Then a bump.
And a giggle.
Compression from two sides. Indistinct voices laughing and shaping him out of the soft whiteness all around. He felt alarmed as his focus began to shrink, to be cut off from all the comforting blue-white substance that was him... but then he realized that he was thinking. Becoming self-aware. Responding to external stimuli. That had never happened before. He discovered a new feeling, as his awareness expanded and transformed from fear to curiosity, then excitement.
Sightlessly, he watched the mysterious shapes laughing and bumping into him, listening and feeling. When they all seemed satisfied with his shape, they wrapped a purple scarf around his neck, then put a yellow hat on his head before hopping back in a circle. "I don't know, he's missing something..."
"We got his eyes..."
"And the buttons..."
"Scarf..."
"Hat..."
The collection of fruits thought hard. A coat and a pair of boots lay discarded on the ground, evidence of failed attempts at arms and legs. A banana suddenly jumped up and down. "I know! I know! He's missing one of those sticky-out things on his face!"
So they gave the new snowman a carrot nose. He was perfect.
He blinked, vision suddenly snapping on. He stood still, overwhelmed by his new sense and shocked that colors existed at all. The fruits continued talking.
"We should give it a name~" sang a little orange ball.
"What for?" asked a bright red shape.
"Because," a big green oval yawned, "The weirdo who made us had names to tell us apart from each other. It just makes sense."
"What do we call it?" wondered a yellow, spiky shape. "I'm Pineapple No. 6, but we're all pineapples. He's the only man now that the big one is sleeping."
"Wasn't he called a Igor?" asked the little orange one.
"Sure was," said the thin yellow one.
And so the snowman was dubbed Igor.
Over time, the snow gradually began to melt. Most of the big fruits got bored and drifted away to explore new places, but the bananas, apples, oranges, and even a few nectarines kept Igor company. They talked to him sometimes, but he never knew what to say in reply, and blushed shyly.
"Hey, Igor! Look what I can do!"
"I'm going to go chill with Igor."
"Nice ice, Igor!"
The snowman loved spending time with his friends. The thin layers of snow were beginning to melt, but it was okay. He would last a while longer, and he would spend every moment of his ephemeral life smiling with his friends, until next winter.
Or so he thought.
Igor quietly watched a couple of bananas play with a nectarine. Some apples napped in a tree. The sun was gentle, the grass whispered, and leaves rustled. Spring was here. Igor should've melted by now, but he hadn't. Bigger fruits had commented on it, and (for lack of a better explanation) concluded that the 'magic of friendship' had made him a permanent companion. Igor personally figured it was the magical snowflake in his chest.
It had been during a terrible snowstorm. Igor's friends had fled the freezing sleet, and he had stuffed his accessories into his hat to keep them from being blown away. Because his eyes were in his hat, he couldn't see anything. He felt something even colder than ice being pressed into him by an unseen hand. The howls of the wind were briefly drowned out by the yeti roaring at him: MERRY CHRISTMAS, LITTLE SNOWMAN. MAY YOU FIND HAPPINESS WITH YOUR FRIENDS THIS YEAR. Igor dug an eye out to try and see his mysterious benefactor, but all he could make out in the blinding snow was an enormous silhouette with huge hands as it walked away.
Igor's reminiscing was suddenly interrupted when a shadow passed over him. A strange, terrible figure floated past him. He froze, unable to move as the aura of evil spilled over him. The fruits looked terrified. Banana No.56 kicked Nectarine No.13 too hard and accidentally stunned Banana No. 27, before he and the nectarine fled the scene. Banana No. 27 recovered, then slowly gazed up at the Figure. It suddenly grinned horribly, and the last banana split.
The new Man soundlessly glided to the tree, tossed a sack under it, and stomped. The ground shook, jarring the apples out of the branches and into the sack. One of them fell out, disoriented, as the cloaked figure lifted the rest. Then he did something very strange. Igor watched as the Man covered the apple's face with the edge of his cloak. A bizarre glow left Igor's smiling friend with a black scowl. The angry apple followed the Figure as it glided away-- and stopped. He came back and stared into Igor's face, searching for something...
"What is this thing?" he growled.
"A stupid imitation of the first Master, Master Tuber," the apple replied, disgusted that he had helped make the snowman Tuber appeared to be sneering at.
"Is it alive?"
"No, Master Tuber." Igor was in fact animated by magic, but he was certainly NOT alive, not like Men or fruits or plants. The correct answer was, indeed, no, and the apple didn't want to seem all that knowledgeable about the dumb snowman.
He glared at Igor a moment longer. Then he snatched the snowman's carrot nose, threw it in his bag, and snapped, "Come." He and Apple No.4 left immediately.
Igor blinked, then struggled out of his half-melted base. This... Tuber, thing, had come from the south. Most of the bigger fruits lived in the southern lands. If that Thing was kidnapping and mind-warping fruits as he went, if no one had stopped him, then... the thought was too terrible to finish.
Igor only knew one thing for sure. His friends were in trouble.
