"I need your help."

"Sure, what is it?"

"I need you to fly me to Great Bear. There's people up there that need help."

"Great Bear? ...I-I'm sorry, but no."

"Why not?"

"Are you listening to yourself right now?! No one but you guys have had even the smallest hint of contact with anyone up there. Who knows what's up there? And to add to it, this blizzard's getting progressively worse still and it's already been a week!"

"Socks, calm down. I need to get up there. People are dying."

"People have died already. That's probably the most dangerous place on the planet since the Collapse."

"Please."

"...Ugh. Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

-

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

Those somewhat unfamiliar words rang in my head as the blurred world around me faded in from darkness and focused around me. The first thing I felt as I came into consciousness was cold - frigid, icy cold. Then wet - freezing water soaked through my pants and made the ice set into my skin. With a shiver and a groan, I pushed myself from the ground and held my head in pain. My brain pounded in my skull, my vision still fuzzy as I looked around.

The sky glowed brightly with varying hues of green and purple and pink, causing me to squint as the lights caused another pound of my brain. The lights leaked through the tree branches that spiderwebbed many feet above my head, along with the pale silver beams of the moon. The trees were dark and bare, creaking in the steady wind that blew through the dead forest I lay in. I sat in a bank of white snow, sunk a few inches down and still having maybe a foot beneath me keeping me off the ground.

Where am I...?

I pushed myself up, trying to get to my feet, but instead cried out as fire blazed up my leg - and not warm fire that I would appreciate in this cold that now was setting in. Blazing heat throbbed in my ankle, swollen and furious red when I looked at it. I felt lightheaded again, and bit my lip as I dragged myself up, favoring my uninjured leg as I stood. The freezing air slid down my throat like liquid mercury when I breathed in, coming back out in translucent puffs of condensed droplets. Each of those breaths faltered as I shivered. Goddamn, it's cold here.

I slowly shook my head as I tried to recall any events previous to my current situation. All I was met with was the same pounding fury I'd been feeling the past few seconds, and fuzzy black static that covered whatever past events had brought me here like thick mud on an off-roading truck's tires. Another breeze swept through the clearing, disturbing the almost crystalline hum of the aurora above and causing me to shiver once again.

I don't think the northern lights make sounds like that...

I shook my head. How do I know that?

Pushing the confusing thoughts away, I focused back on my surroundings. My throbbing head and ankle made it hard to focus, especially with the light that burned in my retinas, but I could make out the broken branches above me and scattered like debris around the path of destruction. I followed the open area with squinted eyes until my vision landed on something out of the ordinary.

Smoke, smoke in the distance.

I had to have gotten here somehow, right? I resolved. Pairing that with the obvious agony that made my body ache, I resolved that it must be the plane I assumed I arrived here in. I racked my brain for names, the pilot, maybe. Still I was met with black.

Seeing the black, rising smoke as a sign of fire and warmth at the very least, I dragged my broken ankle along the snow-ridden ground and trudged towards the fire.

-*-

Pulsing heat from the giant fire was a burning relief as I got close to the wreckage. In a twisted, gnarled tree overlooking a deep hollow, a small plane hung, windshield shattered and the passenger-side door missing from its hinges.the metal was dented and scraped, but I made out the image of a running jackrabbit painted on the side. I expected that to possibly trigger something in my mind, but still my memories remained blank.

Multiple scraps of debris and supplied laid around the area - a wooden crate and miscellaneous food items littered the ground, some of it torn and broken and others in fairly decent shape. Deciding to come back for it, I instead looked down to the burning hollow below the nose of the plane. The burning brightness of the flames made my head once again begin to pound, but I made out more debris and a small, dark figure buried in the snow.

That's not debris...

My heart dropping in my chest, I limped as fast as my injured foot could carry me around the mouth of the hollow, searching for some way to get down. I discovered a terraced cliff edge, gnarled roots of some kind of berry bush with dark red elliptical fruit interlaced between the rock. Perfect.

Carefully I slid from each edge, biting my lip to keep from screaming each time my feet hit the ground. Four terraces later I was hobbling across the ground, weaving around fire that blazed through the snow and revealed charred soil beneath until I set eyes on the figure I'd seen. They laid still on the ground, the snow near their head and one of their hands stained dark red.

Oh nononono- please don't be dead-

I crouched down next to him, almost instinctively placing two fingers below his jawline on the side of his neck. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but the cold lack of pulsing pressure beneath my fingers seemed to click a message in mind that there was no saving this person. Hazel brown eyes looked to the aurora borealis that shone overhead through columns of black smoke, unseeing and void of... anything. The blood was from a gash on his head, with lay on a rock hidden under the freezing compaction of powder. All the way through his hand was a sharp piece of shrapnel, slightly curled in his limp hand. Looking away from the injury, I brushed some snow-wet hair from his forehead, trying to search for something familiar in his face.

Something flashed in my mind, loud voices that made me groan and rub my head.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!"

"WE'RE HIT! HOLD ON, I NEED TO TRY AND GET A PLACE TO LAND!"

"WE'RE CRASHING?!?"

"HOLD ON TIGHT, MEME, THIS IS GONNA BE A BUMPY LANDING!"

The two voices were quite unfamiliar to me, but assuming it must be one of my own memories I guessed one of the voices must be me. I spoke to myself to affirm what my own voice sounded like, and found that I was the panicking idiot in the memory flash.

Meme. The other person, the one that was dead at my feet, most likely, had called me Meme. That must be my name, right? Kind of an odd name, not gonna lie, but I guess it's mine so I'll use it.

What made it odd, I hadn't a clue.

