Twelve thousand years ago. The planet submerged in glacial slumber. Amid the mammoth steppe—a boundless cold wasteland stretching from the frozen plains of Siberia to the frost-shackled forests of modern France—wind pierces skin with bone needles. Temperature drops to -30°C, yet snow covers earth only in a thin layer—dry as sand, crunching underfoot and rising in dust clouds.

In this stark beauty wander herds of woolly mammoths, roars shaking the permafrost. And nearby, in ambush, lurk saber-toothed tigers—predators weighing up to 400 kg with saber-fangs the length of a human hand. No snarling. Only waiting.

Survival here—no metaphor, but daily war with hunger, cold, and what watches from the tundra darkness.