In the morning, Valera woke me up by shaking my shoulders in panic. "Vitya, get up quick, we've finished!" he shouted, giving me light slaps on the face and dragging me by the hand to the window. It took me a moment to understand what was going on, but then I realized that strange grunting sounds were coming from outside. Looking out the window, I saw a creature about a hundred meters away that resembled what we had seen in the field but was much smaller. It was standing still, emitting strange frequencies, like a piece of metal, not a living creature. The fog obscured my view, making it difficult to see clearly.
I whispered in Valera's ear, "We need to wait for it to go away. It's best not to make any noise or talk."Valera put his finger to his lips as a sign to be quiet. We waited in hiding for several hours, after which a creature began to walk slowly towards the lake. "This is our chance!" We rushed to the car, but it wouldn't start at first. Valera hit the dashboard in frustration, but eventually we were able to start moving. There was a path through the forest leading to the village we were headed to.
Unfortunately, we ran out of gas before we reached the village. Valera became extremely frustrated and angrily grabbed his bags. He walked through the woods muttering angrily, looking around fearfully to make sure he didn't lose sight of me. I silently followed him carrying my own bags, with the dog running ahead.
It was late November, and the trees had lost their leaves. Thick fog obscured our vision for several meters, making it difficult to see.After a couple of hours of quiet walking, Valera noticed that I had almost disappeared from sight. He turned around and approached me.
"I'm sorry for losing my temper. You know how I can be," he said gently, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Now it's not just me who's having a hard time, and as the selfish person that I am, I always think only of myself."
We decided to take a break and spend the night in the woods. We built a shelter out of sticks and blankets, placed old clothes on damp grass, and built a fire using more or less dry branches.
It turned out to be comfortable. We warmed ourselves, ate some tinned fish, and went to sleep.
The next morning, I awoke with a severe pain in my arm that had only occasionally itched before. In the dim light, he pulled up the sleeve of my sweater all the way to my elbow and examined the bandaged limb. Removing the dirty bandage was difficult, and I gasped at what I saw.
"Oh my God... what is this...?"