Knowing that nothing waited for me here, I gave the body a reluctant last glance before turning away and limping back to the roots that allowed me down here. Quickly I discovered something - getting out was ten times harder than getting in. Exhaustion and pain was turning my limbs to heavy lead as I grabbed each root, propelling myself upward shakily with my good leg. At the top of the first step, I collapsed on the freezing snow, breathing in the cold before pushing myself slowly back up and proceeding to the second.

After what felt like five hours, I finally heaved myself up to the top of the cliff. The pain made my head swim, like it was afloat in sticky tar. My aching limbs added to my feverish feeling, and I couldn't stop myself from emptying my stomach's contents onto the snow. Great, I'm sick, too. Wonderful.

The smell of my own vomit was making me gag and almost made me puke again, but I held myself together and dragged myself along back to where the plane was. My eyes were drawn to the wooden crate as I limped towards it. Maybe there's some kind of first-aid kit in here. I felt along the box's edge with my hands, careful not to get splinters on my bare (and freezing) fingers. I felt a dip in the wood, a splintered edge that hinted to damage on the bottom. Weakly I tried to lift it, finding it surprisingly light as it flipped onto its top with a few items both inside and laying on the snow. One of the items in the crate was a backpack of some kind.

Well that's convenient. Whichever one of us packed that, I'm glad they did.

I picked up the bag, slinging it over my shoulder with it open so I could gather the items scattered about. In all I found a few decent things, about five food items (including the one I ate, as I didn't realize how hungry I was until I had my hands on something edible) and some smaller chunks of wood for a possible later fire.

I took another glance back at the hollow, then pushed the pilot's body out of my mind and began to limp away.

-*-

The dark maples and conifers towering over me soon slowly began to differ and shorten until I was surrounded by shorter birch trees striped with thin black swaths perpendicular to the pale trunks. The aurora still burned bright in the sky, though my head pain was gradually lessening (thank god). My ankle, however, was anything but healing. Each hobbling step still made me want to scream.

Every so often, I noticed long scars in the tree trunks, bark carelessly torn away as if someone rubbed something big and sharp on it. I didn't recognize what they could be from, however - and didn't want to find out. Each time I saw it, I tried to keep my worries out of my mind. Already this new place was freaking me out.

Thankfully I didn't run into anything bad as the birch forest opened up into a wide treeless area, where the aurora was clearly visible in the bright night sky. The moon was beginning to peak over the opening, shining silver light down on an old barn that stood out on the snow.

The sight of an actual standing, man made structure caused my heart to skip a beat. Maybe I'm not alone here. Filled with a spark of hope, I dragged my injured foot along the snow towards the barn in the distance.

-*-

The barn was rickety and made from wood, a kind of lean-to structure on the side where multiple wooden pallets for hay sat. Parked outside was an old-looking tractor, rust splotched in russet patches along the metal sides. I tried to open the door to it, but it was locked. Probably didn't work, anyway. Near that tractor was also an archery target, which had an arrow lodged into the red ring around the bullseye. Another was snapped in halves on the ground. I pulled the one in the target out and stuck it in my bag in case it would come to use.

Feeling the wind beginning to pick up, blowing snow up from the ground, I walked towards the side where I assumed the door of the barn was. A minute or so of searching ended in success - the door was under the lean-to.

Yet it was ajar.

Wary, I slowly walked closer to it, not thinking too much of it until I heard noises coming from inside. Growling, squelching like something wet and squishy was being chewed. The sound made my stomach churn, but I swallowed the bile that burned the back of my throat and pressed myself against the exterior wall of the barn. The sounds were definitely coming from inside.

A few moments passed, and I gained the courage to peek in and look around the inside.

A wolf.

Black fur shone in the light over muscles that rippled with every movement of the canine, in jerking and tugging motions as it ripped flesh from the innards of the animal it was eating - it made me sick when I saw that it was another wolf. Blood dripped from its wet muzzle to the ground, more squirting from the tissue it ripped from the other wolf's corpse. It took me a moment to register that the shine was not from the lights, but from the wolf itself - an aura glowed around it, shining green and shifting to magenta and indigo every so often. Like the aurora, I realized. It's eyes glowed with the same colors.

It was the most abnormal thing I had ever seen. And I knew that, even with my past memories seemingly gone.

My heart sinking and now pounding inside of me as I realized the danger of the situation, I slowly began to back away from the door, deciding a roof over my head was not worth getting eaten by some glowing wolf. Unfortunately the pallets stacked behind me gave me away - I had completely forgotten about them and tripped painfully over them, feeling another wave of agony from my injured ankle. The squelching stopped, replaced with a low, guttural growl muffled by the walls. Adrenaline and panic quickly setting in, I scrambled up from the disturbed pile, making more of a racket than if I had simply stayed still as I found my footing and began to run away. The pain in my leg was angrily pounding with a vengeance, the wind being no help as it blew towards me.

The fading growls soon turned to a snarling bark, aggressive as I knew the wolf began to run after me in pursuit. Adrenaline now pumping through my veins, I tried what I could to quicken my pace against the wind, ignoring my ankle's protests of pain as I raced away from the feral creature.

But it was no use.

Strong paws hit my back, teeth sinking deep into my arm as I fell into the snow. I struggled to breathe in the frozen powder until I managed to turn around, and was met with the open, sharp-toothed jaws of the wolf. I could already see red staining the snow where it had bit my arm, which hurt like pure, fiery hell as I thrashed underneath the strong animal. My fight-or-flight kicked into action, my good leg and one of my arms lashing out to try and throw the wolf off of me.

Eventually the world began to blur and fade, and suddenly I was met with darkness.

-

Last minute idea to give him amnesia, teehee :)

Also the reason Meme is on the island/Great Bear (for the most part), the crash site itself, and a later event I'm not spoiling are the only things I'm keeping from the original storyline. As you may remember if you read the original two first chapters, Socks was the first protagonist and now he's obviously dead so that very much changed.

Anyway
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