Caius woke up in a snowy forest. He found it particularly jarring because he remembered going to sleep in his own bed, in his own apartment. And they hadn't gotten snow where he lived in a century.

  It was strange all around. And he wasn't dreaming, because he never felt physical sensations in his dreams.

  Sitting up, he had to brush off a coat of snow that had accumulated on him. Apparently he had been there for a while, no snow was falling. Laboriously, he made his way to his feet. The long coat he was wearing was so padded it felt like wearing a carpet. At least he was dressed appropriately.

  He felt unbearably warm. Which was concerning. Because he dimly recalled that was a symptom of severe hypothermia. He didn't know any more than that, heatstroke was far more likely where he grew up, it was just some random trivia.

  He checked himself over. He wasn't shivering, his breathing seemed normal. While he was unfamiliar with hypothermia, he was very familiar with feeling overheated and that was definitely what he felt like.

  Bizarre.

  Taking a look around, there were the remains of a campsite. Two thoroughly destroyed tents, a ring of stones with the remains of a fire. He walked over to a pile of something covered in snow, about arms reach from where the fire had been.

  Knowing people, the supplies for keeping the fire going would be near the fire. If he could make a fire, he might be able to deal with hypothermia.

  The pile turned out to be some kind of water-resistant fabric over a pile of wood and a small box. Probably deadwood, the branches looked fairly dry. The box was probably...

  Cracking it open revealed what Caius guessed was a tinderbox. He'd never seen one in person, just read stories that mentioned them, but he knew just enough to hopefully guess the rest from context.

  Context such as the fact that nobody had used tinderboxes in like two hundred years. His clothes had been one clue and this was a second.

  "Getting kidnapped, drugged and transported a hell of a long way for some kind of messed up game show is one explanation. But that's a complicated explanation."

  Hands covered by thick gloves didn't lend themselves to delicate tasks. And hypothermia or not, Caius was starting to feel like he was in a pressure cooker. Drenched in sweat, which was soaking his clothes most unpleasantly.

  Said gloves didn't come off when he tugged on them repeatedly. Further examination revealed they had laces. They also fit better than any other gloves he had ever worn, had these been custom-made?

  Finally they were off. When he tilted them, a noticeable amount of sweat poured out. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, he had to get out of these hot clothes at least temporarily.

  No wonder he was hot, he was wearing about four layers not even counting the cloak. He clumsily pawed at the buckle of the broad leather belt that was fastened over his... he dimly recalled that the long overshirt he was wearing was called a tunic?

  He stopped feeling like he was boiling alive after divesting himself of a cloak, two tunics and one of the three pairs of trousers he was wearing. The heat and unexpected exertion left him panting for air.

  Caius spread the cloak out on the snow like a picnic blanket and lay down on his back to catch his breath.

  He scooped up a handful of snow and craned his neck to examine it. The stuff felt pleasantly cool instead of freezing, and seemed to be melting much too quickly in his palm.

  "What on earth is going on here?"

  No answer came.

  After lying down for a while, Caius felt better. He had to reject the "severe hypothermia" hypothesis for why he felt so warm despite there being snow everywhere. His new one was that the region he was in had big temperature swings between day and night. Which meant he would have to prepare for a dangerously cold night, but that wasn't an immediate problem.

  Getting to his feet, he decided against starting a fire. After pulling the covering back over the firewood and tinderbox, he decided to search the campsite.

  The tents were as wrecked as they looked. One was torn open raggedly and the other was collapsed and had a big slash in the side. Maybe someone was inside when it collapsed and they cut their way out? Everything left inside was a mess.

  He emptied the tents of their contents and spread it all out. Some blankets, a leather satchel with shoulder strap. A large basket with a lid. The basket had some strips of leather near the top that kind of looked like it was supposed to be tied to something. A broken wooden bow with a quiver of arrows. What he guessed was a wooden canteen? It sloshed when he shook it.

  Design-wise the tents were basic. Two upright poles with a longer one over the top supporting the fabric. The cut tent was missing the long pole, the torn tent still had a broken one. Actually...

  The broken pole was a spear, with the head sticking out on the far side. Said spearhead was made of simple steel, clearly not stainless steel.

  Setting aside how he had gotten here, which he still had no clue about, the scenario in this campsite was starting to take shape. Something or someone had torn into one tent, likely at night. It spooked the camp. Whoever was in the other tent panicked, got stuck, then cut their way out. Assuming the other tent had been held up by a spear too, they had grabbed it.

