The sun had risen to more or less noon, by Caius' estimation. And he was engaged in the first and most ancient form of the scientific method: poking something with a stick.

  Specifically, the dead body he had spotted earlier. He was using the other half of the broken spear to examine it somewhat. The most amateurish attempt at an autopsy possible. Fortunately, the cause of death was obvious even to a layman such as himself.

  "Cause of death appears to be an axe or similar weapon to the spine, followed by prolonged exposure to subzero temperatures." he muttered to himself. Pretending it was some kind of TV show. It made the gruesome wound slightly less horrifying.

  It was a good thing he was having one of his low-empathy days. The emotional impact of this moment would no doubt hit later, and with no chemical assistance to soften it.

  Caius found himself staring at the pouch on the dead man's belt. It was large and well-made, and the man had coincidentally landed on his other side. Caius had read many books where, for some reason or another, looting the dead occurred. Being the introspective sort, he had considered the issue.

  The dead owned nothing, in Caius' view. He said a prayer for the man and set about retrieving the pouch. He decided the easiest course of action would be to cut through the belt holding the pouch. That proved to be far more difficult than he thought, the leather being thick and hardened by the cold.

  He paused to catch his breath after a few minutes of futile effort. He expressed his frustration by growling at the knife in his hand. "Cut, damn you."

  Like with the flint and steel earlier, there was a flicker of light. Caius spun around, looking at the treetops. There was a chance that some tree-dwelling monster had killed the man. That was probably just paranoia, the pine forest would be a poor environment for such a thing.

  Sensing nothing, Caius eventually returned to his task. This time the knife caught, and he could slowly saw through the belt. Perhaps his earlier efforts had loosened it? Or the break had done him some good.

  Caius unbuckled his own belt and slid the pouch onto it. He could check its contents back at the camp. There was that other lump in the snow he had noticed earlier, the one that was the right shape for a body.

  Unfortunately, it turned out to be one. This one seemed far, far older. Partially decomposed, unlike the frost-preserved one he had found first.

  Caius followed that direction, and found seven more bodies. In total, there were four of the well-preserved ones and five of the decayed ones. He prayed for them all.

  A plausible scenario came to mind. The first five had died much longer ago. Perhaps the four newcomers had been searching for them? Coincidentally camped nearby, and had been killed by the same thing.

  Whether that was the reality or not, Caius fully intended to move away from this forsaken place. He would have to get going.

  He found the spear missing from the other tent, in the hands of one of the newer dead. It was broken in three places. Caius didn't want to dig through the snow looking for their other possessions, and didn't have time if he wanted to pack up and leave. The time he had spent on the pouch was likely a mistake.

  As he turned and walked away, he tripped over an axe that had been buried in the snow. The haft was broken off short, leaving it as an awkward hatchet. But it might help him cut firewood, so he took it with him.

  On a handful of occasions, Caius had let friends or relations bully him into going on hikes with them. Everyone he knew was more physically active than he was. He had regretted all of them. Especially that multi-day nightmare the church organized for high school graduates.

  Some of that was his fault. He packed far too much, like he was afraid of getting lost for days. The graduation hike had been a particularly bad example, at the end he had only used half the food and clothes he had packed. Carrying all that had been remarkably unpleasant.

  He picked over the camp one more time. Everything that might be useful was laid out where he could see it. Most likely he wouldn't return here. If left something behind, only to need it later, there would be nothing he could do about it. It was like deciding what to grab in a fire, only slower.

  Since he had no idea where he was or what direction to go, he'd have to take all the food he could carry and a way to cook it. He packed the food back in the basket along with the fewest utensils he thought he could get away with and two bowls, just in case one broke. The pot he tied to a string that was already attached to the basket, he assumed it was intended for the purpose.

  Not trusting his fire-making skills he packed the larger tinderbox he had used before and a supply of the driest, thinnest branches remaining in the pile of firewood.

  The other major problem was dealing with the cold he expected. His current theory was that it would get incredibly cold at night. That might explain why he had been dressed in so many layers when he woke up, but felt so overheated.

  Collecting the cloak from where he had been lying on it to catch his breath earlier, he tried to figure out how to wear it. Upon further examination, it was basically a blanket with a clasp to hold it in place. Said clasp was basically just a weird safety pin. The cloak was mostly dry, which was odd given that he'd been lying in the snow on top of it.

