The crow calls. One.

Two. The fifth birch on the left, where the forest begins. Always the same branch.

Three.

Then comes the silence. The silence of a snowfield nobody's walked on. Once it passes, the day can start. The same day as yesterday. When the night ends, this forest winds everything back to the same dawn. And the only one who remembers… is me. My name is Bogdan.

The moment I sit up, I look for the third tree. Last night I wound hemp cord around it and tied it off with a double knot. The cord, the knot, my footprints… gone. The snow lies smooth again, like nothing ever happened.

Bogdan…Of course.

I don't know where I came from. All I've got is a name, and a ledger. It's bound with red thread. The same thread is wrapped around my wrist. No matter how many times the dawn…