  Presumably, everyone had ran off. Caius was no Sherlock Holmes, but that seemed a plausible explanation.

  "Hello! Can anyone hear me!" he called out. He did it two more times, facing different directions. He disappointed but not surprised when no response came.

  With some dim idea of defending himself should whatever tore the tent come back, Caius collected the piece of spear with the head attached. It was about as long as his arm after he broke off most of the long splintery bits from where the shaft had snapped.

  Finding a knife he had overlooked earlier in a corner of one of the tents, he examined it. It had likely been kicked there during whatever scuffle had taken place. The blade was steel, like the spearhead. The scabbard was wooden and had some patterns carved into it. He fastened it to the leather belt that went over his tunic, rather than through loops on his trousers like he was used to.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The sun was now climbing overhead, somewhere in the mid-morning. But it didn't feel particularly warm and none of the snow was melting. Scooping up a handful, Caius examined it closely. Just like earlier, it didn't feel particularly cold. That unique biting sensation he remembered feeling when he held an ice cube was absent. And the snow was melting extremely quickly, more like it was in a warm skillet on the stove.

  An outlandish explanation sprang to mind, inspired by watching too much bad anime when he was younger. Could this be a simulation? Technology hadn't developed nearly far enough for that. Still, he could think of a test.

  Picking up one of the tunics he had discarded earlier, Caius walked over into the brightest patch of sunlight he could find and examined it closely. He squinted and held it up close to his face, tracing a single strand of whatever it was made of. Probably wool.

  The thread was ever so slightly uneven and had strands sticking out here and there. With the tip of a fingernail, he pried at the thread. It parted slightly and he could kind of see the individual fibers it was made from. He checked a second thread, at random, and it looked slightly different.

  In his view, that buried the "I am in a simulation" hypothesis. No computer was going to simulate a randomly chosen pair of threads in such detail. Unless he was some brain-scanned digital clone resurrected centuries in the future, which was an excessively baroque explanation.

  Strangeness was piling up, and he had no idea what it all meant. He needed to think, and he was a firm advocate for never doing anything important on an empty stomach. The last thing he needed was for his blood sugar to drop. So he searched the camp for cooking supplies.

  There was a small iron cooking pot and a tripod to hang it from. They'd been lying under a pile of snow, and he had simply not been paying close enough attention earlier to spot them. From the way the pot's contents were scattered in a spray under the snow, they'd been knocked over.

  Examining the contents of the basket he had found earlier, he found what he assumed was a communal store of provisions and cooking gear. Two rough-woven bags of grains, one held oats and the other what he guessed might be barley or wheat. A few slightly wilted carrots and onions. Wooden spoons, one large enough to stir the pot with.

  Inside a small earthenware pot that had a leather strap to hold the lid on he found a generous supply of butter. That was a pleasant surprise. A similar but even smaller one held very coarse salt.

  And there was a bundle of leather wrapped around some meat. It seemed fine, it had clearly been well-cooked and then partially frozen by the icy weather.

  If Caius could get a fire going, he'd be able to make something edible at least. He'd lit campfires before, though with the benefit of modern firestarters. Hopefully he could figure it out. Pulling the cover off revealed the firewood and tinderbox again. The box held two flints plus a piece of metal bent into an oval shape and, true to its name, some tinder. There were two compartments, one for storage and the other blackened enough that its purpose was obvious.

  After clearing snow out of the spot the fire would go, he arranged some thin twigs. After some consideration, he snapped a few and cut into others with his knife. That would give the fire more places to catch.

  Then he settled down cross-legged as best as he could to work at the tinderbox. It was remarkably uncomfortable and his paunch got in the way. Caius was not a thin man, far better suited to the luxuries of modern life than roughing it in the woods. But he picked out some of the tinder and arranged it in the blackened compartment. Fabric scraps, a bit of unraveled rope. Some particularly thin, dry twigs.

  His first attempt at striking a spark failed, unsurprisingly. And the next, and the one after that. He didn't let it bother him. Caius had always considered patience to be the highest of the virtues. But after a dozen more tries he was getting a bit annoyed. He actually did strike a spark twice, and both times they had completely missed the box.

  In retrospect, he should have been holding the flint and steel... it was probably iron. Regardless, he should have been holding them as close as possible to the tinder. But he didn't want to put the box in his lap, those missed sparks might have ignited his clothes. It was unlikely, but he didn't like unnecessary risks.