And that Tuber bastard had stolen his nose.
The brave little snowman walked for a very long time. He crossed a huge desert, walking up and down countless dunes under a merciless sun.
When he saw the little oasis, he thought it was another mirage—which was weird, since those were usually illusions of water, not forests. Strange forests, with odd-looking trees. Igor still didn't quite believe it was real until he finally got in the water, and grew three times larger. His snow had been evaporating extremely slowly, but he now realized that he had, in fact, been shrinking. There was a big purple tent nearby, but no one was there. Like the first Igor, all that remained of the owner was a pile of white sticks in an elaborately embroidered robe. Igor was about to move on when he felt something. Saw a glow from inside a tarnished pot. As he got closer, he could feel that this blue orb, this pearl, was magic like the snowflake within himself. It gave him an idea....
Sandy was smart. Really smart. She could read all the books this Merlock guy had written. She taught him lots of new words, taught him to read the position of the sun and the stars to figure out where he was, taught him how to play soccer, taught how to make ice bombs to make soccer even more interesting, and even named herself. At the end of a week, she warned him that this Tuber person was very powerful, and not to be trifled with. Really and truly. Igor had no idea what Parallel Dimensions were, or why they were such a bad idea, or why Tuber had created his own lair within Dimensions or why he thought it was funny to call it Hell or why Sandy seemed so scared. All he knew what that she wanted to stay in the desert, but he couldn’t stay. He had a mission to see through. She cried when he left, calling him stupid and brave, a fool if he died and a hero if he lived. Igor didn't see what the big deal was. If he stopped being a snowman, he'd just go back to being snow; his friends, on the other hand, were in bigger trouble.
Before he left, Sandy gave him a little white square called a Fridge, which grew to his own size when he opened it. She said it was actually a Pocket Dimension, and to put all the interesting and useful things he found in it; in case he needed them later. Then she advised him to collect crystal orbs like the ones in the fridge at every opportunity (but wouldn't tell him why). Then she hugged him goodbye, wished him luck, and sent him rocketing off on a wave of sand.
He surfed the endless wave for days, and finally washed up on the grass of a sunny forest. Sandy had described the hidden entrance as a well, and after a little searching, Igor found it.
Free-falling was a new sensation for Igor. Sandy hadn't told him that his journey was going to be one long, often interrupted fall. As the well ended and opened up into a wide cavern, a frightening laugh resounded all around him.
He refused to be scared.
Igor landed on a stone platform. He could see a mirror image across a vast gulf, showing him what he was standing on. More importantly, he could see one of his Cherry friends walking back and forth beneath him.
"Cherry!"
Cherry ignored him, and kept marching back and forth.
"Oi! Cherry!" Igor jumped down once, twice, and stood in front of him. "It's me, Ig--"
The moment the cherry touched him, Igor got knocked away by some unseen force.
He thought he'd fall again, forever, but suddenly the world winked out of existence. He found himself in a shiny bubble, at the top of the ledge. He blinked a few times. How had that happened? Magic, he thought, digging his Fridge out of his pocket. Sure enough, there were crystal orbs with white letters engraved on them, sitting inside. The memory of Sandy's voice echoed through his mind. 'Magic doesn't just happen, Igor. It has to have a cause, or a source.'
So that was why she wanted him to collect them. They would save him from falling forever and ever and ever, saving no one, not even able to return to the snowlands. A truly terrible fate.
"CHERRY!" shouted Igor, putting his fridge away. Cherry did not respond. All right, fine. He'd take Cherry down with him to confront the evil Tuber. He just had to be careful about it...
Or not. Igor miscalculated and the cherry was doomed-- or, should have been. According to physics. But instead the cherry went flying off into space, magically guided into a hole in the wall far down and to the right. But why? Were his friends being forced to mindlessly patrol these ledges to protect Tuber's secrets? Were they truly so valuable? Igor didn’t understand, and didn’t bother trying to. He pressed on, knocking his friends out of the way as he went. The fruits flew safely in controlled falls, just like Cherry, down into chutes in the chasm walls. The machines blew up; ice shards gummed up their mechanisms very nicely. Down, down, always further down, each level more challenging than the last, passing mysterious keyholes and barred doors and strange blue portals all the while. Sandy had assured him that he just needed to keep going straight, and he'd find Tuber. Straight down, you mean, thought Igor...
Sandy sighed, staring down at the pile of yellowed books in front of her. She had discovered mountains of tomes in another Pocket Dimension chest. She would read book after book until the sun went down. Then she’d sit and think about the things she’d read until the sun came back up.
She learned more than she’d ever wanted to. About Igors, and how they liked to change, subvert or defy the laws of nature. About how unnatural she, Igor, and his friends were. About how dangerous this mucking about with Dimensions was. It was already causing things to randomly appear; soon things would begin to disappear, and after that... no one knew what. She was worried sick for Igor, but now she knew he was right; Tuber had to be stopped.
What he didn’t know what that the fate of the world, of this universe, rested in the palms of his snow.
El Fin 
