"

"What scared you?"

"It's over there, behind the fence, Uncle Kol!"

"Who is IT?!"

"Well, this one, snuffle(Magnaflesheter (Snufl) is a medium-sized scavenger predator on Mendoir. In addition to its creepy appearance, it is almost not dangerous for adults, due to its slowness and stupidity. It has good dense short dark-colored fur, and is an object of the autumn-winter hunting season. Snufkin is nicknamed for the characteristic sounds he makes.)!"

"Snufle in our village?! How did he get through the fence?"

"I don't know! I say hoarsely."

"We've already seen him on the street. Over there!"

Meanwhile, snuffle had almost reached the intersection in the center of the village, and Naina jumped out to meet him! When she saw the creature, the girl somehow crouched down, screamed and with incredible speed, gnashing her claws on the smooth bark, climbed up a tree growing in the middle of the intersection, only the leaves fell down.

Snufl froze in indecision, Uncle Coel came close to the fence, put his elbow on it, aimed and fired. The creature, which took a few steps towards the tree, buried its nose in the ground, but its hind legs continued to move forward, its spine arched, and the animal toppled to one side, while continuing to twitch convulsively.

"Ready! Come on, get down, Zhenya."

"Now," I croaked, and began to unclench my clenched fingers. I was still shaking a little.

When I passed by the neighbor's house, the door opened, and Gina looked out from behind the jamb.

"Zhen!" she asked in a whisper. "Where's the scary one?"

"Your dad shot you," I whispered. "It's lying at the intersection. Come on, let's take a look!"

"I'm really scared!" Jean whispers.

"Don't worry, he's dead, and your daddy's with us, and he's got a carbine."

"Okay, let's go," Gina whispers, comes out of the house and clings to my arm like a tick.

We slowly approach the snufle. There is a heavy smell of the beast and some kind of rotten meat coming from the creature. Barsik, ears flattened, walks around the creature on bent paws in a circle. Uncle Coel is walking slowly next to him, holding the carcass at gunpoint. The animal does not move, the mouth is slightly open, the tongue has fallen out, and a puddle of blood has flowed onto the grass.

"He's dead!" Uncle Coel states the fact. He walks up to the tree and raises his head. "Nain, are you there? Nain, get off, I killed him. Do you hear me?"

In response, only rustles are heard, no response, no greetings.

"Zhen," he says, "get down after her, it looks like she's too scared."

He lifts me up and I start climbing the tree. Closer to the top, I see Nain, clutching the trunk, squeezing her eyes shut and trembling slightly.

"Nin," I whisper, "Ni-in, what are you doing?"

I touch her hand. She shudders and opens her eyes, horror reigns in her emotions.

"Ze-en," she says in a trembling voice, "where is this one?" She closes her eyes again. "That awful, scary, huge one?"

"He's lying dead down there, and Uncle Kol shot him with a carbine."

"Is he really dead?"

"Exactly, exactly. I saw it myself. Let's get off."

"Can I stay here a little longer?"

"No, you can't, you'll freeze, it's already autumn. Come on, you coward," I whisper.

"She's a coward herself!" Nain whispers back. "But I'm scared!"

She's still trembling, but she's already starting to slowly climb down from the tree. Uncle Coel picks us up at the bottom, and Nain hides behind me and stares at the dead snuffle.

"He's even scary dead!" Nain whispers loudly.

"That's right, baby," Uncle Coel replies. "I'm going to get dressed, otherwise I'm walking around in sneakers! Hehe, that must be a sight."

In the evening, my father told me about how Snufl got into the village. The door closer on the gate in the fence broke, and it did not close with a magnetic lock, but the creature, stomping along the fence, noticed a gap and got through. As luck would have it, the brothers took Polkan with them to the city, and in general, of the adults in the village there were only Uncle Koel and Aunt Kaadi, but she was asleep because she was pregnant again. Uncle Coel, laughing, told how he had dozed off with a book, but was maliciously awakened by a wild two-voiced childish squeal from the street. So that's why my ears were ringing and my voice was dead! Then his daughter ran past him and hid under the kitchen table. Grabbing a carbine from a closet, he ran out into the street in his clothes and shot Snufla, who had entered the village. They find it funny, but I've never been so scared in both my lives! And the girls were terrified. I said that I want us to make hats out of his skin, that should be enough! The elders agreed, laughing. Good compensation for fright! Uncle Coel said.

Chapter 4.1 On the issue of Turian buoyancy... And I almost got burned.

Eugene (Mendoir, December 2358)

Surprises for Christmas

December 24, 6:00 a.m.

I'm doing gymnastics in front of the window, and snow is falling outside from large, soft and fluffy snowflakes. In my previous life, I didn't like winter, but now I adore it. Maybe it's because it's mild on Mendoir, the temperature hardly drops below minus five degrees Celsius, there's a lot of snow, and since there's no wheeled transport, there's no problem with travel. My father, of course, cleans the snow at the garage and in the yard, but that's all. Our village is illuminated by lanterns, they walk along the fences in three-meter increments, so it's always light here, since the lighting is automatic: dark turned on, dawn turned off. Beauty!

