Primordial spark

There was vivid speculation going on about why all the plants and animals had started to change. Three different schools of thought were springing up. One was that these were the harbingers of apocalypse. A different one was that the Earth had encounter some new field in space and this was a purely scientific, but not yet understood phenomena with no overt hostility. The final school of thought was that this was brought on by human hands, as seen by the launch of the Soyuz rocket and the weird sound following that event.

There were other, more specific ideas floating around, but they generally still fell into these three categories.

Lydia was sitting at the back door waiting for her food. Dave went to his freezer, grabbed a slice of venison and gave it to her.

She ate it with gusto, while letting him pet her. She had magnificent fur, he buried his hands in it and slowly removed knots and debris stuck in her fur.

"Good girl, good girl." Dave whispered.

It was snowing heavily outside. Icicles were hanging from the roof and tiny snowflakes where whirling around them. Tall snow drifts had formed outside, under the trees and around the house. Grass was visible between the drifts. There was a very strong wind herding around snowflakes. Lydia was taking cover behind the house.

Dave had a little backup wood stove that he liked to use to warm up the kitchen even further. His house was losing heat to the wind, that tried to leech the warmth out of everything.

He grabbed a saw, his phone and put on a jacket. There were some dead trees near his house. A wheelbarrow in the garage would help him move the pieces.

Stepping outside, Lydia was waiting for him. She followed him through the snowdrifts and whirling snow, until the trees gave some semblance of cover.

A dead pine tree was exactly what he was looking for, the sap would normally make it a little explosive to burn. This one had been dead for long enough that it would not matter.

Lydia was quietly watching him while he felled the tree. She was however nowhere to be seen while he sawed the pine into pieces.

She came walking out from behind a tree, as he was about to go back for his wheelbarrow. She gently grabbed the hem of his jacket and pulled it in a direction away from the house and woodpile. Lydia had been very friendly, almost like a domesticated dog, without the constant barking. He trusted her, so he followed her.

A little while later they encountered a clearing, not really unusual, there were spots where the cold air from the mountains would kill any trees that grew there.

Near the edge of the clearing there was a circular area free of snowdrifts, in the middle a small flower grew. It was shaped like a Lily of the Valley, but it only had one flower instead of many.

Dave figured that the area would provide shelter from the wind and snow, since they were both absent around the flower. He got a little closer and saw some distortion above the little white flower. The air was wavering as if it emitted heat.

“Another odd plant what's new”, he thought.

Lydia was right next to him and they both unhurriedly strolled up to the flower.

Dave bent over to study the flower. Instantly the distortion jumped from above the flower to all around them. Everything outside of the snowless circle was distorted, like looking through a frosted window. He felt his stomach drop. The trees were gone. Snow was absent. Lydia and he were surrounded by a large open plain filled with yellowing grass.

The air was crisp, but not cold, the sky was covered in gray clouds.

He could see a thatch roof in the distance behind a tree with yellowing and reddish leaves.

“This could be near my house, but the time of year is clearly wrong. Did that spot hold us in stasis until fall?” He thought.

Lydia whined a little and he petted her absently.

“Lydia, let's check out that house in the distance.”

Within minutes the air around them became biting cold and snowflakes started falling. Wind picked up and Dave had to narrow his eyes because it was painful to have them dry out.

This short walk to the house turned into a complicated affair, as every step was a fight against the wind.

Snow was also starting to cover the grass. He was glad that his sense of direction was good enough, otherwise he might've gotten lost. They passed a field of wheat on the way to the house. Odd that nobody had harvested it yet, before the winter cold had taken it.

Dave painfully made his way to the door of the house. He could barely see five meters in front of himself, because of the sudden snowstorm.

He knocked on the door.

A voice came from inside, but Dave could not understand a single word.

“A different country?” He thought.

The door was pulled inwards and a young Asian man's face greeted him from inside. He looked stunned as he gazed outside, then fear seeped into his expression.

This Asian man quickly bowed low at his waist and muttered a few words that Dave could not understand.

“Can we come inside?” Dave asked for good measure and grabbed the shoulder of the poor man.

When he looked up Dave motioned to the inside of his house. He nodded and moved to the side.

That's when he saw Lydia and his eyes almost seemed to pop out of their sockets in fear.

“Please behave yourself Lydia.” Dave begged on the inside.

There was a low table in front of the unlit hearth. He sat down cross-legged to one side of the table, like he had seen in Japanese movies. The young man sat down on the opposite side of the table.

Dave pointed to himself and said: “Dave”, then he pointed the young man opposite him. It look a second try until he understood what Dave was getting at, then he answered: “Li Hao”.

He pointed to Lydia and said: “Lydia”, at which she perked up and Li shrank in on himself, while saying something indistinct.

The word game continued for a bit, until Dave remembered that he had an easy way to call for help. He checked his phone. No signal.

It confirmed his worst fear, he was on his own... if he ignored Lydia.

Li was shivering the house was well made, but it had gotten so cold that Dave could see his own breath. Oddly enough there was no wood for the hearth stored inside the house and Li was making moves to go outside. Dave followed him figuring that he could help carry the firewood.

Snow had already stacked up to their shins.

There was firewood in an adjacent barn. They carried it inside and lit the hearth. Li seemed very interested in the matches Dave had used to light the fire, so he lent them to him for inspection.

The word game continued on into the dark. By the end he had figured out the most common sentence for greeting: “The heavens be with you.” and goodbye: “The heavens watch over you.”

Dave wished that he had a more structured way of learning, but he was fumbling in the dark here and he did not know how to get home from here. He had asked if Li had seen someone like him before, or at least that was what he hoped he had asked, he was still uncertain. He might have asked if his nose had a home instead.

Eventually Li retired to his hammock and left Dave to watch over the fire. The temperature outside was unpleasant to Dave and deadly to Li, based on how little clothing he was wearing.

Now that Dave was left to himself it finally dawned on him that he had been sent to the past, or an entirely different world. He was hopeful that the sudden snowstorm was a sign that there was an open way back to his own place of origin. The fact that he had no signal on his phone did pour cold water over that hope though.

Lydia laid down next to him and they both fell asleep.