From above, Pulau Bungin resembles a jigsaw puzzle of rooftops tightly packed into the sea. No trees. No open fields. Just houses—hundreds of them—squeezed together so tightly that even alleyways feel like afterthoughts. Welcome to one of the most densely populated islands in the world, hiding quietly in the lesser-traveled waters of Indonesia.

In the snowy wilds of Japan's Yamagata Prefecture, where winter wraps the land in an icy hush, something eerie stirs in the Zao Mountains. As the temperature drops and the storms rage, the trees on these slopes begin to transform—until they no longer look like trees at all.