Today is Christmas, what a holiday! People have been in space for centuries, they have mastered other worlds, we are neighbors with alien races, and they still celebrate Christmas! And that's it, that's such a twist of consciousness, and after all, other races don't mind, they celebrate with people. Well, at least here on Mendoir. They say they celebrate at the Citadel too, well, they celebrate everything there! All the holidays of all races of space, just a holiday without pauses! I'll probably see you sometime.... At the intersection, my parents, with our common children's help, built an ice town, a spiral slide around a tree, and ice statues (Tael's work). He has a talent for this, however, Santa Claus looks like a Quarian, only bearded! He has an amazing figure, and Tael himself doesn't grow a beard. They put up an artificial Christmas tree, hung toys, and half of them were homemade. Garlands are also homemade, half of the village are engineers. As my father said, "I'll spend money on it if I do it better myself!" Of course he did. It's clearly visible from our house: it's standing at the intersection, glowing. The Turian brothers will be here in an hour, and we'll go to the school pool to learn how to swim. I promised, now I have to do it! Things are going badly, the brothers can't cope with fear in any way, it's hard for them to overcome their instincts. Nain seemed to be shallow, and she trusted me very much, so things went quickly with her, but it was hard with the brothers. Uncle Dak looks at this case, travels with us, keeps a journal. In general, normal scientific work, as he says, whether I can overcome the Turian nature or not. If I can, he'll send the job to Palaven, let the others have a headache. Nain also travels with us, trains and works as a living example. Since it's the holidays, we'll return home after the pool, we need to read the assignment for the holidays, and practice with the girls in the "base".

Since mid-November, we have been taught languages. I thought it would be like in a previous life: the teacher talks, and we repeat... but no! They brought him to a room with comfortable upholstered chairs, sat him down, put soft hats with a thick harness connected to them on his head, and opaque glasses on his eyes. We're all sitting, waiting. Suddenly, there's a carousel of colored spots, symbols, and other incomprehensible nonsense in my glasses, and my head itches strangely. We sat there for about ten minutes, admired the pictures, and it was all over. We returned to the group, the teachers started talking to us... and suddenly I realized that they were not speaking Russian, but everything was clear. I asked Rien, how does this happen? And she replied that we had a mind mentoring session. An armchair with a cap and glasses is a mnemograph, a device for recording information directly into the brain. And we'll be friends with him until graduation, and many of us after that. We've already had two sessions, and we've received a school course in Russian and basic Galactic, so we're writing and reading freely now. Although I knew Russian well enough, I now realize that my knowledge has improved. There are more languages to choose from, I'm leaning towards an English course to consolidate, and additionally choose between Turian and Asari. In our day, such a device would be a fairy tale, not a study. I just need to fix what I've received so that it doesn't get forgotten, but I don't have that problem.

More dreams have come! Very realistic, strange, sometimes amazing, sometimes scary, in which I see places where I've definitely never been. In these dreams, I am often haunted by a strong sense of loss, fear, and anger. Most often, I have a dream in which I walk through our city park. I'm wearing a hunting jumpsuit like my father's, with thick inserts on the knees, elbows, and lots of pockets. I have my father's carbine in my hands. His hands were scratched, his knuckles were bruised, one nail was broken, and his combat jacket was stained with brown spots, dirt, and grass. I wander through the trees and look for my own, but there is no one. I call, I scream, but all I hear is rustling. There's fog in the park, and trees are appearing like ghosts! Suddenly, I find myself in our village, strangely quiet and deserted. I'm walking past the Tanirs' house, and the Dakar flyer is parked, covered in leaves, and Ham's bike is covered in dirt and dust, despite the fact that Hem is a terrible cleaner in life, and his bike always sparkles. I see Naina's hefty, once snow-white teddy bear, given to her by my father, now gray with dirt, lying in the dust by the path, staring with its blue glass eyes at the misty sky. It's amazing, she never takes him out of her room! Ray's house is opposite, it's locked, the shutters are closed, and the red hologram of the castle is on. The flowers in the flower beds around the house are wilted and blackened, the rose bushes are like dark skeletons: there are no flowers or leaves on them. The swing is broken, hanging on one chain, the second is coiled like a silver snake in the brown grass, and the seat is slowly rotating around its axis from the wind, making a soft, barely audible creak. Rigard's house stands with the airlock open, and fallen leaves are blowing across the hallway floor. I slowly walk around it, I see that the bay window is broken, and small glass crumbs have covered everything around. Tael's favorite armchair is lying on its side, with the upholstery torn. The Natoles are dark and quiet, the windows are black and look like dips into the darkness, the holograms of the castles are not lit, the wind is blowing sheets of paper across the front garden. There are drawings on them, I try to collect them, but each time the sheets are taken away before I can grab them. Here is our house, but there is no one in the courtyard, it is empty inside, and it seems that everyone has just left. The holovision is working, a cup of tea is floating on the coffee table, the guys in the room have a guitar on the bed and the turned-on datapads are lying around. My father has a kulman on in his office, and the sensor pads are on the edge of the table. There is a cold, growing, aching, acute feeling of loss in my chest!

The first time I had a dream, I woke up screaming and couldn't sleep anymore. After that, I looked at my family all morning and couldn't get enough of it, the thought was beating in my head: "Really? Am I really going to lose them?! For what?! No! Please, not that!!!"

I'm standing in the shower under the hot, taut jets of water, remembering the conversation between my mother and Ray that I overheard that day. It was Sunday, and the whole family was at home, and my father, as always, was sitting in his office kulman. The older brothers had gone somewhere, Ivan was sitting in his room and enthusiastically assembling something from Lego cubes. I'm tired of reading, and my throat is dry. After going downstairs, I decided to go into the kitchen for compote and found the beginning of a conversation at the locked door.