  He'd probably appreciate the cloak more if it wasn't much too warm to wear. But it might well save his life, so he would bring it along. Along with the second pair of trousers and the better-quality of the two tunics. Unsure of how to pack them, he eventually rolled the clothes up in the cloak. Then he awkwardly fastened the bundle to the basket, kind of like a sleeping bag.

  Then he had to undo the whole thing because he changed his mind and decided to bring a second blanket he had pulled out of one of the tents.

  As he was choosing a second blanket, he realized it had a clasp stuck in it. It was a cloak, probably belonging to one of the dead men he had found. This clasp had some decorations on it, possibly a prized possession.

  Some consideration later, Caius fastened the fancy clasp to the outside of his left sleeve. Experimentally, he pressed it against his forehead like his memento mori bracelet back home. It was cool and felt soothing.

  It occurred to Caius that he would have to be more careful about touching metal. If it got as cold as he expected it to, the icy metal might actually injure him. Being from a warm climate he had never seen someone lick a freezing lamppost, but he had seen it as a joke in TV shows. He intended to avoid such an incident.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Eventually he had everything together, packed into the basket or his satchel. The satchel wasn't too heavy, but Caius had concerns about the basket.

  A dim memory came to him. A children's book he had read. The contents were irrelevant, but the cover had a picture on it... A man who had a stick over his shoulder, with his belongings in a bundle at the end of the stick.

  The basket was already designed to be hung from a pole. But the basic principle of a lever said that it would be best to have the weight as close to his back as possible. Caius collected the two halves of the broken spear.

  Originally he had intended one half to be a sort of improvised weapon, but his complete lack of skill and coordination made having a weapon irrelevant.

  Caius used the axehead with the broken haft he had found to awkwardly chop the splintered ends where the spear had broken. It resulted in two shorter pieces with far fewer splinters. Not ideal, he had resorted to laying the wood on a tree root to chop at it.

  One half went through the loops on top of the basket, tied in place as best as possible with string. Then he tied the other stick to it in a capital "T" shape. One of the arms of the T still had the spearhead on the end, but Caius didn't feel like trying to get it off so he just made sure that it was pointing away from him.

  Before trying to hoist the contraption onto his shoulder, he did one last check to make sure everything was secure. He patted the basket, muttering "Please be lighter than you look."

  Again there came that odd flicker of the light. Caius was starting to worry about that, it seemed to happen when he talked.

  Hefting the burden onto his shoulder, he was pleasantly surprised. It actually was quite a bit lighter than it looked. Not light by any means, but he actually might be able to carry it. Then the pole began digging into his shoulder. Caius didn't have much muscle and it was painful.

  Putting the basket down, Caius collected the final tunic from where it was left and folded it into a sort of pillow for his shoulder. A noticeable burden, but he didn't feel like undoing all the bundles to get the tunic he had already packed.

  The padding made the weight bearable.

  All that was left was to choose a direction. Grimacing, Caius walked back towards the corpses. The recent ones, at least, he knew had died while fleeing in that direction. Assuming they had been running away from whatever had killed them, that direction would be away from the threat.

  Since the first body had been killed by a blow to the back, Caius assumed that he had been fleeing away from the threat and towards relative safety. Good enough.

  Caius dimly recalled reading somewhere that eating snow for hydration wasn't a great idea due to the heat your body would lose melting it. He figured the weirdness of the snow would change the equation on that. The stuff melted almost as soon as he got it into his mouth and seemed mostly clean.

  He made fairly good time. Walking on the treadmill was one form of exercise he didn't dislike, so he wasn't completely sedentary. That was actually the reason his nearest and dearest kept inviting him on hikes. Somehow none of them could comprehend that there was a difference between the two.

  Walking indoors with a fan to cool you down and the TV on to make it less boring? Acceptable. Trekking through the wilderness in the dust and heat, dealing with insects and someone stopping to gawk at a bird every five minutes? Unpleasant.

  After a few hours of carrying a heavy pack through the forest, Caius was exhausted. Both his shoulders ached despite him shifting the pole from one side to the other periodically. The crude leather shoes and cloth wrappings around his feet were absolutely inferior to modern footwear.