  He sucked in his gut, bent over and tried four more times without success.

  "Catch, damn you."

  There was a momentary flicker of light as he spoke. Surprised, he looked around. Nothing. Maybe a bird had coincidentally flown right between him and the sun.

  He settled again and mastered his irritation, then bent over and gave it one more try. Somehow, he knocked the ball straight out of the park on that last try. What had to be four or five sparks sprang out and landed right in the tinder.

  Caius was so shocked he almost forgot what to do next, but he managed to gently coax the flame to life by blowing on it and feeding it a bit more tinder. Once it was going he transferred it to the twigs he had laid for the fire and soon he had a merry little fire going.

  It took a lot of care, but he managed to figure out the fire and the right height to hang the pot at. A bit of butter, some slivers of meat awkwardly carved off the meat. Once that had fried up a bit, he awkwardly cut a carrot into chunks and added that. Obviously a cutting board would be too much to carry around, but he still wished for one.

  A few fistfuls of barley and cupped handfuls of the cleanest snow he could find, and he left the food to simmer so the grains would soften.

  He'd examine the satchel he had found in the tent while the food cooked. As he walked over to retrieve it, he spotted the pile of clothes he had struggled out of earlier. He felt no need to put any of it back on, but he did fasten the belt around him.

  Minutes later,

  Caius had a bit of a melancholy feeling as he examined the contents of the satchel. That wasn't a good sign. The last thing he needed was one of his moods. Distracting himself would help, and so would the food.

  The satchel held practical things, for a traveler. A sewing kit with bone needles and a small metal awl. A cup made of horn, a small knife for eating or delicate work. A coin purse that didn't seem to have much in it. Metal spoons, much finer than the wooden ones in the basket.

  A miniature version of the tinderbox and a round amulet made of wood with a strange design. Whetstone and a little wooden box to keep it in. Some carefully coiled string and leather cord. Small leather pouch containing well-worn wooden dice.

  Was he looking at a dead man's belongings? Whoever had been in this camp had run from something, after all. Or would their owner be along to demand their return? The thought didn't help his declining mood.

  Some exercise might help lift his spirits, and the fire would hold for a while. He added some thicker bits of wood to the fire to keep it burning and snow to the food to prevent that from burning. He explored. Not too far, the last thing he needed was to get lost. He'd stay within sight of the camp at all times.

  Walking in a spiral pattern, Caius looked at the forest. The trees had needles, he assumed they were pine. That theory was more or less confirmed when he stubbed his toe on a half-buried pinecone beneath the snow.

  Caius was no closer to solving the weird snow problem. It was frozen water, it really ought to feel colder than it did or it would melt.

  He crested a rise on the downhill side of the camp and froze, all thoughts of the snow abandoned. A suspiciously man-sized lump was slumped against a tree. Caius walked towards it, glancing all around for potential threats.

  Nothing moved, but he became increasingly convinced that he was indeed looking at a person. They might be fine, with the snow being as weird as it was. Caius had seemingly endured the snow without ill effect.

  Unfortunately, the person was very dead and quite frozen. Glancing around, Caius spotted another lump in the snow a few paces away. It was also the right size for a person.

  That mood Caius had been fighting off came over him all at once. That hollow feeling he knew well, combined with a weight that felt like gravity had intensified. As familiar as the back of his hands. He tried to fight it, reaching for his necklace. It was missing, and so was the bracelet he always wore.

  Caius tried to ignore that fact, pressing his bare wrist to his forehead and clasping a fist on his chest and trying to pretend they were there. It wasn't the same. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed deeply. That didn't help either. So he opened his eyes.

  He stood there for a time, staring at the body. At least the empty feeling in his chest was holding off whatever horror he ought to feel at seeing a dead body.

  Suddenly, he had a thought. His food would burn if he stood here for too long. It jolted him into motion, just a bit. He trudged back to the camp. The food wasn't burnt, but it was a fairly close thing.

  He scraped some of the hot food into one of the wooden bowls, added a generous pinch of salt and gave a silent prayer of thanks. Then he started to eat.

  The food wasn't very good, obviously. But it was hot and edible, and that was good enough. The grey hollowness slowly passed. A relief, but it drove home to Caius that he didn't have any of his medication with him. A troubling reality.