  No music or TV to distract from the monotony either. Just tension and the occasional noise from the forest around him. Said noises would inevitably startle him, certain that it was whatever had killed those people finally coming for him.

  With no compass or similar, Caius had to get creative about staying more or less on the right path. He came up with a clever idea. Pick a tree that lay in the right direction and walk to it. Then try to spot another tree in a straight line, judging by his footprints behind him and the previous tree.

  He would inevitably drift off course, but much more slowly.

  By early evening, Caius was starting to flag. He kept an eye out for a good campsite as best as he could. If only he knew what on earth a good campsite would look like. He certainly wasn't expecting a pre-built campsite with garbage cans and public bathrooms in this world.

  That thought stopped him in place. "This world?" he muttered. When had he started thinking of his situation that way? He couldn't remember. It did fit, more or less. Would explain the strange water and temperature, at least.

  He shelved that train of thought for later. Because, in the absence of the noise he made while walking he could hear something.

  Was that running water?

  Caius marked a big arrow on a tree with his knife, showing the direction he was originally headed. As he moved toward the sound of water, he marked some other trees to mark his course.

  Indeed, he found a small stream. The water was fairly quick-moving, clearly enough to keep from freezing. There was ice built up here and there from spray that had frozen. Clearly there was enough snow melting in the forest to feed it, but snow was built up quite high on one side.

  It was the uphill side. The first explanation that sprang to mind was that some of the snow was gradually sliding downhill, only to melt when it encountered the stream.

  Caius thought over everything he knew about simple winter shelters. An easy feat, since he didn't know much. He knew igloos of course, but he was hardly going to cut blocks of packed snow for one.

  Maybe he could burrow into the built-up snow next to the stream? Probably not a great plan, but a plan nonetheless. First he would have to see whether it was feasible.

  Putting his burdens down with a groan, Caius tried to stretch. His limbs protested that painfully.

  Examining the wall of snow, he tried to plan out his shelter. His two fears were freezing to death and having his shelter collapse on him in the middle of the night. An idea came to him. He could try digging a little tunnel, then try to get in feet-first. That way his head would be close to the entrance in case of emergency.

  He had no idea if that was a stupid idea, so he just got to work. Trying to stay dry while he was working was the major issue.

  Eventually he did manage to dig a sort of tunnel into the snow. It even looked somewhat structurally sound.

  The sun was getting low and Caius was hungry, tired and soaking wet from the snow. Not cold, though. In fact he was hot and sweating from all the hard work. The silver lining was that he had found some firewood when he had taken a break and walked around a bit.

  Judging from the fact that the collection of wood was lying on the outside of a bend in the stream, he guessed that it had washed up there. Whenever the snow truly melted around here, this stream probably swelled greatly with meltwater. Hence the wood on the riverbank.

  Possibly having spent a year lying there would make the deadfall a good candidate for firewood. So Caius collected an armful and picked out where to build his fire.

  Some five trees growing in a cluster nearby caught his eye. The ground between them had little snow, protected by the combined branches above. Choice made, Caius collected more wood and brought his belongings over there.

  Between the tree roots was a patch of almost bare soil. And in the center was a ring of stones. Clearly, someone else had thought this spot was ideal. The build up of dirt, pine needles and other assorted detritus showed that it had been long ago. But the thought that someone else had been there was comforting.

  Also it meant Caius didn't have to go find his own rocks in the stream. However, he realized he didn't bring the tripod to hang the pot from. It had been heavy.

  Some muttered cursing and a trip down to the pile of deadfall later, Caius located a long and relatively straight branch. By cannibalizing the two spear halves from the contraption, he was left with three suitable poles for a tripod.

  He had to clumsily hack some notches into them so the string wouldn't slip, but he managed to successfully improvise a replacement tripod. It was worse in every way, but hopefully it would serve.

  Apparently he had caught the trick of using the flint and steel earlier. His first strike produced several sparks, just like before. That was good, his arms were shaking a bit from hunger and exertion. He managed to coax some tinder to light and got a little fire burning. The wood from the riverbank burned just fine, once the fire was going.

  Caius didn't bother with anything complicated, he just tossed some oats in the pot with water and a pinch of salt.

  Slumping against one of the sheltering trees, he waited.